David Hume is best known for his critical discussion of causal, i.e. inductive, reasoning. He argues that what we call “reasoning” here is actually nothing other than a psychological disposition to anticipate events together that we have frequently experienced as associated. That is, if we have frequently seen B to follow A, we will expect to see B when we see A in the future. His point is that this is not reasoning at all, merely conditioned response; and it is not reasoning simply because there is no defense or justification possible for the expectation.
Hume is of the view that our capacity for being conditioned is not only a survival mechanism, it is far superior to “reasoning” for that purpose. It is more reliable and it is far faster. Today, I would make his point by reference to athletic performance. Responding to a serve in squash is far more successful if one doesn’t “think” the response, but allows one’s purely conditioned reaction to take place. While Hume did not appeal to any notion of “natural selection,” he did think in terms of the utility for survival of biological characteristics. In this sense, he had a pre-Darwinian notion of evolution.
Our natural conditioned responses apply to what we sometimes call “predictions” (they turn into “anticipations” or “expectations” or “beliefs about the future”), but they also apply to “retrodictions” (beliefs about what happened in the past). In both cases, the apparent purpose of the psychological mechanism is to allow us to use the experience we have already had as a guide for what we could expect, were we in a new situation, say in the future or in the past.
This anticipation mechanism, however, is far from perfect. If it were perfect, we should expect that we would only form beliefs that had been reinforced by earlier experiences. There is, though, one glaring example that this is not the case, and Hume was well aware of this. The glaring example is that of the belief in miracles. It is undeniable that some people believe that events took place in the past that are incompatible with all of our experience. For example, some people believe that once in history a man rose from the dead. Today, of course, we do think that this is possible, what with resuscitation and all, but in Hume’s day this was taken to be an event incompatible with the laws of nature. The “laws of nature” record, as it were, regularities in human experience that have had no exceptions. Thus, if Hume’s theory of learning and causal “reasoning” were true, it should actually be psychologically impossible to believe in miracles. But people do believe in miracles.
Clearly, Hume has to amend or elaborate his theory, and he does, though not in a very convincing way. This is what he writes:
93. Secondly. We may observe in human nature a principle which, if strictly examined, will be found to diminish extremely the assurance, which we might, from human testimony, have, in any kind of prodigy [extraordinary event]. The maxim, by which we commonly conduct ourselves in our reasonings, is, that the objects, of which we have no experience, resemble those, of which we have; that what we have found to be most usual is always most probable; and that where there is an opposition of arguments, we ought to give the preference to such as are founded on the greatest number of past observations. But though, in proceeding by this rule, we readily reject any fact which is unusual and incredible in an ordinary degree; yet in advancing farther, the mind observes not always the same rule; but when anything is affirmed utterly absurd and miraculous, it rather the more readily admits of such a fact, upon account of that very circumstance, which ought to destroy all its authority. The passion [emotion] of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency [inclination] towards the belief of those events, from which it is derived. And this goes so far, that even those who cannot enjoy this pleasure immediately, nor can believe those miraculous events, of which they are informed, yet love to partake of the satisfaction at second-hand or by rebound, and place a pride and delight in exciting the admiration of others. (David Hume, EHU; bracketed insert my own, as well as italicization)
Miracle-belief takes place this way: as our experience of an event diminishes, all other things being equal, our expectation of it also diminishes; this rule holds all the way to virtually no experience at all, where our belief is also virtually non-existent; however, at precisely the point where we have no experience at all, for some people their belief suddenly shoots to the very maximum. In other words, they believe most, when prior conditioning is totally absent.
Now, while I am skeptical about Hume’s explanation of this phenomenon, there is no doubt at all that it exists. We still see it exemplified today in the belief in religious miracles, but interestingly also in a secular analogue. Modern “progressive” or “liberal” thought continues to believe that governmental actions and governmental institutions can successfully intervene in human affairs to the benefit of the governed.
All of history testifies to the falsity of this belief, and yet an ever increasing population continues to cling to it. For only a few examples in our own day, consider just the following:
1)
2) The
3)
4) Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac – bankruptcy;
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6) Congressional handling of tax resources – filled with pork, fraud, careless disbursal, waste, and use for political purposes.
Similar charges can be laid at the door of the Canadian system, but I add only the astonishingly stupid and useless boondoggle of the “gun registry.”
Following Hume’s line of thought, we might ask ourselves “How does this happen? What is the mechanism?”
I suspect that the answer is simpler and more general than the one given by Hume. Using his language, I suspect that “the passions” in general are simply more powerful determinants of belief than prior experience.
It seems, in fact, to be as if even the slightest evidence still fetters our belief to ground, but on the final dissolution of that tiny fragment, the gravity of reason disappears and belief "slips the surly bonds of earth and lets us touch the face of God." Yes, it is faith precisely that appears when the conditioning of past experience fails, but it is not the simple absence of grounds that is necessary, it is also the wish that the thing be true. And what this highlights is that faith is not restricted to traditional religion, it is present wherever the emotions dictate belief, rather than prior experience. It is present in hope-based political thinking, but it is also present in the burgeoning religion of "the planet." After millenia, we are back to animistic nature-worship. As we try to negotiate our way through history, hope-based belief and experience-based belief wage an unending competition and, as Wittgenstein quoted Nestroy, progress is always smaller than it appears.
In short, we believe what we want to believe. Yes, in some cases, we believe because of the pleasure we get from the thought of the extraordinary being real; but, equally, we often believe simply because we prefer a world in which the belief is true. Thus, Obama may actually believe that he can talk his way out of the Iranian and North Korean threat simply because he hates a world in which he can’t.
For many people, the wish is father to the belief. There probably isn’t more to it than that.
Simplicius, a great post as always. I would argue that the over-arching miracle in the new religion, is the belief 1) that humans can exist primarly for the benefit of others whom they do not know, rather than for themselves; 2) That man was intended to be equal in a substantive sense, and that material inequalities are demonstrative of some secular equivalent to a "fall from grace". Both of these fundamental beliefs have a plethora of historical data to suggest that they are full of crap. But the religious continue to propogate them.
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