David Hume
David Hume has had a massive influence on the free will debate. Much of this influence is attributed to the chapter 'Liberty and Necessity' in his book 'An Enquiry into Human Understanding' which is the focus of this essay. What we see overall is Hume forwarding a new theory called compatibalism, in which he attempts to combine human free will or 'liberty' (choice , responsibility, morality) with causality or 'necessity' (all things have a cause, cause always preceeds or comes with an effect) by re-defining what we mean by these terms. Essentially Hume makes liberty and necessity compatible with one another, when previously they were not. Hume concludes by arguing that they have always been compatible, people only thought they were not compatible because they had confused ideas about what liberty and necessity actually meant. Ultimately Hume's compatibalist theory is original in its attempt to re-define and unite liberty and necessity, while at the same time maintaining that morality is dependent upon a compatibalist argument and that ideas about religion and God are illogical. In Hume's time of writing there were two major theories in the free will debate. They are now commonly referred to as Hard determinism and Libertarianism
He does this by attacking our common notion of freedom in which our thoughts are originated within ourselves. Seeing as there are no laws which state that the coin cannot apperate around the room there is no reason why the child should not believe in magic. When i choose chili over cheese who is it that makes the decision? I make the decision, and if there was any determinism at work then I wouldn't have made a free decision, for me to be free I have to originate the choice. Hume asserts that both these outcomes are not consistent with religion's depiction of a perfect God or moral responsibility, and thus uses moral responsibilty as a means of taking God out of the picture. However this just causes problems in the theory which laws would usually account for. Hume seems to have given philosophers the best of both worlds, while removing absurdities from the equation (origination). Going to the gym would be positive because it would give me good excersise, it would prevent me from being idle, and it would improve my health. This is to say that if someone was put in exactly the same situation over and over again it would be possible for them to take different courses of action everytime, because their choices are the consequence of free will - they have the freedom to do otherwise in any given situation. In a sense, without cause, choice becomes random, and therefore out of our control. Libertarinists argue that human free will is in no way subject to cause and effect, and that all our choices are free and originated from within ourselves with no influence from deterministic laws. When I tap the keys of my keyboard there is an electric current which passes the information to the computer, which in turn creates an image on my monitor. However, on the negative side, going to the gym is time consuming, I have to walk there and back, it requires a lot of effort and energy, and it is not a particuarly fun or sociable activity. Soft determinism still states that the world operates by cause and effect, and that every action is determined, but softens the determinism by removing the strict causal laws in place which require everything to happen in such an exact manner. This theory of contiguity in space and time fits with Hume's empiricist account of the world - it is against our perception of the world to believe in effects which have no physical cause at all. Constant conjunction defines human action as being the direct result of the human, but the human is still part of the causal chain governed by cause and effect.
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Acceptance Essays
