PHL105Y December 6, 2004

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PHL105YDecember 6, 2004

• Term test on Wednesday will cover all material
  from this term other than Weston. Scratch Hume
  question 14 (the last one) from your study list.
  Review questions and sample test on the website.
• Anyone who is expecting a hellish Wednesday can
  write the advance make-up test today at 410
  pm. No advance arrangements required just show
  up at my office (285 North Building) around 4 to
  get the test.
• No tutorials this Friday.
• Instructor Tony Kostroman takes over in January.

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Section 8

• Of Liberty and Necessity

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The problem of freedomPhilosophical, not
practical

• Hume contends that in daily life we have a clear
  understanding of liberty and necessity, and the
  relation between them
• Philosophical theories of freedom have left us
  confused because the terms freedom and
  necessity have been misused and poorly defined

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Physical nature and human nature

• We are able to reason about nature because it is
  uniform and regular nature is under thorough
  causal necessity

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Physical nature and human nature

• We are able to reason about nature because it is
  uniform and regular nature is under thorough
  causal necessity
• We are able to reason about human nature because
  it is uniform and regular human nature is under
  thorough causal necessity

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Human nature is predictable

• The same motives always produce the same
  actions The same events follow form the same
  causes. Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity,
  friendship, generosity, public spirit these
  passions, mixed in various degrees, and
  distributed through society, have been, from the
  beginning of the world, and still are, the source
  of all the actions and enterprises, which have
  ever been observed among mankind. (55)

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Human nature is predictable

• Would you know the sentiments, the inclinations,
  and course of life of the Greeks and Romans?
  Study well the temper and actions of the French
  and English. (55)

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Character as well as circumstance

• Ones behaviour is determined not simply by ones
  outward setting, but also by ones internal
  character (also conceived causally)
• Custom, education, training, etc. control how we
  will respond (so men and women might react
  differently in the same setting or members of
  different cultures) (57)

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Deviations from character?

• Nice people can sometimes be mean, suddenly
• Stupid people can sometimes be lively and charming

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Deviations from character?

• Nice people can sometimes be mean, suddenly
• when they have toothaches
• Stupid people can sometimes be lively and
  charming
• when they have just won the lottery

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Matter and action

• Hume argues for a complete parallel between the
  total causal order we see in physical nature and
  causal determination of our actions we expect
  uniformity in both cases, and we steadily make
  causal inferences (unsupported objects will fall,
  people prefer more money to less, etc.)

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Matter and action

• Where we see apparent failures of uniformity, or
  where our inferences go wrong, we dont suppose
  that theres no causal order we suppose that
  there are some hidden factors we havent yet
  spotted. Erratic behaviour in humans is treated
  just as we treat erratic phenomena in geology (we
  dont in fact suppose that people act uncaused).
  See p.60.

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True or false?

• If you leave a 100 bill unattended on a table in
  Spigel Hall for an hour during lunch rush, the
  odds that it will still be sitting there at the
  end of the hour are about the same as the odds
  that the table will have floated into space

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True or false?

• If you leave a 100 bill unattended on a table in
  Spigel Hall for an hour during lunch rush, the
  odds that it will still be sitting there at the
  end of the hour are about the same as the odds
  that the table will have floated into space
• Human actions obey some laws of gravity as much
  as tables do.

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What is liberty?

• a power of acting or not acting, according to
  the determination of the will.
• You have this unless you are chained to the wall.

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What about morality?

• Can we praise, blame, or punish people for
  actions done under necessity?

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Morality and freedom

• Just because a theory is dangerous to morality
  doesnt mean its false,
• But for what its worth, Hume thinks that his
  theory is in fact VITAL to supporting morality
  (and not in conflict with it at all)

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Morality and freedom

• If systems of morality are founded on punishments
  and rewards, we really want those punishments and
  rewards to have pre-determined, predictable
  effects on human behaviour

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Morality and freedom

• Actions deserve moral praise or blame only where
  they originate from some lasting cause within the
  agent to deny necessity is to deny responsibility