Abstract
Is Hume a naturalist? Does he regard all or nearly all beliefs and actions as rationally unjustified? In order to settle these questions, it is necessary to examine their key terms (‘naturalism’ and ‘rational justification’) and to understand the character—especially the normative character—of Hume’s philosophical project. This paper argues (i) that Hume is a naturalist—and, in particular, both a moral and an epistemic naturalist—in quite robust ways; and (ii) that Hume can properly regard many actions and beliefs as “rationally justified” in several different senses of that term.
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Notes
This two-part article appeared as Kemp Smith (1905a, 1905b; see also Kemp Smith, 1941). Among the many authors who give prominence to Hume’s “naturalism” are Passmore (1952), Stroud (1971), Guttenplan (1983), Norton (1982), Fogelin (1985), Strawson (1985), Mounce (1999), Sturgeon (2001), De Pierris (2002), and Broughton (2003). See also Garrett (2004, 2006a, 2006b).
Beauchamp and Rosenberg (1981, p. 33) provides numerous quotations from authors who interpret Hume as holding that nearly all beliefs are epistemically unjustified. More recent examples are Fogelin (1985), Waxman (1994), Singer (1995), Meeker (2000), Ridge (2003), and Weintraub (2003). Some of these authors make exceptions for what Hume calls “relations of ideas” or for beliefs about the immediate contents of present consciousness; Loeb (2002) limits his claim about the absence of epistemic justification in Hume to the beliefs of reflective philosophers. Broughton (2003) limits hers to “our most general and basic beliefs” (p.16), including, it seems, all beliefs about the external world. Weintraub argues that Hume inconsistently treats many beliefs beyond those about immediate contents of consciousness as justified while also granting that sound arguments establish that no such beliefs are justified. Interpreters who maintain that Hume denies the existence of reasons for action include Hampton (1995) and Millgram (1995).
Broughton (2003), for example, characterizes several different kinds of naturalism, including one that consists in a view about the relevance of philosophy to the justification of beliefs. Strawson (1998) characterizes naturalism as “the view that skepticism regarding such fundamental matters as the existence of external (i.e., physical) objects and the general reliability of induction is idle and does not call for rational rebuttal.” Mounce (1999) distinguishes epistemological naturalism (which he also calls “Scottish naturalism”) from metaphysical naturalism, characterizing the former as holding that the source of our knowledge lies not in our own experience or reasoning but in our relations to the world, which for the most part pass beyond our knowledge. These relations show themselves in capacities, attitudes, and beliefs which are not derived from experience and reasoning. Reasoning is cogent and experience intelligible only so far as they presuppose those capacities, attitudes, and beliefs. (p. 8)
References to A Treatise of Human Nature (indicated by ‘THN’) are given by book, part, section and paragraph number as they appear in Hume (2000a), followed by the page number in Hume (1978) (indicated by ‘SBN’). Where reference is to an entire section, the paragraph and page numbers are both omitted.
See Garrett (2006b) for a defense of this interpretive claim.
References to An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (indicated by ‘EHU’) are given by section and paragraph number as they appear in Hume (2000b).
Representative examples include THN 1.3.9.13, SBN 133; THN 2.2.3.9, SBN 351; THN 2.2.5.4, SBN 358; and THN 3.2.1.9, SBN 379.
See, for example, THN 1.2.5.21, SBN 61; THN 1.3.9.10, SBN 111; THN 1.3.12.19, SBN 137; THN 1.3.13.1, SBN 143; THN 2.2.3.7, SBN 250; THN 2.2.5.19, SBN 364; and EHU 10.14, SBN 125. Hume sometimes uses ‘reasonable’ more narrowly (as in THN 3.1.1.10, SBN 458), to denote being in conformity with the results of reason as the inferential faculty—but only where the context makes it very clear that he is using it as a synonym for such “conformity to reason.”
These passions, in turn, will often be produced in part by beliefs resulting from the cognitive faculties and in part by other passions.
The term ‘evidence’ in this passage means—as it does consistently throughout the Treatise—“evidentness” or “degree of assurance” (see THN 1.3.8.14, SBN 104; THN 1.3.11.1, SBN 124; THN 1.3.13.1, SBN 143; THN 1.3.1.13.3–5, SBN 144–145; THN 1.3.13.19–20, SBN 153–154; and THN 1.3.14.2, SBN 156). It does not refer to justification, which is not mentioned in the argument leading up to it, and so does not show that Hume maintains that all beliefs lack rational justification. For detailed analyses of Treatise 1.4.7, see Garrett (1997, chapter 10) and Garrett (2006a).
On the contrary, he later remarks (Hume, 1745) that the remarks expressing this state of mind in the Treatise are “positively renounced in a few Pages afterwards, and called the Effects of Philosophical Melancholy and Delusion,” so that using them to characterize his own considered opinions “is a Degree of Unfairness which appears to me altogether astonishing.”
For Hume, on this interpretation, the property of virtue is a property of having mental characteristics useful or agreeable to the possessor or others. However, the (moral-sense-based) concept—what Hume calls the “abstract idea”—of virtue is not identical with the (psychological) concept of having such characteristics; the former is a normative concept, while the latter is not. The underlying property that they both pick out is a normative property in virtue of being picked out by a normative concept.
Hume also employs a narrower sense of ‘imagination.’ See Garrett (1997, chapter 1), for a discussion of Hume’s use of this term and his theory of the imagination.
See Loeb (2002) for a detailed account of the unpleasantness of this conflict on Hume’s account.
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Garrett, D. Reasons to act and believe: naturalism and rational justification in Hume’s philosophical project. Philos Stud 132, 1–16 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-9055-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-9055-y