5 - Determinism

Summary

Hume opposes a doctrine – freedom of the will – which was supported in his day not only by philosophers, but by preachers. He alludes to this fact at the end of the two sections of Part 3 of Book 2 devoted to this topic (T2.3.1 & T2.3.2). He states that the question of free will should not be decided “by declamations before the people,” but by fair arguments before philosophers (T2.3.2.8: 412). We should remember that shortly before Hume left Scotland in 1734, his neighbor William Dudgeon had been prosecuted by the local church presbytery for writing a book in which he denied the freedom of the will. He was accused of thereby making God the source of human evil. In the sections on liberty and necessity in the Treatise Hume does not consider this theological problem which arises from denying that human beings have free will, though he did so when he recast this discussion in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. He points out that even if the denial of the freedom of the will had the negative consequences for religion and morals that many clergy claimed, this would be irrelevant to the question of its truth and falsity. He writes that “there is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blamable, than in philosophical debates to endeavour to refute any hypothesis by a pretext of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality” (T2.3.2.3: 409).