Hume on Free Will

Sciences are thought to discover not just this and that but laws, regularities that cannot be broken, that apply in all parts of the universe and at all times.  One objection to a scientific study of human beings is that human beings do not act according to such laws because we have free will.

Traditional believers in free will (sometimes called "libertarians") believe in cause and effect and the laws of science, but they also think that free beings have the ability to divert the otherwise inevitable course of events.  As the chain of cause and effect that started with the beginning of time passes through us, we have something called a "will" that, without itself being caused to act as it does, can effect changes.  In this way we avoid being robots or slaves of destiny but are instead responsible, free, truly human beings.

Determinists on the other believe that all events and actions are caused.  They argue that any such acts of will as the libertarians describe must themselves be caused (by something that was caused by something that was caused and so on) or else be merely arbitrary or random.  Random chance is not freedom, though, any more than madness is responsibility (think of the differences between carefully chosen acts and random acts).  Besides, there is no evidence that any part of the mind or brain somehow escapes the causally determining forces that control the rest of the universe.

Against determinism are the facts that it seems to remove the idea of responsibility for our actions and that it seems to be impossible to think of oneself as a sort of puppet made of meat.  It seems not only good but inevitable that we treat other people as people, as responsible for their actions, unlike inanimate objects whose actions are wholly determined.  A branch that hits me on the head is not something I blame, but a person who does so is.  Similarly, we do make choices (i.e. we do things that in English are called 'making choices'), we think about what we are going to do, and so on.  That is to say, we live as though we have free will and it seems both impossible and undesirable to live any other way.  Some people might claim to believe in determinism, but it seems they must be hypocrites, because they cannot live that way.

So what are we to believe in, determinism or free will?  Hume's answer is: both.  He argues for what is called compatibilism.  We are determined because there is no getting outside the chain of cause and effect.  (Even though Hume finds no reason to believe in causation at all, nevertheless he does believe in it, because he has the same psychological tendency to do so that we all have.)  Every human being will always inevitably do whatever he or she is most inclined and able to do in the prevailing circumstances.  The inclinations include moral feelings as well as more selfish desires, but we are slaves to our passions and will always do what we most feel like and are able to do.  Still, Hume says, we are free, because freedom means being able to do what one feels like doing.  If I feel like going to church or fighting crime or eating a steak then I am free so long as I am able to do these things.  Anyone who is not paralyzed or in chains is free in this sense.

Does this undermine traditional ethics?  Far from it, Hume says.  If our actions are not determined they must be random, and then ethics would make no sense.   Rewards and punishments will only be useful if they are capable of causing changes in human behavior, i.e. if human behavior is part of the chain of cause and effect.  And rewards and punishments will only be just or fair if they are given in response to actions that were caused by elements of the person's character.  It would not be fair to punish someone whose actions were random.  Belief in determinism is therefore compatible with ethics and with belief in free will.  Or so Hume says.