Hume's Theory of Human Nature--A Mild Tragedy: The Role of Custom and Its Inescapably Negative Effects
It could be argued that philosophy, since its inception, has been motivated by a desire to reason apart from the perceived inconsistency and confusion related to thinking based on custom, composed of humans’ different habits and educations. As we are all aware, Socrates is depicted in Plato’s dialogues as engaging everyday Greeks in argument so as to show them that their own thinking was based on dogmatic adherence to custom. He would then attempt to show them that thought based on custom sought to be consistent with the universally true, eternal forms, but it was not. If only they could grasp the forms, they would reason according to the universal truths of nature. Thus we see Socrates making a distinction between those truths from custom and those grasped by a faculty of reason, and he prefers truths grasped by reason.
To give another example, Rene Descartes sought in his project to emphasize a similar distinction and preference for reason. In Discourse on Method, he says,
It is true that so long as I merely considered the customs of other men, I found hardly anything there about which to be confident, and I noticed that there was about as much diversity as I had previously found among the opinions of the philosophers. Thus the greatest profit I derived from this was that, on seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples. I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I gradually freed myself from many errors that can darken our natural light and render us less able to listen to reason. (Descartes 10)
Here we see that Descartes sees diversity among opinions from custom, and he claims to have found a method for deciphering the confused truths of custom from those which are certain according to reason. He proposes that by using our reason we ought to remove any idea whose truth we doubt and instead only assent to those ideas which are clear and distinct in form. All ideas in one’s mind, if they are at all dubitable or uncertain, are to be discarded in favor of those clear and distinct ideas which reason takes as true. Because reason is given by God and our idea of God is clear and distinct, Descartes asserts that those ideas which take the same form as our idea of God must be true and detectable as such by reason. Thus, Descartes intends his method to separate truths of reason, created by God, from those of custom, created by imperfect humans, through reflection upon one’s own ideas and only assenting to those which present themselves as clear and distinct.
Different from these philosophers, David Hume provocatively says in the Treatise, “all reasonings are the effect of custom.” Here, by “all reasonings,” Hume means those regarding matters of fact. When reasoning about matters of fact, one references reality and attempts to relate one’s ideas to it. For Hume, we understand matters of fact based on what we sense because our ideas come from sensible impressions gained through experience. But relating one’s ideas to reality is a tricky business. There is no guarantee that reality as we have experienced it in the past will be the same in the future because we have not yet experienced the future. There is no experiential guarantee, for example, that the sun will rise tomorrow. It seems absurd to say this, but there is no logical contradiction here, as far as Hume is concerned.
Reasonings regarding matters of fact are different from those Hume terms “relations of ideas,” which concern geometry, algebra, and arithmetic, and are merely determined by the mind on its own, without any reference to reality. These relations of ideas, when true, are necessarily true. For example, 2+3 will always equal 5, and the sum of the interior angles of a triangle will always equal 180 degrees. So, when reasoning regarding relations of ideas, the truths discovered are certain, and will remain so universally and eternally. To assert that 2+3=6 would be to fall into contradiction. Thus in saying that all reasonings are the effect of custom, Hume is saying that the certainty we have that the sun will rise tomorrow is not universally or eternally valid. Instead, this certainty comes from custom—composed of habit and education, which are by their nature particular to the time and place in which they are gained.
As such, Hume gives custom a positive role in human nature, where other philosophers seek to ignore it. For Hume, custom is the means by which we think in our everyday lives. It is constituted by the ideas we have from our habits and education. Habits are made through sensible experience in the world. The perception of resembling and contiguous events, constantly conjoined, leads the mind to create the idea that those events are in fact connected in the world, independent of the mind. Drawing from Hume’s famous example of billiard balls colliding, we ask “How do we know that when ball A hits ball B that B will be set in motion?” Upon viewing the succession of events there is nothing admitted to the senses of their connection, which would then become an idea upon which we could reason. Not even after having seen the balls collide a thousand times would we see the connection. So, if the idea of their connection is never admitted to the senses, then from where does it come? Hume argues that after one has seen a succession of resembling and contiguous events repetitively, and they are constantly conjoined, that the imagination creates an idea of their connection, even though this is never admitted to the senses. The experience of seeing billiard balls setting each other in motion over and over leads us to predict that the future will happen as did the past. The connection is based on an idea found only in the mind, but indeed remains invaluable to the human life. Thus, our habits allow us to take certain truths about reality for granted so that we can move on to other things in life such as work, school, family, play, and so on.
Education is the other aspect of custom that we will look at here. Through the words of others we are able to have knowledge about things which we could not have experienced. Whereas a philosopher like Descartes set out to create knowledge more certain than that which he gained from his education—thus implying a disregard for it—Hume thinks education is a necessary contributor to over one half of our opinions. For instance, we know about Ancient Egypt, the Revolutionary War, the recent political uprisings in the Middle East, and so on, even though we were not there at the time and place they occurred to experience the events through the senses. Hume understands education in a broad sense as any idea which is received from the words of another, whether in a formal school setting or in everyday life. Here, unlike with habit, we need not see a succession of events to have an idea of a matter of fact, but only need the idea of it to be placed in our minds by another’s words.
General rules, which then serve to direct our action, are formed based on our habits and then perpetuated through education. Upon the habit that is formed of seeing the sun come up every day, I am able to say, “The sun will rise tomorrow,” and this has the form of a general rule. I thus took my particular experience of having seen the sun come up every day and made a general rule that it will rise every day in the future, as well. We also make general rules in society, such as the rule that theft is wrong. Upon the experience of people stealing things and the subsequent pain caused by it, people in society generally agree that it is wrong and ought not to happen, and that thieves should be prevented from committing their crimes. Furthermore, we expect our political leaders to enforce the rules so that we may flourish in society. If they live up to these expectations, we develop a habit of trusting their authority.
Once formed, general rules are then propagated through the words of others, in the form of education. We follow many of the rules we do because someone told us of them. For example, for most us, we know not to touch fire because we were told not to by our parents; they give us the rule “Do not touch fire,” and this is enough to influence our action (for most of us, probably). Thus our decision not to touch fire comes not from having had experience with fire burning us but by having been told that that would happen and that fire should be avoided. In addition, most of us do not steal for the same reason. It was not through punishment laid down by the law that we know not to steal others’ property, but by having been told in society that stealing is wrong. So we see that general rules direct our action and are formed and perpetuated in society by habit and education.
It is a characteristic of general rules that they are set in opposition to one another regarding the same situation, meaning that at least two rules may apply to any one given situation. These two rules will be referred to as those of the wise man and those of the vulgar. The wise man’s rule applies most directly to a situation, and when followed, leads one to act in the best possible manner given the circumstances. But it is not without much reflection and close observation that we arrive at the decision to follow this rule, however. Because the majority of people do not reflect as much as the wise about the reason they follow a particular rule, most people follow the rules of the vulgar. Instead of being based on close observation of a situation, the vulgar rules are instead drawn from the imagination, and are decided upon without reflection. They thus have the potential to lead us into painful circumstances because they do not accord closely with reality. Hume attempts to illustrate this opposition of general rules with what he calls “a familiar instance” of a man who seems to be hung from a gibbet. He says,
…let us consider the case of a man, who being hung out from a high tower in a cage of iron cannot forebear trembling, when he surveys the precipice below him, tho’ he knows himself to be perfectly secure from falling, by his experience of the solidity of the iron, which supports him; and tho’ the ideas of fall and descent, and harm and death, be deriv’d solely from custom and experience. (Hume, Treatise 148)
Here the man in the iron cage overhanging a precipice is presented with two rules. The first is the vulgar rule from his imagination, and tells him that precipices are dangerous. It thus leads him to tremble because he judges himself to be in a precarious position. The second is the wise man’s rule based on seeing that, in reality, the iron of the cage is sturdy and will support him. We ought to wonder, I think, what the circumstances of the man’s “being hung” are, for they would give us a better idea as to what he is thinking. I think that if he stepped into the cage and was then hung we might wonder why he trembles from fear of falling, because he would already know the cage to be sturdy. I like to imagine, though, that the man was drugged and put in the cage, and then woke up in this circumstance. In this case, it makes more sense that he would fear the precipice, because the circumstances were not only novel to him, but they were surprising. Thus, his initial fear of the precipice would make more sense to us, and his reflection and review of the situation to see that he was safe would be more of a necessity so as to forebear trembling. He would observe the sturdiness of the iron and replace his first judgment of the precipice as dangerous with a second judgment that the iron of the cage is sturdy.
Thus, here we see two contrary rules working oppositely to one another in the mind, and they regard the same circumstance. These rules are roughly 1) the vulgar rule that “falling into a precipice is dangerous and leads to death”, and 2) the wise man’s rule that “iron is sturdy and can support the weight of a human”. The man in the cage allows his imagination to be taken away by the vulgar rule, because it strikes so strongly upon him, allowing the ideas of falling to his death to govern his perception of the situation. Here we see that the man in the cage overlooked what effect his habit of fearing precipices had on his judgment and considered the wrong details of his situation in using the rule he did, that is, if he wished to forebear trembling. Had he taken proper time to reflect on his situation, however, he would have followed the wise man’s rule, that iron is sturdy and can support the weight of a human, putting his passions at ease, for his situation was not really so dire.
It seems to me that this way of general rules as running oppositely to one another regarding the same circumstance is also how we explain the possibility of the tyrannical leader. By first seeing how government comes to be at all, we will be able to see how a tyrannical leader can underhandedly oppress his people. Hume thinks that before there was even a need for government, humans mutually agreed to respect property rights and keep promises, because the stability of these institutions would lead to better living for individuals. Without the help of others, he presumes humans would be much less able to perform the tasks necessary to flourish. Thus, society is built upon the conventions of property and promise-keeping, and rules are then formed to guide people’s actions toward the best ways of upholding these conventions. Because, however, it is difficult for individuals to solve disputes over society’s rules among themselves, the people assign authority to a leader who puts aside his own personal interest and is supposed to act in the people’s interest. So, the government’s authority is sanctioned by the people and is based on their desire to be protected and secure in society. We then expect government to make and enforce rules which are designed toward this end. Thus, when government indeed acts in the people’s interests and their lives go well, they pledge allegiance to it, and make a habit of following the rules. When a political leader speaks with eloquence about the measures he will take to protect us, we believe what he says if his words create in our minds a picture of the world as safe and secure for ourselves. Upon the habit of having been protected and with the assurance we receive from the leader that he is protecting us, we obey his rules as if obeying them is in our own best interest.
But it is when we cease to reflect upon the rules that the government creates and enforces that we also create opportunities for tyrannical leaders to oppress people. Just as the man in the iron cage incorrectly applied his rule that precipices are dangerous when he was in fact safe, the custom of obeying the government’s authority can be so strong that we apply the rule that the government is a protector beyond the experience from which it came. We just assume the government works in our best interest based on a rule from past experience, though in reality the government could be creating and enforcing rules which are against our interest. Thus, without reflection upon our reasons for following the rules of society, we become vulnerable to the oppressive regimes of tyrannical leaders. Just as the man in the iron cage’s first judgment that the precipice was dangerous led him to tremble, our unreflected upon judgment that the government is trustworthy could also lead to pain.
So, if we wish to avoid pain, we ought not to blindly follow the rules handed to us by the government. The man in the iron cage stopped his unreflected upon train of thought and re-observed his circumstances only to see that his prior fear of the precipice was unwarranted because the iron cage was strong enough to hold him up. In the same way, people should reflect upon the rules that the government creates and observe the circumstances of their implementation in order to see that the rules indeed promote the interests of the people. It seems that we support freedom of the press, for instance, because the press is thought to hold government accountable for its actions by not taking them for granted, discovering the reasons for them, and then providing people with information about it. Also, with freedom of speech, we are allowed as citizens to voice our disapproval of the government’s ways without fear of punishment. These freedoms, as well as others, give people the opportunity to check on the government’s actions and demand that it serve their interests. And should the actions of the government become intolerably oppressive Hume does not think it should retain its authority to rule as it does.
As reflection leads to a better understanding of the government’s rules, we might then think that more and more reflection would lead to more and more truth, but, as Hume says, infinite reflection to determine the legitimacy of a government’s rule cannot take place, either. First, were we to inquire regarding the foundation of a particular government’s authority we would likely not be satisfied with what we found. Hume observes that most governments originated “by the sword” and those in power gain their authority by forcefully taking it from a prior ruler. Thus, we should not examine the government’s right to rule based on its foundation too rigorously. Though government was originally based on providing protection and security for the people, most current governments’ authority is the result of their having conquered some other regime. So, to argue that a current government’s foundation and motivation for rule is not the interest of the people does not necessarily make that government’s rule illegitimate.
Also, Hume discusses the difficulty of gauging whether a particular government’s rules are oppressive. He says that it may happen that a particular rule which at one time served to protect the people could at another time work against their interest. As a result, the standard for determining the adequacy of a rule is often unclear, and there is no particular rule with which to decide which rules are just and which are not. As a result, Hume says, “I am afraid we shall never be able to satisfy an impartial enquirer, who adopts no party in political controversies, and will be satisfied with nothing but sound reason and philosophy.” Therefore, on Hume’s view, we must trust the government in some way or risk eternal dissatisfaction with it.
Not only is this case with our inquiries about the government, though. In thinking about anything, too many doubts lead to utter uncertainty, until finally we are unable to reason at all. If we cannot reason then we are incapable of acting, which is our primary means of survival. This inability to ultimately have a full grasp of the object that we are thinking about is based in the fundamental manner in which we have ideas at all. From sense impressions are copied ideas, and when we doubt an idea and review the situation from which it came, we replace our first idea with a new one copied from a new impression. But we have only replaced one perception with another, and this new perception introduces nothing more than new possibilities as to what one should have thought at first. This only serves to decrease the certainty of the first idea in order to take into account more possibilities as to what is really happening. But if we went on reviewing the situation without making a judgment about it, this would ultimately obliterate any reasoning and passion at all, because we would not know what to believe in, and this would make life unhappy. Therefore, we must live with uncertainty at times, even as regards the most important matters in life.
Based on Hume’s theory of human nature, as we see here, I suggest that humans are born with the tragic flaw of having to assent to custom in order to reason, despite its negative effects. For Hume, “all reasonings are the effect of custom” (Hume, Treatise 149), but this dependence on custom allows for potentially painful circumstances brought on by tyranny. The tyrannical government takes advantage of people’s reliance on custom and their propensity to follow unreflected upon and vulgar general rules. The vulgar population, because they wish to be protected, act upon their potentially false first judgment that the leader is good, when the opposite could be the case. The tragedy is made mild by the wise man’s tactic of entertaining skeptical doubt regarding his first judgment based on custom. The tactic halts our customary line of thinking by inserting skeptical doubts into it, influencing us to review the situation and see, for instance, the tyrannical government as it really is, rather than as it appears. The tactic, however, is not a sure-fire manner of avoiding the pain caused by tyranny. We must eventually assent to ideas from custom, making us trust our leaders, and thus maintaining the conditions for the tyrannical government’s pernicious activity. Hence, where Hume has given us a positive view of custom as the means of our thinking, he has also shown that custom’s negative side is unavoidable. Therefore, Hume’s theory shows that humans face inescapably tragic circumstances, wherein the same principle by which we think at all also leads us into confusion. Hume, however, sees the human condition as merely “whimsical” which I think is a sort of failure of his to see that, upon his theory, humans are bound to feel pain brought upon them by the deception of others.
But I wonder if I can accept my conclusion as certain that Hume’s view of human nature is mildly tragic. If any idea can be doubted then shouldn’t I doubt this one too? On first appearance I’m afraid that I have allowed myself to be defeated. If I too accept Hume’s view, then have I lost hope in making a tragic world better? If reflection at best makes the tragedy just mild, then what’s the use? But perhaps a look at how far reflection could lead us is warranted. It seems we could imagine a world where the government not only made rules to secure and protect its people’s interests, but also allowed for the highest possible amount of flourishing for the people. Presumably, it seems that this society would be the result of rigorous reflection set toward creating conditions for the best human life. Is such a state of absolute human flourishing realistic, though?
In human history there have been flourishing states, but we know that many of them ended up falling for various reasons. There have also been particular families that flourished, but in time they lose their influence. Perhaps these points give strength to my argument by saying that, at least in the past, periods of flourishment have not lasted forever, and our natures eventually bring us down to feel pain. But then again why should I think that future societies will not do any better than those of the past did? Isn’t it a principal flaw in human nature, as Hume sees it, that we think the future will occur as did the past? But of course many things in our experience do occur as they did in the past, so why wouldn’t this? Well maybe this is different; maybe utopia is a possibility, and working toward it is worth it. This would make reflection highly valuable again, right?
It seems I could go on and on like this infinitely and never settle on a conclusion. But I also need to just act. Obsessive reflection leads to paralysis. We should find value in enjoying the company of friends and family, playing games, and so on. I think we can all agree that reflection on our own thinking is valuable, so as to avoid taking actions that would be against our own best interests and act toward making our lives better. So perhaps we could imagine the best human society as one composed of playful philosophers, intent on keeping away oppressive political policies while also finding value in simple pleasures. But then again, the doubts creep in.
