In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Hume Studies Volume XXIII, Number 1, April 1997, pp. 29-72 Naturalism, Normativity, and Scepticism in Hume's Account of Belief LORNE FALKENSTEIN Here is all the LOGIC I think proper to employ in my reasoning; and perhaps even this was not very necessary, but might have been supply'd by the natural principles of our understanding. David Hume (T I iii 15) According to Hume, most of our beliefs, including many of our most important ones, arise when certain causes conspire to enhance the vivacity of an idea. In his Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume set out to identify these causes and describe the manner of their operation, billing his work as a contribution to a "science" that sets out to "explain the principles of human nature" on the basis of "experience and observation" (T xvi).1 But Hume did not just confine himself to describing the causes that lead us to adopt beliefs. In the Abstract to the Treatise he characterized his work as having "finished what regards logic" by "supplying" the outstanding "defect" in "the common systems," namely, their too concise treatment of "probabilities, and those other measures of evidence on which life and action intirely depend" (A 646-647). A "logic" adequate to guide us in action would have to make claims about which "probabilities" we ought to accept in preference to which others, and consistently with this, Hume's Treatise and Enquiry draw a number of conclusions about what we ought to believe.2 Lome Falkenstein is at the Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, Talbot College, London, Canada N6A 3K7. email: LFalkens@uwovax.uwo.ca 30 Lome Falkenstein To so mix normative assessments of the legitimacy of beliefs with a naturalistic account of the causes of belief is not necessarily improper. Someone who supposes that beliefs have causes is not thereby precluded from remarking that some beliefs or some causes of belief are nonetheless more legitimate than others. But in Hume's case a third factor intrudes to militate against any easy coexistence of his normative assessments with his naturalistic account: his scepticism. Beliefs are paradigmatically taken to be legitimated by reason.3 However, Hume drew the bounds of rationality* so tightly, while yet making claims about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of certain beliefs that are so broad that it remains a question how most of his normative claims can be justified. For example, Hume claimed that causal inferences cannot be justified by reason*, so that if there were no other factors inducing us to accept them, they would not be believed (T 91-92, 97, 183; EHU 46-47). But in that case, (1) how can he claim that beliefs formed by causal inference are any more legitimate than those induced by sentiment, as he does when he claims that a person suspended in a cage over an abyss ought to believe that the situation is safe rather than feel fear (T 148), that people told miracle stories ought to be sceptical of them rather than follow the first impulses of their feelings of surprise and wonder (EHU 117), or that dismissing a view because it undermines religion is blamable (T 409)? Moreover, (2) how can he claim that among causal inferences, there are certain kinds that are more legitimate than others, as he does when he lays down rules by which we "ought" to judge of causes and effects (T 149), or when he condemns prejudice as rash and erroneous (T 146-147)? And finally, (3) how can he claim that even causal inferences that satisfy the "rules" are legitimate only if they deal with "common life and daily practice and experience" and eschew "all distant and high inquiries" (EHU 162)? Until recently, these questions were little-considered by Hume scholars, perhaps because neither of the two dominant interpretative traditions, the sceptical and the naturalistic, is particularly congenial to them.4 If one supposes that Hume was simply a sceptic, then one will not accept that he took one belief to be any more legitimate than another, but will insist that he rejected them all as unfounded.5 If, alternatively, one supposes that he took belief...

pdf

Share