1. PHL105Y December 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 4:10 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.

2. Section 8: Of Liberty and Necessity

3. The problem of freedom: Philosophical, 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

4. Physical nature and human nature We are able to reason about nature because it is uniform and regular; nature is under thorough causal necessity

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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)

8. Character as well as circumstance One’s behaviour is determined not simply by one’s outward setting, but also by one’s 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)

9. Deviations from character? Nice people can sometimes be mean, suddenly Stupid people can sometimes be lively and charming

10. 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]

11. 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.)

12. Matter and action Where we see apparent failures of uniformity, or where our inferences go wrong, we don’t suppose that there’s no causal order: we suppose that there are some hidden factors we haven’t yet spotted. Erratic behaviour in humans is treated just as we treat erratic phenomena in geology (we don’t in fact suppose that people act uncaused). See p.60.

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. What about morality? Can we praise, blame, or punish people for actions done under necessity?

17. Morality and freedom Just because a theory is dangerous to morality doesn’t mean it’s false, But for what it’s worth, Hume thinks that his theory is in fact VITAL to supporting morality (and not in conflict with it at all)

18. 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

19. 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