integrating hume's accounts of belief and justification

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXIII, No. 2, September 2001

Integrating Hume’ s Accounts of Belief and Justification

LOUIS E. LOEB

The University of Michigan

Hume’s claim that a state is a belief is often intertwined-though without his remarking on this fact-with epistemic approval of the state. This requires explanation. Beliefs, in Hume’s view, are steady dispositions (not lively ideas), nature’s provision for a steady influence on the will and action. Hume’s epistemic distinctions call attention to circumstances in which the presence of conflicting beliefs undermine a belief‘s influence and thereby its natural function. On one version of this interpretation, to say that a belief is justified, ceteris paribus, is to say that for all that has been shown the belief would be steady in its influence under suitable reflection. On a second version, it is to say that prima ,facie justification is an intrinsic property of the state, in virtue of its steadiness. These versions generate different understandings of the relationship between Parts iii and iv of Book I of the Treatise.

Hume assigns a pivotal role to stability in understanding normativity in a variety of theoretical contexts. Hume’s distinction between the calm emotions and violent passions may be interpreted as appealing to a difference in volatility, rather than mere intensity.’ The calm emotions are stable, the violent passions volatile, and the distinction between them carries normative import; Hume identifies the prevalence of the calm emotions with “strength of mind” (T 418).2 Artificial justice is a system of conventions in the interest of stability of possession (cf. III.ii.2-3). Moral judgments arise in light of “continual fluctuation” in our situation, “in order to prevent.. .continual contradictions, and arrive at a more stable judgment of things” (T 581, Hume’s emphases). I believe that stability is crucial to Hume’s theory of justified belief, as well as to his accounts of the calm emotions, artificial

’ The received interpretation of the caldviolent distinction with reference to emotional intensity is due to Ardal, 1966/1989. pp. 9, 94. 97-98, 104. My approach is suggested in MacNabb, 1951/1966, p. 165. I use the following abbreviations for references to Hume: A-An Abstract o f A Treatise o f f m a n Nature (references to pages in T. below); E-L. A . Selby Bigge, ed.. Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, third edition by P. H. Nidditch, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1975 (references to sections I-XI1 and to marginal section numbers); and T-L. A . Selby-Bigge. ed., A Treatise 01 Human Nature. second edition, with text revised and variant readings, by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978.

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justice, and moral judgment. In this paper, I argue that a stability-based interpretation of Hume’s theory of justification resolves a puzzle in regard to Part iii of Book I of the T r e a t i ~ e . ~

In section one of the paper, I present a significant textual phenomenon in Part iii: Hume’s claim that association by the relation of cause and effect produces belief is often intertwined-though without his remarking on this fact-with the claim that belief based on causal inference is justified. To explain this, I offer the hypothesis that, in Hume’s view, stability plays a double role. Whether belief is justified depends upon considerations of stability, and (a species of) stability is also essential to belief itself. In the second section, I show that, for Hume, any belief is stable, in that it is steady or infixed. To establish that a state is a belief is thus to establish that it is stable, other things being equal. In the third section, I observe that a belief, though steady in that it is infixed, might nevertheless be unstable in its influence on thought, the will, and action-owing to the presence of other beliefs with which it conflicts. I argue that the point of Hume’s distinction between justified and unjustified belief is to call attention to circumstances in which a belief, though steady, is unstable in its influence, all things considered. I then show that this perspective is useful in understanding Hume’s readiness come I.iv.7 to reject all belief, including belief based on causal inference, as ‘unjustified. In the final section, I distinguish two versions of my stability-based interpretation. The issue is whether Hume takes the justification of a belief to be a matter of stability within the belief system of the person who holds the belief, or to depend on the belief‘s stability within the belief system of a suitably reflective person.

1. A Puzzle in Regard to Part iii of Book I. The titles of sections 5-10 of Treatise I.iii include “Of the nature of the idea, or belief,” “Of the causes of belief,” and “Of the influence of belief.” On any interpretation, these sections have for their subject matter the nature, causes, and effects of belief. They also include numerous passages that register Hume’s epistemic approval of beliefs based on causal inference. In I.iii.6, Hume allows that causal inference is “just”: “cause and effect.. .’tis the only [connexion or relation of objects], on which we can found a just inference from one object to another” (T 89).4 Later in I.iii.6, Hume writes of

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In my 1998, 1 place this line of interpretation in a broader historical context. This passage occurs in the course of a discussion that has been standardly interpreted as formulating a skeptical problem of induction. There is a growing consensus that, in I.iii.6. Hume is arguing that causal inference is the product of association, without intending this conclusion to have skeptical implications. Cf. Connon, 1976, esp. pp. 129-35; Beauchamp and Rosenberg, 1981, ch. 2, esp. $5 III-IV; Baier. 1991. esp. pp. 54-56 and 65-70; Schmitt. 1992, p. 245, n. 11; Garrett, 1997, ch. 4; and Owen, 1999, esp. pp. 66. 74-76, 139, and ch. 6. For a dissenting view, see Winkler, 1999. There are misgivings in regard to the skeptical interpretation as early as Moore, 1922. pp. 155-56 and 160.

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“reasonings” (T 93) based on the relation of cause and effect; similarly, “we are able to reason upon” (T 94) the relation of causation. In a footnote to I.iii.7, Hume writes: “We infer a cause immediately from its effect; and this inference is not only a true species of reasoning, but the strongest of all others” (T 9711; c$ T 94 and 95).5 In these contexts, such terms as ‘reason’ and ‘reasoning’ function as terms of approval.h In Part iii, the claim that causal inference is justified thus arises in tandem with the claim that causal inference results in belief. Yet, Hume does not give due recognition to the fact that these claims are different.

I.iii.9, “Of the effects of other relations, and other habits,” provides a striking instance of Hume’s unacknowledged intermingling of claims about belief and claims about justification. The section discusses the relations of resemblance and contiguity. Hume grants that these relations can enliven an idea, and intensify an existing belief, while insisting that they do not produce belief (c$ T 107-10). In the second paragraph of the section, Hume summa- rizes some previous results:

I have often observ’d, that, beside cause and effect, the two relations of resemblance and contiguity, are to be consider’d as associating principles of thought, and as capable of convey- ing the imagination from one idea to another. I have also observ’d. that when of two objects connected together by any of these relations, one is immediately present to the memory or senses, not only the mind is convey’d to its co-relative by means of the associating principle; but like-wise conceives it with an additional force and vigour, by the united operation of that principle, and of the present impression. And this I have observ’d, in order to confirm by anal- ogy, my explication of our judgements concerning cause and effect. (T 107)

In the continuation of the paragraph, Hume raises a difficulty:

But this very argument may, perhaps, be turn’d against me .... For it may be said, that if all the parts of that hypothesis be true, vir. that these three species of relation are deriv’d from the same principles; rhnt their effects in inforcing and inlivening our ideas are the same; and that

belief is nothing but a more forcible and vivid conception of an idea; it shou’d follow, that that action of the mind may not only be deriv’d from the relation of cause and effect, but also from those of contiguity and resemblance. But ... we find by experience, that belief arises only from causation. (T 107)

The third paragraph begins: “This is the objection; let us now consider its solution” (T 107).

The second paragraph sets the problem initially under discussion in I.iii.9. To respond, Hume needs to explain why causal inference, unlike resemblance and contiguity, produces belief. This explanation occupies the third through seventh paragraphs. Paragraphs three and four discuss belief based on the senses, memory, and the relation of cause or effect. Paragraphs five and six

Cf. Beauchamp and Rosenberg, 1981, pp. 43 and 63 For an extended discussion of Hume’s use of this terminology, including a shift in his usage within Liii, see my 1997. esp. pp. 283-84 and 294-96.

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discuss resemblance and contiguity. Paragraph seven compares the relation of cause and effect to these other relations.

In the third and fourth paragraphs, Hume introduces two systems of “realities.” The first system of realities is based on the senses and memory alone; the second system is based on custom or the relation of cause and effect and extends or supplements the first. In the discussion of the two systems, Hume seems to be saying not only that the relation of cause and effect, unlike resemblance and contiguity, produces belief, but that the relation of cause and effect produces justified belief.

The evidence for this is considerable. Hume writes that the mind “dignifies” the second system, as well as the first, “with the title of realities” (T 108). He writes, more directly, that the second of the two systems is “the object.. .of the judgment” (T 108). He also contrasts the ideas belonging to the second system with those “which are merely the offspring of the imagination” (T 108). This discussion is naturally read to suggest that Hume approves epistemically of beliefs based on the relation of cause and effect. It is difficult not to be sympathetic with John Passmore’s comment on the passage: “The fact is that ‘reality’. . ,has a honorific sense.’17 To reply to the objection at hand, Hume needs to show that the relation of causation produces belief. Yet, Hume claims that causal inference produces justified belief. Hume seems to change the subject, and to do so without notice.

One could go a certain distance in avoiding this reading by taking the two- systems passages in relative isolation. It might be thought that in saying that the mind dignifies the objects comprised in the second system “with the title of realities,” Hume simply means that we believe those objects exist. And it might be thought that when Hume writes of the second system as “the object ... of the judgment,” he simply means that they are the objects of belief. There is substantial evidence against the view that Hume thus confines his claims to belief.

In the first place, there is a parallel development in the fifth and sixth paragraphs, where Hume explains why resemblance does not produce belief. (Here and elsewhere, I use ‘resemblance’ to stand for the relations of resemblance and contiguity.) Hume grants that resemblance produces a state that has affinities with belief, in which we “feign” the existence of an object. In the sixth paragraph, he offers epistemic claims: “such a fiction is founded on so little reason, that nothing but pure caprice can determine the mind to form it” (T 109); “we ... form a general rule against the reposing any assurance in those momentary glimpses of light, which arise in the imagination from a feign’d resemblance and contiguity” (T 1 10). These epistemic assessments seem curiously out of place. In the context of the objection he is considering,

Passmore. 195211968, p. 101; cf. pp. 54 and 61-62; see also Kemp Smith, 1941, pp. 383- 85.

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Hume needs to show that resemblance does not produce belief. In one compressed discussion, he also claims that the states resemblance does produce are not justifiedex In paragraphs five and six, the states that fall short of belief are unjustified, much as in paragraphs three and four, the states that constitute belief are justified.

In the second place, there is recalcitrant material internal to the discussion of the two systems of realities: “’Tis this latter principle Ijudgment], which peoples the world, and brings us acquainted with such existences, as by their removal in time and place, lie beyond the reach of the senses and memory” (T 108). “Brings us acquainted’ implies success, what we call “knowledge,” not mere belief, in objects that lie beyond the reach of the senses and memory.y This is of a piece with other formulations early in the Treatise: cause and effect is the only relation that “informs us of existences and objects, which we do not see or feel” (T 74), the relation that can “discover” (T 73) and “lead us” (T 89) to objects that have not been observed.

In the third place, in the footnote at pages 117-18 that closes I.iii.9 Hume reinforces his contrast between beliefs based on causal inference and those “which are merely the offspring of the imagination.” Hume contrasts “probable reasonings”-attributed to “reason” (T 11 8n; cfi T 371 n)-with “those whimsies and prejudices, which are rejected under the opprobrius character of being the offspring of the imagination” (T 117n). The note repeats language in the two-systems passage contrasting states that “are merely the offspring of the imagination” (T 108) with the products of perception, memory, and causal inference. This is evidence that Hume intends the two- systems passage to have a place in a sustained contrast between justified and unjustified belief.

In the fourth place, Hume’s approval of causal inference in the two- systems passage is continuous with his favorable discussion of causal inference throughout Part iii, and well into Part iv, of Book 1.“) I reviewed some

As Fogelin notes, “Here Hurne’s approach is in part descriptive and . . .p art normative” (1985, p. 58). What “we” in more recent epistemology call “knowledge.” Hume’s “proofs” (T 124) fall within the scope of the term as I am using it. Though Hume officially reserves ‘knowledge’ for belief arising from the comparison of ideas (T 69-70, 124), he allows in the Absrruct: “No matter of fact can be proved but from its cause or its effect. Nothing can be known to be the cause of another but by experience” (A 654). See also the uses of cognates of ‘know’ at T 103, 104, and 148. For discussions-in addition to Passmore-that take note of Hume’s favorable attitude toward causal inference, see: Moore, 1922, pp. 149-51 and 154-55; Price, 1940, pp. 28- 30; Kemp Smith, 1941. pp. 382-83; Price, 1969. Lecture 7, esp. 173-75; Connon. 1976. esp. pp. 135-37; Imrnenvahr, 1977, esp. pp. 58-63; Beauchamp and Rosenberg, 1981, pp. 52-55; Broughton, 1983; Baier, 1991, p. 12, and ch. 3, esp. pp. 56-57 and 65-66; Schrnitt, 1992, p. 55; Loeb, 1995a, 8 2. esp. pp. 103-12; Millican, 1995, pp. 124-27; and Loeb, 1997, esp. pp. 283-91. For a recent, systematic account of the matter, see Noonan, 1999,

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pp. 116-31.


examples drawn from I.iii.5-10 above. In I.iii.11-13, the sections on probability, Hume offers an approving discussion of “the several degrees of evidence” (T 124; c$ 153-54). In I.iii.13, Hume discusses the effect of “a long chain of connected arguments” (T 144). The individual arguments, where the “inference is drawn immediately.. .without any intermediate cause or effect” (T 144) may be “just and conclusive in each part” (T 144). In I.iii.15, “Rules by which to judge of cause and effects” (T 173), Hume writes that “it may be proper to fix some general rules, by which we may know” (T 173) when objects cause one another. He proceeds to provide eight rules (T 173- 7 3 , said to constitute “all the LoGrc I think proper to employ in my reasoning” (T 175; cf. 149). Hume’s language-“rules” that are “proper” for ascer- taining causes and effects, and which constitute a “Loac”-reflects epistemic approval. Hume reiterates that causal inference is “just” (T 216) in I.iv.2. As late as I.iv.4, Hume allows that someone engaged in causal inference “reasons justly” (T 225).

In sum, though Hume’s ostensible purpose in I.iii.9 is to explain why the relation of cause and effect produces belief, there is substantial evidence, within I.iii.9 and surrounding sections, that he takes the relation of cause and effect to produce justified belief. Other commentators have observed that Hume seems to run together a theory of belief and a theory of justified belief. Passmore writes: “what set out to be a theory of belief, in something like the ordinary sense of the word, has become, with no explicit acknowledgment of that fact, a theory of what it is ‘rational’ to believe.”” On this view, what is initially a theory of belief-with belief resulting only from association by the relation of cause and effect-is ratcheted up to a theory of justified belief. The textual phenomena that are bothering Passmore are real enough.’* In reading Part iii, one easily gains the impression that Hume’s claim that belief arising from the relation of cause and effect is justified is somehow yoked to his claim that the relation of cause and effect produces belief. The question is how we are to explain this puzzling feature of Part iii.I3

The key is to suppose that, in Hume’s view, establishing that a state is a belief is to establish that it is justified, other things being equal.I4 On what grounds could Hume maintain this? It is easy to see what is required, at least schematically. We need to locate a property that is necessary for a state to constitute a belief, such that to establish that a state is a belief and thus has this property is also sufSicient to establish that the belief is justified, other

‘ I Passmore, 1952/1968, pp. 62-63. Price is perhaps fastening on to this puzzle when he writes that Hume “want[s] to stick to his original definition of belief as a lively. ..idea associated with a present impression by a relation of experienced constant conjunction,” but that Hume “now wants to say that it is a definition of reasonable or sensible or sane or intelligent belief‘ (1969, p. 174). Passmore’s position is complex; space does not permit me to discuss it. There is an ambiguity in the parsing of this key claim. I take up this matter in section 4.

l 3

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things being equal. In other words, there must be a property which plays a two-fold role. The presence of the property must constitute a necessary condition for belief. In addition, establishing that the property is present must constitute a sufficient condition for establishing justification, other things being equal. My claim is that stability is the property that plays this dual role, one within Hume’s theory of belief, the other within Hume’s theory of justification. In light of this, I proceed in two stages. In section two, I show that, in Hume’s view, stability is a necessary condition for belief. In section three, I address the nature of Hume’s interest in stability in the context of his theory of justification.

2. Steadiness and Infixing in Hume’s Theory of Belief.

I begin with a sketch of the role of stability in Hume’s theory of belief. Tradition in Hume interpretation has it that beliefs are lively ideas. On my interpretation, beliefs are steady dispositions. It is a commonplace that Hume uses a cluster of closely related terms-‘vivacity’, ‘vividness’, ‘intensity’, and ‘liveliness’-to characterize belief. This vivacity cluster, however, is prima facie distinct from a second cluster of terms that also has a prominent role in Hume’s discussion of belief. Ideas that constitute beliefs are ‘fast’, ‘firm’, ‘settled’, ‘solid’, and ‘steady’, such ideas possess ‘firmness’, ‘solidity,’ and ‘steadiness’ (T 97, 105, 106, 108, 116, 121, 624, 625, 626, 627, 629, 631). For ease of exposition, I use ‘steadiness’ (and its cognates) to stand indiffer- ently for all the terms in this steadiness cfuster.I5 Although Hume suggests that the terms in the two clusters may be used interchangeably (T 629), we need to disentangle them in order to attribute to Hume a coherent theory of belief. Hume contrasts steady ideas with ideas that are ‘momentary’ (T 1 lo), ‘floating’ (T 116), and ‘loose’ (T 97, 106, 116, 123, 595, 624, 625; c$ 110). The terms in the steadiness cluster often refer to a kind of staying power. I suggest that steadiness plays a more fundamental role than vivacity in Hume’s theory of the nature of belief.Ih I will first show that beliefs are steady, and then show that they are dispositions.

Hume’s conception of steadiness is closely connected to his discussions of the ways in which ideas are infixed. There is ample evidence that when an idea is infixed, the result is a belief. At Treatise 86, 109, and 225 (c$ T 99 and 121), ideas are infixed with force or vigor, or enlivened, and Hume’s formula is that belief is a lively or forceful idea.” Furthermore, Hume writes that in belief the mind “fixes and reposes itself’ (T 624) on its conceptions,

Is A number of other terms-‘force’, ‘strength’, and ‘vigor’-at least in some of their occurrences, perhaps belong in this cluster as well. For commentators who place some emphasis on the role of steadiness in Hume’s account, see Laird, 1932, p. 88; Wolff, 1960, pp. 112-14 and 128; Pears, 1990, pp. 12, 36. and 44; and Baier. 1991, pp. 72-74 and 80. Also see the references to MacNabb at note 23. The formula, however, is not adequate. See below in this section. l 7

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or “fixes and reposes itself in one settled conclusion and belief’ (T 625). I suggest that infixing is a process that produces steadiness in an idea, and hence belief.

In the course of the Treatise, Hume specifies particular mechanisms as ones that infix belief. In I.iii.5, Hume maintains that “be l i e f or assent ... always attends the memory and senses ....” (T 86). He writes of “custom and habit having ... the same influence on the mind as nature, and infixing the idea with equal force and vigour” (T 86; c$ 225). In context, ‘nature’ refers to the senses and memory, so that custom, in addition to the senses and memory, produces steady ideas and hence infixes belief.

Hume identifies “CUSTOM” (T 102) or “habit” (T 105) with “every thing.. . which proceeds from a past repetition, without any new reasoning or conclusion” (T 102). In the case of inference based on the relation of cause and effect, the repetition consists in the frequent observation of resembling pairs of objects (T 109, 225). Custom also includes the repetition of a mere idea (T 86, 116, 121). Repetition produces and thus explains steadiness. Hume writes that a “principle [that] has establish’d itself by a sufficient custom” also “bestows an evidence and firmness on any opinion to which it can be apply’d” (T 105, emphasis added). In the Appendix, Hume observes that “it must be allow’d, that the mind has a firmer hold, or more steady conception of what it takes to be matter of fact, than of fictions” (T 626). He adds in the next paragraph that by the association of “frequently conjoin’&’ objects “[wle can explain the causes of the firm conception” and that these causes “exhaust the whole subject” (T 626). Repetition or frequent conjunction-as well as the senses and memory-give rise to firmness or steadiness in belief.18

My claim that beliefs are steady may be strengthened on the basis of I.iii.7, “Of the nature of the idea, or belief.” Hume writes: “We may mingle, and unite, and separate, and confound, and vary our ideas in a hundred different ways; but ’till there appears some principle, which fixes one of these different situations, we have in reality no opinion ....” (T 96). We have not achieved opinion unless we have fixed on a particular idea; the infixing of an idea is essential to belief. Since infixing is a process that results in steadiness, steadiness must itself be essential to belief.

To this point, I have been writing as if steadiness is a property of an idea. If ideas are conscious or occurrent states, however, they are obviously unsteady-they come and go, or change, abruptly. At the same time, there is substantial evidence that steadiness is crucial to Hume’s account of belief, evidence that will be reinforced as this section proceeds. What is needed is a framework that can accommodate steadiness as a property of belief. Steadi-

Hume appeals to a higher-order habit (T 104-5; cf. T 131, 173-74) to defend this hypothesis against the objection that it is not compatible with our forming a belief based on a single experience.

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ness, I suggest, is best construed not as a property of an idea, but as a property of a disposition.

Hume often invokes mental dispositions or propensities that cannot plausibly be identified with occurrent states.IY Hume’s tendency to treat belief as a disposition, as well as an occurrence, is well-known.20 For example, a passage in the Appendix begins on a tack that invites taking belief to be an occurrent or conscious state: “An idea assented tofeels different from a ficti- tious idea, that the fancy alone presents to us: And this different feeling I endeavour to explain by calling it a superiorforce, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness” (T 629). The passage continues: “This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination” (T 629). Here, belief is characterized with reference to its effects. This suggests a dispositional account. There are a number of similar passages: belief “gives [ideas] more force and influence; makes them appear of greater importance; infixes them in the mind; renders them the governing principles of all our actions” (T 629; c$ A 654 and E V, 40-41, 46); and the mind “is more actuated and mov’d by” beliefs than by states that fall short of belief (T 624).

Such notions as “steadiness” apply more naturally to dispositions than to occurrent states. A dispositional belief is a state in virtue of which there is a tendency to display characteristic manifestations in relevant circumstances, manifestations that are, in part, effects of the disposition. These manifestations include influence on thought, the passions, and action-verbal and non- verbal behaviors, as well as internal episodes, occurrent or conscious states. We can take the claim that it is essential to belief that it is infixed, and hence steady, to apply to dispositional beliefs. This fits nicely with Hume’s explanation of steadiness, as the result of repetition or conditioning. Dispositions that are not infixed do not qualify as beliefs ( c t T 453, 629). A dispositional belief is a steady disposition to characteristic manifestations or typical effects on thought, the passions, and action.21 Such steadiness is a species of stability, the stability of a disposition that is infixed.

Hume can also admit occurrent beliefs, in the sense of conscious manifestations of a dispositional belief. These occurrent manifestations include lively or vivacious ideas. Though these lively ideas are not steady, steadiness is

I‘) ”)

’’ Cf. Wolff, 1960. pp. 105-6; Stroud, 1977, pp, 167-68; and Bricke, 1980, pp. 4652 . See the references at note 23 and also Basson, 1958. ch. 3, pussim; Bricke, 1980, pp. 121-22 (also cf. 30-31 and 46-58); and Pears. 1990, pp. 50-51. There is an intermediate hypothesis, that beliefs are lively ideas that are steady in their influence on thought, will, and action-that lively ideas, when they exist, have uniform effects. Given that ideas come and go, this hypothesis does not explain the steadiness in those effects.


located at the level of the underlying dispositions that they manifest. On this account, liveliness or vivacity is one of the characteristic manifestations of belief.22 It is here that terms in the vivacity cluster have their proper home. An occurrent belief, strictly speaking, is an occurrent manifestation of a dispositional belief.23

H. H. Price takes note of an apparent contradiction in Hume’s statements of his theory of belief. Hume holds that the liveliness in belief derives from a relation to a present impression, but also that an idea can be lively or forceful when it is not related to a present impression at all.24 Specifically, Hume holds that poetical enthusiasm does not result in belief, even though it can produce ideas that are as lively and vivacious as occurrent beliefs:

[Hlow great soever the pitch may be, to which this vivacity rises, ...’ tis still the mere phantom of belief or persuasion .... A poetical description may have a more sensible effect on the fancy, than an historical narration .... It may seem to set the object before us in more lively colours. (T 630-31)

If belief is a vivacious idea, how can the lively products of poetical enthusiasm fail to count as beliefs? The answer is that the verbal and non-verbal behaviors and internal episodes that manifest dispositional belief can also arise from other sources, thereby mimicking belief. In these cases, we have pseudo-beliefs, what Hume calls “counterfeit belief’ (T 123) or “the mere phantom of belief or persuasion” (T 630).2s Hume writes that “the least reflection dissipates the illusions of poetry ....” (T 123).2h This is a point about the steadiness of the underlying disposition. Lively ideas, no matter how intense, constitute occurrent beliefs only when they manifest a steady disposition. This dissolves Price’s apparent contradiction.

My distinction between two clusters of terminology regiments distinctions required by Hume’s views.27 To provide a consistent interpretation, we must distinguish the concepts represented by the two clusters, and we must

22 One, but only one. My interpretation does not imply that a steady disposition merely to have an idea, which thus recurs, constitutes belief; there must be a disposition to the full range of effects on thought, the passions, and action characteristic of belief. My discussion of Hume’s account of belief has been influenced by that of MacNabb, 195111966. esp. pp. 71-81. Everson, 1988, adopts a related “causal“ and “functional” interpretation. Price credits Hume with “a hint or suggestion” of a dispositional analysis of belief‘ (1969. p. 187; cf. pp. 165 and 188). Armstrong maintains that Hume “wavers” between dispositional and occurrent accounts of belief ( 197 1, p. 7 1 ). Cf. Price, 1969, pp. 172-73. Price appeals to examples other than poetical enthusiasm. MacNabb uses the terminology of “pseudo-belief’ or “quasi-belief’ (195111966, pp. 76 and 79). I extend his treatment to poetical enthusiasm, a topic he does not discuss. 1 do not think Hume can be taken to identify belief with a persistent occurrent idea token that has a stable vivacity. A poetical enthusiasm can be sustained and thus satisfy this condition. The regimentation has its limitations. A term that is typically associated with the steadiness cluster might, on a particular occasion of use, function as if it belonged to the vivacity cluster, and vice versa.

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2s

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pay more than lip-service to dispositional strands in Hume’s theory of belief. We must, systematically, identify beliefs with steady dispositions and distinguish between dispositional beliefs and their manifestations, occurrent and otherwise. Absent such a regimentation of Hume’s texts, there is no prospect of making sense of his discussions of poetical enthusiasm, where vivacity is held to be insufficient for belief. Also, there is no prospect of plausibly explaining how fixity and steadiness are essential to belief.28

Hume’s I.iii.9 discussion of the effects of the relations of resemblance and contiguity fits nicely with the interpretation on which beliefs are steady dispositions. At paragraph six, Hume begins an examination of resemblance when it operates “single” (T 109), on its own. Resemblance produces only “momentary glimpses of light” (T 110); “There is no manner of necessity for the mind to feign any resembling and contiguous object; and if it feigns such, there is as little necessity for it always to confine itself to the same [idea], without any difference or variation” (T 109). Hume sums up: “that principle being fluctuating and uncertain, ’tis impossible it can ever operate with any considerable degree of force and constancy” (T 109). Resemblance produces an underlying disposition that is fluctuating or unsteady and hence fails to constitute belief.

Hume takes care to contrast the effects of association by the relation of resemblance with those of association by the relation of cause and effect. He has already noted in the discussion of the second system of realities that “by their force and settled order, [ideas] arising from custom and the relation of cause and effect.. .distinguish themselves from.. .other ideas” (T 108). This observation immediately precedes the explanation at paragraphs five and six of why resemblance does not produce belief. Hume returns to the contrast at paragraph seven:

The relation of cause and effect has all the opposite advantages. The objects it presents are fixt and unalterable. The impressions of the memory never change in any considerable degree; and each impression draws along with it a precise idea, which takes its place in the imagination, as something solid and real, certain and invariable. (T 110)

Again, notions related to steadiness are prominent. Whereas the effects of resemblance are “momentary,” “fluctuating,” given to “variation,” and lacking in “constancy,” the effects of the relation of cause and effect, are “fixt,”

*’ Stroud takes note of passages, where Hume discusses belief‘s “eflecrs on the mind,” but comments: “Hume seems never to have entertained the idea that this connection between belief and the passions and the will might constitute the very difference he seeks between belief and mere conception” (1977. p. 74). Similarly, Pears takes note of Hume’s “remarks about the effect of belief on action” in the course of criticizing Hume for “treating [belie f l . . . as a mental event or occurrence’’ (1990. p. 50). Overlooking the insights-see note 23-of Armstrong, MacNabb, and Price during the period 1951-1971, many recent commentaries do not even acknowledge dispositional elements in Hume’s account.


“settled,” and “invariable.”2y I previously reviewed evidence that the repetition that underpins causal inference has the advantage of giving rise to steadiness. Hume’s comparison of the relation of resemblance to that of cause and effect confirms that steadiness is essential to belief.3o

Our original puzzle is to explain why the claim that causal inference results in belief and the claim that causal inference is justified frequently find themselves in close conjunction with each other in Part iii, though Hume does not explain the connection between them. In the course of arguing that resemblance does not produce belief, Hume claims that the belief-like states it does produce are not justified. Similarly, no sooner does Hume conclude that causal inference results in belief, than he concludes that causal inference is justified. He does so without calling attention to the difference in these claims. To make sense of the textual phenomena, we must locate a property that Hume ascribes to belief, and that Hume might take to be germane to justification.

The only salient candidate is steadiness. Hume extensively discusses the steadiness of belief in I.iii.5-10 (T 84-123) and associated material in the Appendix. Within these stretches of the Treatise, Hume claims that infixing is essential to belief, that custom infixes belief, and that custom or repetition gives rise to steadiness. The steadiness that results from the senses, memory, or repetition, is necessary for belief. This interpretation is required to make sense of Hume’s repeated statements that beliefs result from a process of infixing and that they are fast, firm, settled, solid and steady. It is also required to explain how the results of poetical enthusiasm can exceed belief in vivacity and yet amount only to pseudo-belief. These grounds for taking Hume to hold the view that stability, in the form of steadiness, is essential to belief are independent of his theory of justification.

In the second of its roles, stability is connected to justification. In paragraphs three and four of I.iii.9, the claim that causal inference is justified- that it “brings us acquainted” with objects we have not perceived and is due to the “judgment”-accompanies the claim that causal inference is due to custom or repetition. This discussion is followed by the explanation at paragraphs five and six of why resemblance does not produce belief, an explanation that stresses the unsteady character of dispositions arising from these relations and hence confirms the role Hume assigns to steadiness. In the course of this discussion, Hume writes that there is “little reason” (T 109) to feign objects based on these relations and that we form a “general rule” (T 110) against doing so.

When Hume writes in paragraph seven of I.iii.9 that, in comparison to the relation of resemblance, “The relation of cause and effect has all the opposite

2y

30 Baier also calls attention to these passages (1991, pp. 72-74). For additional evidence in this regard, see my 1995b. 3. and 1998. g 4.

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advantages,” the “advantages” he has in view are two-fold, reflecting stability’s interrelated roles in his theories of belief and justification. This account serves to explain the intimate connection between claims about belief and claims about justification in Part iii. The explanation is that to establish that a state is a belief and hence stable in the sense that it is steady or infixed is sufficient to establish that the belief is justified, other things being equal. My claim that whether a belief is justified depends upon considerations of stability thus integrates Hume’s theory of justification with his theory of belief. It remains, however, to consider in more detail the role of stability in Hume’s theory of justification and its relationship to the steadiness of belief.

3. The Importance of a Distinction between Justification, Other Things Being Equal, and Justification, All Things

Considered. Why does stability, other things being equal, matter to Hume? In the second and third paragraphs of 1.iii. 10, Hume explains why steadiness is important:

Nature ... seems to have carefully avoided the inconveniences of two extremes. Did impressions alone influence the will, we should every moment of our lives be subject to the greatest calamities; because, tho’ we foresaw their approach, we should not be provided by nature with any principle of action, which might impel us to avoid them. On the other hand, did every idea influence our actions, our condition would not be much mended. For such is the unsteadiness and activity of thought, that the images of every thing, especially of goods and evils, are always wandering in the mind; and were it mov’d by every idle conception of this kind, it would never enjoy a moment’s peace and tranquillity.

Nature has, therefore, chosen a medium, and has neither bestow’d on every idea of good and evil the power of actuating the will, nor yet has entirely excluded them from this influence. Tho’ an idle fiction has no efficacy, yet we find by experience, that the ideas of those objects, which we believe either are or will be existent, produce in a lesser degree the same effect with those impressions, which are immediately present to the senses and perception. The effect, then, of belief is to raise up a simple idea to an equality with our impressions, and bestow on it a like influence on the passions. (T 118-19)

Were we moved to action only by sense impressions and memories, we could not make inferences to future events and thus could not make plans to avoid prospective pain or to enjoy prospective pleasure. Were we moved to action by every idea of pain or pleasure, we would not pursue a coherent plan of action over time, since our mental activity is unsteady, our ideas ~ a n d e r . ~ ’ Nature therefore provides a medium between these two extremes, so that some-but not all-ideas influence the will and action. These ideas are beliefs, nature’s provision for a steady influence on the will, and hence on action.

Hume’s conception of the natural function of belief helps to explain the importance he attaches to the distinction between establishing that belief is

Winters also draws on T 118-19 to make this point (1981, pp. 640-41).

INTEGRATING HUME’S ACCOUNTS OF BELIEF AND JUSTIFICATION 29 1

justified, other things being equal, and establishing that belief is justified, all things considered. As we shall see below, this distinction is critical to understanding the relationship between Hume’s favorable attitude toward beliefs based on causal inference in Part iii and his negative or pessimistic assess- ment of these beliefs in I.iv.7. Any belief is steady in its influence on thought, the passions, and action in the sense that it is infixed or steady in virtue of the mechanism that produces it. It does not follow that the belief is steady in its influence, all things considered. A belief might fail to be steady in its influence owing to the presence of beliefs with which it conflicts, beliefs which reduce the likelihood of the occurrence of its characteristic manifestations or its typical effects-which reduce its influence on the will and action. In Hume’s view, the point of a distinction between establishing that belief is justified, other things being equal, and establishing that belief is justified, all things considered, is to call attention to the kinds of circumstances in which belief, a steady disposition, might nevertheless be unsteady in its effects. The “other things being equal” qualification is thus cashed out substantively, with reference to conditions in which states are infixed, but nevertheless unsteady in their influence due to the operation of other mechanisms. Hume’s concern is with circumstances that undermine the natural function of belief. Hereafter, I use the term ‘stable’ as a shorthand for “steady in its influence on thought, passions, and action.”

There are two principal ways in which a belief, though steady in that it is infixed, could be unstable, unsteady in its influence. First, a belief might be unstable owing to the presence of a contradictory belief. In I.iv.2, “Of skepticism with regard to the senses,” Hume discusses two related sets of contradictory beliefs. Hume characterizes “contradiction” as an “opposition” or “combat” (T 205-6); “contradiction” involves “struggle and opposition” between “two enemies” (T 215), in an effort to “destroy” (T 215) one another.32 The language of psychological conflict is not merely metaphorical or figurative; the conflicts have identifiable effects. Hume writes: “not being able to reconcile these two enemies, we endeavour to set ourselves at ease as much as possible, by successively granting to each whatever it demands” (T 215). In holding contradictory beliefs, we are conflicted at the level of our underlying disposition^.^^ We might imagine that contradictory beliefs cancel each other out, or that they are locked in an ongoing stand-off for influence. Hume maintains, to the contrary, that contradictory beliefs typically alternate in their influence, with one combatant, then the other, temporarily gaining

’* 33

For additional detail, see my 199 I , esp. pp. 248-53. In my 2001, I argue that Hume seeks to ground an account of conceptual confusion or “quasi-content” in the propensities that give rise to such conflicts.

292 LOUIS E. LOEB

the ~ p p e r - h a n d . ~ ~ These dispositions are infixed and steady, bu t -owing to the presence of the opposing belief-neither is stable.

There is a second kind of case in which a belief might be unstable owing to the presence of beliefs with which it conflicts. The influence of a belief might be undermined by the presence of second-order beliefs that one takes to call into question whether a first-order belief is true. An example would be a belief system that includes contradictory beliefs and also the second-order belief that one believes this contradiction. To take another example, suppose one believes that p and also holds the second-order belief that p results from a belief-forming mechanism that is unreliable, leading to false beliefs more often than not. In these and related instances, one takes one’s second-order beliefs to indicate either that some of one’s beliefs are not true, or not likely to be true. Hume, I suggest, holds that reflection on such second-order beliefs unsettles the first-order beliefs that are called into question, so that one is less inclined to maintain them. The first-order beliefs remain sufficiently infixed to constitute belief, but are like a steady performer who becomes shaken or rattled, or suffers a loss of confidence. To say that the second-order belief “unsettles” the first order belief is to say that it unsteadies it-in the sense that its steadiness is somewhat reduced.35 The unsettled belief, though infixed and steady, is less likely to produce its typical effects, less likely to influence the will and action.

Part iv of Book I contains a number of case studies of reflections that call into question the truth of one’s beliefs. Here I have in view considerations Hume raises in I.iv.1 and I.iv.4, and elaborates in I.iv.7. Hume writes in the final paragraph of I.iv.4, “Of the modern philosophy”: “there is a direct and total opposition betwixt our reason and our senses; or more properly speaking, betwixt those conclusions we form from cause and effect, and those that persuade us of the continu’d and independent existence of body” (T 231). Hume claims that the senses lead us to believe that matter has a continued and independent existence and that causal reasoning shows that this belief is false. Hume appeals to this contradiction between the senses and causal reasoning in I.iv.7:

‘Tis this principle [the imagination, or the vivacity of ideas], which makes us reason from causes and effects; and ‘tis the same principle, which convinces us of the continu’d existence of external objects, when absent from the senses. But tho’ these two operations be equally

34 Baier claims that for Hume contradictions and “contrariety in beliefs is . . . essentially a matter of threat of mutual destructiveness” (1982. p. 645; cf. 644-47). (There are traces of this position in her 1991, pp. 6-20.) Hume defines “contrariety” as a relation of ideas which is “discoverable at first sight” (T 70) and “susceptible of certainty and demonstra- tion” (T 463). At the same time, Baier is on the right track; Hume’s real interest is in “a more dynamic conception of destructive psychological force” (1982, p. 645). Here I prefer ‘unsettle’ to ‘unsteady’, because the latter admits an alternative reading, such that to “unsteady” a belief is to render it not steady, sufficiently unsteady that it no longer constitutes belief.

3s


natural and necessary in the human mind, yet in some circumstances they are ‘directly contrary.. . . (T 266)

Hume’s footnote is to I.iv.4. The passage continues: “How then shall we adjust those principles together? Which of them shall we prefer?” (T 266). What Hume describes here, in part, is the cycle of alternating influence that can occur in the presence of contradictory beliefs. There is, moreover, an additional source of instability once a contradiction is recognized. Reflecting on the contradiction, we have a need to “adjust those principles together”; we are disposed to adjust our principles or beliefs. In these circumstances, the first- order beliefs are themselves unsettled. Though these beliefs are steady in that they are infixed, when one considers the contradiction one is less inclined to maintain them. This unsettles the dispositions in question.

In I.iv. 1, “Of skepticism with regard to reason,” Hume also introduces a consideration that calls into question the truth of one’s beliefs. Indeed, he claims to identify a systemic source of instability. Hume argues that “all knowledge,” even demonstrative knowledge, “degenerates into probability” (T 180). “Probability” is “that evidence, which we employ in common life” (TI 8 l) , evidence based on causal inference. Hume argues that judgments of probability are subject to correction in light of the fallibility of judgment; that this correction takes the form of a reduction in the estimate of probability; and that the new judgment of probability is itself subject to correction and reduction, ad infiniturn. The result of such a series of reductions, he claims, would be “a total extinction of belief and evidence” (T 183); it would “at last reduce [the original evidence] to nothing” (T 1 84).36

Hume takes up this material in I.iv.7. At page 267, he frames “a very dangerous dilemma.” We can rely on the understandingdemonstrative and causal inference-alone, subjecting probability judgments to repeated corrections. Or we can rely on the understanding together with “seemingly trivial” (T 268) properties. Hume writes of the first alternative: “I have already shewn,’ that the understanding, when it acts alone,. . .entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of evidence in any proposition.. . .” (T 267). Hume’s footnote is to I.iv. 1 .37 If, however, we admit the trivial propensities,

36 Owen contends that Hume’s “concern is not about justification, but about truth’’ (1999. p. 189). On most any account of justification, there is some connection between justification and truth. This observation also bears on Garrett’s position that the line of development at 1.iv.l and pages 267-68 of l.iv.7 unfolds entirely within cognitive psychology, rather than nonnative epistemology (cf. 1997. pp. 222-27). The corrections are for the likelihood of “error” (T 180, 182) in light of “our fallible ... faculties” (T 180). For related criticism of Garrett, see Fogelin, 1998, p. 168. There is the suggestion in Liv. 1 that the argument that probability reduces to nothing is directed at non-Humean conceptions of belief “If belief, therefore, were a simple act of the thought, without any peculiar manner of conception, or the addition of a force and vivacity, it must infallibly destroy itself ...” (T 184). This suggestion is canceled, twice over. In the first place. Hume writes in the next paragraph: “But here, perhaps, it may be

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we embrace “manifest absurdities” (T 268). Recognizing this dilemma- much as in the case of noticing a contradiction-we have a need to adjust our faculties and beliefs: “What party, then, shall we choose among these difficul- ties?’ (T 268). And much as Hume cannot find a way to revise his beliefs when he attends to the contradiction between the senses and causal inference, he writes of the present dilemma: “For my part, I know not what ought to be done in the present case” (T 268).

As it stands, the dilemma is artificial. It is not open to us to adhere to the understanding alone. The extinction of belief depends upon the assumption that the principles by which we correct probability judgments are “apply’d to every new reflex judgment” (T 184). It is only when adherence to the understanding is “steadily executed” (T 267) that belief is extinguished. Hume has argued that repeated corrections of probability judgments “becomes forc’d and unnatural” (T 185); “The attention is on the stretch: The posture of the mind is uneasy ....” (T 185) and “we enter with difficulty into remote views of things ....” (T 268). Though we might “take a resolution” to adhere to the understanding alone, this is not a resolution we could keep. The extinction of belief depends on a series of corrections and reductions that does not take place.

Hume’s point, I suggest, is that the considerations in I.iv.1 generate the second-order belief that were we to subject judgments of probability to repeated corrections, the probability of the original judgment would reduce to nothing. This second-order belief calls into question the truth of probability judgments and thereby unsettles them. When one considers that a series of corrections would reduce to nothing the probability that first-order beliefs are true, one is less inclined to maintain one’s current probability judgments. As we have seen, the second-order belief that we hold contradictory beliefs, based on the senses and causal inference, about the existence of matter also unsettles belief. In sum, I.iv.7 may be read as calling attention to the unsettling effects of some second-order beliefs which call into question the truth of other beliefs one holds.

Hume takes the instabilities that emerge in I.iv.7 to bear negatively on the justificatory status of the beliefs that are unsettled. He discusses the unsettling effects of considerations introduced earlier in Part iv at pages 265- 68 of I.iv.7. At page 268, Hume writes: “I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning ... .” Hume cannot mean that he is ready to suspend all belief; some beliefs are irresistible (T 31, 225; c$ 128). He means that he is ready to reject all belief as unjustified. Similarly, he writes that he “can look upon no opin-

demanded, how it happens, even upon my hypothesis [that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures], that these arguments above- explain’d produce not a total suspense of judgment ....” (T 184). In the second place, at Treutise 267 Hume appeals to 1.k. I to support a general result about the subversion of belief. Cf. Lynch, 1996, 5 11, esp. pp. 100-101, and Owen, 1999, p. 198.

IhTEGRAllh’G HUME’S ACCOUNTS OF BELIEF AND JUSTIFICATION 295

ion even as more probable or likely than another” (T 268-69). Thus we find in Hume the judgment that no belief, not even belief based on causal inference, is justified. The considerations that lead Hume to this result are ones that call into question the truth of his beliefs, thereby unsettling them. This reduces the steadiness in influence these beliefs would otherwise have, in virtue of being infixed, and thus undermines the natural function of belief, at least for the reflective person. This is. at least, one reading of I.iv.7, Hume’s difficult “Conclusion of this book.”

A stability-based interpretation provides a fruitful account of the relationship between Parts iii and iv of Book I. I have argued earlier that the interpretation explains why the claims that causal inference results in belief and that causal inference is justified are entwined in I.iii.9 and neighboring sections. Whereas Hume registers epistemic approval of causal inference throughout Part iii, in I.iv.7 he is “ready to reject all belief and reasoning.” Whereas Hume provides an extended account of “the several degrees of evidence” (T 124; cf: 153-54) in I.iii.11-13, in I.iv.7 he “can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.” Hume’s destructive conclusions in I.iv.7 represent a complete reversal in his attitude toward causal inference in comparison to Part iii of Book I.3n To establish-as Hume does in Part iii- that states are beliefs, and hence steady in their influence in that they are infixed, is to establish that they are justified, other things being equal. To establish-as Hume does in Part iv-that beliefs are unstable, is to establish that they are not justified, all things considered. Hume’s readiness to reject all belief as unjustified emerges in light of his claim that beliefs based on causal inference are unstable. My interpretation thus accommodates the destructive conclusions in Part iv as well as explaining the favorable results of Part iii.

4. Two Versions of a Stability-based Interpretation. There is, however, an ambiguity in my account of the relationship between Part iii and Part iv. I have said that the instabilities that emerge in I.iv.7 “bear negatively” on the justificatory status of beliefs based on causal inference. Would Hume want to say that belief based on causal inference is never justified because it is susceptible to the instabilities he identifies in Part iv? Or might beliefs based on causal inference be justified, even though susceptible to these instabilities, provided they are not in fact infected by them?

These questions are closely related to an ambiguity in my distinction between establishing that a belief is justified, other things being equal, and establishing that a belief is justified, all things considered. Let us say that a person who searches for contradictions among beliefs, examines the reliabil-

~

3R Cf. Passmore, 1952/1968, pp. 54-64 and 99-101; Immerwahr. 1977; Broughton, 1983, esp. !?!? 3 and 5; Schmitt, 1992, ch. 111; Millican. 1995. p. 134; and Loeb, 1995a. $2. For a different account of developments in Part iv, see Baier, 1991, pp. 4-8, 12. and 284-85. 1 discuss Baier’s position in my 1994.

296 LOUIS E. LOEB

ity of belief-forming mechanisms in producing true beliefs, considers the results of methodical application of the cognitive faculties, and so forth, is “(fully) reflective.” There are degrees of reflectiveness. For present purposes, i t will suffice to group together persons who are not fully reflective as “unreflective.” With this classification in hand, we can explain the ambiguity I have in mind.

On one interpretation, a belief is justified, all things considered, i f it would be steady in its influence even within the belief system o f a reflective person, that is, when fully examined in the ways I have characterized. To say that a belief is justified, other things being equal, is to say that for all that hus been shown the belief would be steady in its influence for a reflective person. On this interpretation, to establish that a state is a belief is to cstab- lish-other-things-being-equal, to establish provisionally, that i t is justified. Any gap between establishing justification “other things being equal” and establishing justification “all things considered” is a gap in our knowledge of what a reflective person’s belief system would be like.

On the second interpretation, a belief is justified, all things considered, if i t is steady in its influence within the belief system ofrhe person who holds the heliej given the degree to which the person who holds the belief is reflective. To say that a belief is justified, other things being equal, is to say that it is steady, infixed by the senscs, memory, or repetition. Such a belief might nevertheless be unsteady i n its influence, all things considered, within the belief system of the person who holds the belief, owing to the presence of other beliefs with which it conflicts. On this interpretation, to establish that a state is a belief is to establish that it is justified-other-things-being-equal. Any gap between establishing justification “other things being equal” and establishing justification “all things considered” is a gap between the steadiness that accrues to any belief and the steadiness in its influence of a belief that does not contlict with other beliefs one holds.

In light of Hume’s conclusions in I.iv.7, the two versions of a stability- based interpretation diverge in their epistemic assessments of the unreflective person. On the first version, the stable beliefs of an unreflective person are unjustified because they would be unsteady in their influence within the belief system of a reflective person. On the second version, the stable beliefs of the unreflective person are justified because, given the degree to which the person is reflective, they are steady in their influence; it is the reflective person who is in the grip of instability.

Both versions assign a crucial role to considerations of stability; they r in what that role is. On the second version, justification depends on

whether a belief is stable within the actual belief system of the person who holds the belief. This version imposes a requirement of actual or de facto stability. On the first version, justification depends on whether a belief would be stable within the belief system of a reflective person. This requirement of

INTEGRATING HUME’S ACCOUNTS OF BELIEF A N D JUSTIFICATION 297

stability under reflection is more demanding or stringent than that of stability in one’s actual belief system.3y

It might be helpful to consider the character of the second version of Hume’s theory of justification, where the requirement for justification is stability within a person’s actual belief system. According to this version, to say that a belief is justified, other things being equal, is to say that it is stable, steady in its influence, simply in virtue of being infixed, simply in virtue of being a belief. This amounts to saying that it is an intrinsic property of beliefs, a property they automatically have in virtue of being beliefs, that they are justified. This thesis is characteristic of a “negative coherence theory” of justification.4’ In a “positive” coherence theory, beliefs are justified only if they cohere with other beliefs. Coherence is required to make a positive contribution to justification, or else there would be no justification at all. In a “negative” coherence theory, one is automatically justified in any belief one holds. This justification is prima facie or defeasible. Considera- tions of coherence function negatively, in that incoherence can undermine or defeat this automatic justification. The requirement of defacto stability yields a version of a negative coherence theory, with Hume identifying “incoherence” with sets of beliefs that conflict in the sense of reducing the influence of beliefs that are otherwise steady!’

A standing difficulty for negative coherence theories is to explain how one’s beliefs can be automatically justified, how justification, even prima facie or defeasible justification, can be an intrinsic property of belief. A negative coherence theory seems committed to some kind of “self-justification” for every belief, and at the same time deprived of such foundationalist resources as incorrigibility that might be thought to provide a source of self- justification. Hume has something to offer here: beliefs are automatically or intrinsically justified because they are a steady influence on the will and

3y Reflexive approval interpretations take Hume to identify a normative mental operation or faculty with one that bears self-scrutiny, or that delivers a positive judgment when it reflects upon itself. See Korsgaard, 1989; Baier, 1991, pp. 15. 55, 58, 93, 97, 99-100, 196-97, 277, 282, and 284-85; and Korsgaard, 1996. pp. 60-65. These interpretations identify normativity with the capacity to survive reflective scrutiny (cf. Korsgaard, 1989, Part One, and Baier, p. 99). The first version of a stability-based interpretation has affinities with these interpretations. The second version, however, allows that an unreflective person holds beliefs that are justified though they would not survive self-scrutiny or reflection; it is therefore not an instance of a reflexive approval view. I have in view John Pollock’s distinction between “negative” and “positive” coherence theories (1979, esp. 5 IV, pp. 105-1 I . and 1986, esp. pp. 72-73 and 83-87). Elsewhere, I develop an interpretation where a belief‘s justification depends, not upon its own stability, but rather upon the tendency of the mechanism that causes it to produce stability in belief (forthcoming, ch. Il l ) . Elaborated in this way, Hume’s position does not imply that beliefs are justified, other things being equal, simply in virtue of being beliefs. Rather, it implies that those beliefs that result,from psychological mechanisms that tend to produce beliefs are automatically justified. I am indebted to Frederick Schmitt for helping me distinguish the implications of the two developments of my position.

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action-absent other beliefs that reduce that influence-simply in virtue of being beliefs. If justification, all things considered, is a matter of steady influence, then beliefs are automatically justified, other things being equal.

The two versions of the stability-based theory lead to different understandings of the relationship between Parts iii and iv of Book I of the Treatise. Let us begin with the first and more demanding version, which requires stability under reflection. On this interpretation, when Hume registers epistemic approval of beliefs based on causal inference in Part i i i , he is claiming that, so far as he has examined causal inference, he has not uncovered any considerations to suggest that beliefs based on causal influence would be unstable if subjected to greater reflection. The only considerations in play in Hume’s discussion of the nature and causes of belief are ones that relate to custom or habit, the mechanism that produces and infixes the dispositions that arise from causal inference. Indeed, as of I i i . 10, Hume has not fully scrutinized custom or repetition itself; in I.iii. 12, he introduces a distinction between “imperfect” (T 131) and “perfect” (134, 135) habits. What is more, as of the close of Part iii, Hume has not considered either methodical application of causal inference, or the belief in body, or the relationship between causal inference and the senses, and so forth.

Hume defers such questions to Part iv. In I.iv.7, he appeals to the instabilities located in 1.iv.l and I.iv.4 in route to his destructive conclusions about justified belief. Thus, an interpretation on which Hume holds the first and more demanding theory provides a natural reading of the recurrent claim in Part iii that causal inference is justified. This is a provisional judgment; for all Hume has shown at that stage, beliefs based on causal inference are stable-so far, so good. Once the considerations advanced in I.iv.7 are in view, this provisional judgment is withdrawn in favor of the “all things considered” judgment that belief based on causal inference is ~ n j u s t i f i e d . ~ ~ Such belief is unjustified because it would be unstable for a reflective person. This is a reading of the relationship between Parts iii and iv from the perspective of an interpretation that ascribes to Hume the requirement of stability under reflection.

The interpretation that attributes to Hume the less demanding theory can also take on board the developments in Part iv that I have reviewed. If Hume’s requirement is stability in one’s actual belief system, we can think of his discussion of the two systems of realities-based on the senses, memory, and custom-as exhibiting a specimen belief system someone might hold. The beliefs it contains are automatically justified, other things being equal, simply in virtue of bcing beliefs. Given that the subject does not engage in

42 There are further developments in I.iv.7, beyond pages 268-69. I believe the main out- come is to exhibit additional instability. in that once someone has entered into the reflections of I.iv.7, he will oscillate between periods in which his beliefs are unsettled by reflection and those in which they are not.

INTEGRATING HUME’S ACCOUNTS O F BELIEF AND JUSTIFICATION 299

the sorts of reflections characteristic of Part iv, there is no tendency to incoherence or instability that would undermine the prima facie or defeasible justification within this belief system, so that the beliefs it contains are also justified, all things considered.

This is very different from the upshot of attributing to Hume the more demanding theory. If justification requires stability under reflection, beliefs based on the senses, memory, and causal inference are-as of Part iii-merely justified for all that has been shown. Since instabilities would emerge upon reflection, the beliefs are not justified, all things considered. On the less demanding reading, if there is no instability in the specimen belief system, all the considerations relevant to that person’s belief system have been taken into account; the other things being equal condition is satisfied, and the person has justified belief, all things considered.

Hume’s position, I have argued, is that to establish that a state is a belief, and hence steady, is sufficient to establish that it is justified, other things being equal. There are two versions of this interpretive thesis. Both afford a natural resolution of the original puzzle-to explain why the claim that causal inference is justified arises in tandem with the claim that causal inference results in belief. On the more demanding reading, to establish that the products of causal inference are beliefs, and hence steady in that they are infixed, is to establish that they would be steady in a reflective person’s belief system, for all that has been shown; the claim in Part iii that causal inference is justified is provisional. On the less demanding reading, to establish that the products of causal inference are beliefs, and hence steady in that they are infixed, is to establish that these beliefs are justified, other things being

I believe one must adopt one or the other of these interpretations- interpretations that link justification to stability-in order to explain the textual phenomena in Part iii.44

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ardal, PA11 S . (1966/1989), Passion and Value in Hume’s Treatise, Edin-

burgh University Press: Edinburgh.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ ~

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44

1 defer consideration of evidence that Hume favors one of the two theories over the other. See my forthcoming book, esp. ch. 111. I have been fortunate to have colleagues who have generously provided invaluable comments on my work: David Hills over the course of nearly my entire career beginning in graduate school, David Velleman for two decades at Michigan, and in more recent years Jim Joyce. This paper owes much to them. I also thank participants in the 1999 Hume Society Conference and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. I completed this paper while enjoying a year as a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Modem Philosophy. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I am grateful to the Center and the University of Massachusetts Department of Philosophy for gracious support and to the University of Michigan for sabbatical leave.

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integrating hume's accounts of belief and justification

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