I want to start with Hume’s remarks about character and responsibility. This is something I meant to cover in our last class, but I ran out of time.
Then we will turn to today’s reading, on the relationship between reason and the will.
Here is how we got to this topic. Hume has said that one reason to believe that our behavior is caused is that it is so uniform. He thinks the fact that we can make successful predictions about what people will do is evidence that their behavior is caused. Almost everyone who goes to the water fountain is thirsty. There are two possibilities. Either thirst causes the behavior or it is an amazing coincidence that these two things are so closely correlated.
I know, it has to be more complicated than that. Some people are anticipating being thirsty, when they fill a water bottle, say. And some are doing something else, like avoiding the person they see at the end of the hallway. But the story will be the same in the end: motivations cause behavior and the same motivations cause the same behavior.
Anyway, there is another explanation of the uniformity we see. Human behavior is uniform because human beings are rational and tend to act in ways that make sense, rationally speaking. That is a possibility that Hume’s earlier arguments did not close off. So he brings it up here.
The specific questions addressed in this section are:
Can reason govern the passions? The “passions” are emotions or feelings. Can you come to want something as a consequence of reasoning about what you should want?
Can reason govern action? Can actions be irrational? Can you come to do something as a consequence of reasoning about what you should do?
Hume’s answers are generally “no,” with a few exceptions.
Last time, I said that Hume’s remarks about character and responsibility were tremendously important, both for his account of free will and also for his moral theory. And then I let time run out with only a brief discussion. Silly me. So let’s start here.
The constant and universal object of hatred or anger is a person or creature endowed with thought and consciousness; and when any criminal or injurious actions excite that passion, it is only by their relation to the person or connexion with him. But according to the doctrine of liberty or chance, this connexion is reduced to nothing, nor are men more accountable for those actions, which are designed and premeditated, than for such as are the most casual and accidental. Actions are, by their very nature, temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some cause in the characters and disposition of the person who performed them, they infix not themselves upon him, and can neither redound to his honour, if good, nor infamy, if evil. The action itself may be blamable; it may be contrary to all the rules of morality and religion: but the person is not responsible for it; and as it proceeded from nothing in him that is durable or constant, and leaves nothing of that nature behind it, it is impossible he can, upon its account, become the object of punishment or vengeance.
Men are not blamed for such evil actions as they perform ignorantly and casually, whatever may be their consequences. Why? but because the causes of these actions are only momentary, and terminate in them alone. Men are less blamed for such evil actions as they perform hastily and unpremeditatedly, than for such as proceed from thought and deliberation. For what reason? but because a hasty temper, though a constant cause in the mind, operates only by intervals, and infects not the whole character. (Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 2.3.2 pars. 6-7)
Compare three different cases.
I trip and knock you over. Everyone concedes this was an accident.
I’m unusually upset and knock you over in anger. Everyone is surprised and says things like “he’s not acting like himself.”
I knock people over because I think it is funny to watch them fall. And I do it to you.
Hume is clearly saying that I would not be responsible for knocking you over in case 1 and that I would be responsible in case 3. What about case 2? You could read what he says about evil actions performed “casually” and out of a “momentary” cause as saying that case 2 should be treated like case 1. Does that seem like what he is saying to you?
In our discussion, Elizabeth said it seemed to her that Hume was putting 1 and 2 together. Most of us thought that would be a mistake on his part. I said that I thought you could make a case that he is not doing this. He says that “Men are less blamed for such evil actions as they perform hastily and unpremeditatedly, than for such as proceed from thought and deliberation” (italics added). I take it that “less blamed” means “blamed, just less.” Since case 2 sounds like an action that is hasty and done without premeditation, I think it at least could fit in the category of acts that are less blamed rather than those that are not blamed at all.
Jack, along with a majority of the class, seemed inclined to say that acts like the one in 2 do not deserve less blame at all. That would raise a different kind of objection since it suggests that the relationship between blame and character is much looser than he thinks it is.
Speaking for myself, I think Hume is on the right track here. But I got outvoted by a lot, so what do I know?
Here is another question. What do you think Hume is trying to do here?
Determine exactly when we hold people responsible for their actions?
Argue that character has something to do with responsibility?
I short-circuited the discussion here to say that I thought it was the second. I also flagged this as an important point of contrast with Kant. When we read Kant, we will have to look back at this to compare them.
Finally, I should note that Sydney raised an excellent point about how all of this works in Hume’s larger theory. Hume’s theory of causal inference is that we discover cause and effect relations through experiences of the constant conjunctions of cause and effect. That means that every time I see an A, I see a B immediately after; A and B are “constantly conjoined” and so I conclude A causes B. Hume is saying that motives cause actions and that we make predictions about how people will behave in the same way we predict events in the physical world, by making inferences from observed causes to predicted effects. The problem Sydney noted is that we never experience the alleged causes, the motivations. We only experience the effects, that is, the actions. So by Hume’s own theory, we should be incapable of drawing inferences about cause and effect. I think that is a serious problem for Hume! At the same time, I said we should let him have it so we could get on with his moral theory. You might legitimately think that was too generous towards Hume.
On to the main topic of the day: the relationship between reason and passion.
Hume packs a lot into ten paragraphs. Here is an outline of the reading.
What he is going to argue for. Look at the last two sentences of the first paragraph: (1) “reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will” and (2) reason “can never oppose passion in the direction of the will.”1
Definition of “reason.” Reason (aka “the understanding”) works on two things: demonstrations and probabilities. Demonstrations concern the relations among ideas such as “2 + 2 = 4” or “all As are Bs, this is an A, therefore this is a B.” Demonstrations are necessarily correct. Probability is a causal concept. I see light coming through my window, I infer that the sun is causing me to see that light. But it is only probable; there might be a very large lamp outside my window. This is the first part of paragraph 2.
Dismiss demonstrative reasoning. Demonstrative reason tells you about how different ideas are related to one another. That does not tell you what to want or to do. You can use math to tell you if your accounts balance or not. If you are trying to steal, you want them not to be in balance; if you are an honest merchant, you do. The math does not tell you whether you should steal or not. This is the rest of paragraph 2.
Dismiss probable reasoning. We care a lot about causal relations. I want to know if the fury creature walking across the room is dangerous or not; I consult my past observations of it to predict that it will rub against my leg and that I will enjoy the experience.2 But this does not tell me that I should like it. It just tells me what is likely to happen. Maybe I wanted the thrill of being hunted by a cat! Paragraph 3.
Conclusion: “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.” Paragraph 4. We should be done. That was the conclusion, after all. But Hume thinks that “it may not be improper” to confirm his conclusion “by some other considerations.” So on we go.
Argument: passions do not represent anything. When I feel a passion, I am not thinking that something is so; by contrast, when I think “that’s a cat,” I am thinking that something is so, namely, that thing is a cat. My thought about the cat can be wrong while the passion cannot. If I feel affection towards my cat, there is nothing to be mistaken about. Paragraph 5.
Some cases where passions can be irrational: (1) passions, such as “hope or fear, grief or joy, despair or security” that are “founded on the supposition of the existence of objects which really do not exist” and (2) “when in exerting any passion in action, we choose means insufficient for the designed end, and deceive ourselves in our judgement of causes and effects.” Paragraphs 6-7.
Note what he says at the end of the paragraph 6: it is not “contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater.” If I have to choose between two jobs that are exactly the same and take the one that I know pays less, that is not irrational.
We are going to spend a lot of time on paragraphs 6-7.
Diagnosis of why people disagree with him (paragraphs 8-10).
Hume says that the reason why people think reason governs the will is that they conflate the feeling of acting on what Hume calls “calm desires or tendencies” with the feeling of reasoning, which is also “calm.” Roughly, no one feels much of anything when they do a calculation or infers from light coming through the window that the sun exists. Similarly, most of our actions are motivated by passions that “cause no disorder of the soul” and so feel similar to reasoning when they occur in our minds. Paragraph 8.
By contrast, the passions that are commonly put in opposition to reason, such as feelings of resentment or a desire to punish, are noticed. They feel very different from reasoning. Paragraph 9.
What we call the triumph of reason over passion is really the calm passions winning over the violent ones. We just do not recognize this is so because the calm passions feel like reasoning does. Paragraph 10.
Hume concedes that passions and actions can be irrational in two ways (this is in paragraphs 6-7).
A passion might be “founded on the supposition of the existence of objects which really do not exist.” Hume lists “hope or fear, grief or joy, despair or security” as examples.
An action might be “insufficient” to bring about “the designed end.”
I described cases of irrational passions, such being afraid of witches when I do not believe that witches exist. I said that normally the belief that witches do not exist extinguishes the fear of witches. I added that this caused me to question whether Hume was right to say that passions never represent anything (see par. 5). The fear of witches sure seems to represent the world as containing witches. That’s why I’m afraid!
I think Alex was right to say that it is perfectly rational to fear witches provided you believe that witches exist. It would be more natural to say that being afraid of witches involves an error or mistake, namely, a mistaken belief that there are witches.
As for irrational actions, Hume described someone who was mistaken about the means to his end, that is, the mistake is about what actions will produce the desired result.
Again, Alex’s point seems apt. If I think that the cafeteria is west of Pearsons Hall, it makes sense for me to go that direction to get to lunch. Hume calls it irrational because the cafeterias are all to the east of Pearsons. As before, I find it more natural to say that I am mistaken rather than irrational. In any event, we know what Hume means by “irrational.”
Suppose that I fail to take sufficient means to achieve my end; that is, I want something and do not do what I know has to be done in order to get what I want.
If I have mistaken beliefs about how to get what I want, Hume will say I am irrational. But what if I have correct beliefs about how to get what I want and refuse to act on them? His view is that there is nothing irrational about that. Reason does not govern our actions, after all.
Some people find this obviously wrong. To get a flavor of that opinion, see the short passage from Jean Hampton that I posted as supplementary reading (Hampton 1995, 66–70). Here is another author, Elijah Millgram, who makes a similar point with an example of a person who wants a persimmon, knows how to get it, and fails to do so.
Suppose … I desire a persimmon because I expect it to taste delicious. I, like most people, am built so that, when I realize that the persimmon will not taste as good as I had thought — perhaps it is still unripe, and will have the chalky taste characteristic of unripe persimmons — I stop wanting the fruit. Similarly, if, desiring a persimmon, I conclude that I can get one by making a trip to the corner produce market, I am likely to acquire a desire to drop by the produce market. And I am constructed so that when I discover that the produce market will be out of ripe persimmons after all, the desire to go there fades. Because my judgments as to the flavor of persimmons and ways of getting them can be rationally arrived at, and rationally criticized, my desires are sensitive to my reasoning. And, miraculous as it may seem that I am built this way, it is, from an evolutionary standpoint not available to Hume, not all that surprising: organisms that exhibit this kind of sensitivity are likely to do better than organisms that do not.
But this sensitivity is not itself an aspect of rationality, and failure of such sensitivity does not expose one to the criticism that one is being irrational. If I realize that the persimmon is unripe, and continue to desire to eat it, there is no mistake I am making. If, after I recall that the corner produce market has no ripe persimmons, I still want or intend to make a trip there, I am not being in any way irrational. And, conversely, if I desire the persimmon, arrive at the conclusion that I can have one by retrieving it from the top of the refrigerator, but, even when there are no competing desires, do not come to desire or intend to fetch it, I am not being irrational in that case either. In the face of these considerations, I can shrug my shoulders, and point out that none of them amounts to a reason to do, or want to do, or not do, or not want to do, anything — since nothing could count as such a reason. (Millgram 1995, 79–80)
Millgram, like Hampton, thinks that what Hume is saying is that our desires and actions are usually causally sensitive to our beliefs. If I believe that the persimmon I am thinking about eating is not ripe, that will usually cause me to cease to want it. If I think that the way to get the ripe persimmon that I want is to go to the refrigerator, that will make me go to the refrigerator.
However, if I refuse to go to the refrigerator to get the ripe persimmon that I want to eat, Hume will not say that I am being irrational. Millgram thinks Hume’s views about this kind of case are “counterintuitive” (Millgram 1995, 80). Both he and Hampton think that the failure to take the means necessary to achieve your ends is irrational. They say it is a violation of what they call instrumental rationality and think that such a violation calls for criticism. Hume, it seems, disagrees.
I said that I was not convinced by the kind of case Millgram and Hampton describe. They describe someone who wants E, knows that doing M is necessary to get E, has no goals that conflict with doing M, and still does not do M. E.g. someone wants a persimmon, knows he will have to go to the refrigerator to get it, has nothing else to do, and still does not go to the refrigerator.
If I were confronted with someone like that, I would say that he does not really want a persimmon. If so, there is no basis for calling him irrational.
There is a deeper lesson here, which is that taking the means to achieving an end seems to me to be part of having the end in the first place. In any event, I am struck by how hard it is to come up with a clean case to refute Hume. Almost every criticism I read has an example like this one where someone perversely refuses to do anything to accomplish what the author stipulates she wants to do. And I always have a hard time seeing how I would agree that such a person really wants to do the thing in question. But if that is so, the alleged irrationality dissipates. After all, it would hardly be irrational of me to fail to get a persimmon that I do not really want.