Groups versus individuals in Hume's political economy

Monist, The, April, 2007 by Margaret Schabas

   So great is the force of laws, and of particular forms of
   government, and so little dependence have they on the humours and
   tempers of men, that consequences almost as general and certain may
   sometimes be deduced from them, as any which the mathematical
   sciences afford us. (Hume: "That Politics May Be Reduced to a
   Science").

David Hume fits easily within the tradition of British liberalism that runs from Locke, if not Hobbes, up to Mill. While it is hard to provide a short definition of this set of ideas, it is fair to say that two resilient elements are the emphasis on individual liberty and the diminution of the state. For Locke and for Mill there exist certain individual rights that the government ought not to transgress, or to do so only if expedient under the law. Because Hume was also a spokesman for liberty (though less for rights) it would be easy to assume, too, that the individual is the central analytical category in his political economy, and that he thereby fits into the tradition of methodological individualism that has come to be so central to mainstream economic theory of the modern era. This assumption, however, would be misplaced. While there are individuals for Hume (he is no Durkheimian), they do not serve a pronounced role in his economic analysis and thinking. Rather, it is as members of a group, such as merchants or weavers, that economic relationships unfold and evolve. Useful here is John Davis's category of a socially-embedded individual (see Davis 2003, ch. 1). In short, groups, not individuals, are the main analytical category in Hume's political economy.

David Gauthier (1979) has argued that Hume was an implicit contractarian, but few have been persuaded. Among the skeptics is Christopher Berry (2003), who underscores Hume's rejection of state-of-nature doctrines. Hume not only mocks the very existence of such contracts, but maintains that political rule is born in violence, not consent (see Hume 1985, "Of the Original Contract"). However, Hume is also no Hobesian, precisely because the passions between the sexes generate kinship and friendship that in turn induce civility. (1) We have a strong "propensity to company and society" which "makes us enter deeply into each other's sentiments, and causes like passions and inclinations to run, as it were, by contagion, through the whole club or knot of companions" (Hume 1985, 202). As a result, Hume leans toward what has come to be known as the law of large numbers, insofar as he contrasts the inferences that may be drawn regarding the actions of the multitude. "What depends upon a few persons is, in a great measure, to be ascribed to chance or secret and unknown causes: What arises from a great number, may often be accounted for by determinate and known causes" (Hume 1985, 112). Humankind is more like a mob than a collection of autonomous individuals. (2)

Hume also moved away from Locke by insisting that so little of what we do is governed by reason. Our sociability derives more from instinct and appetite. James Dunbar, a contemporary of Hume's, put it succinctly when he observed that "humans are sociable long before they are rational" (see Berry 2003, 243). Moreover, when it comes to rationality, man is much more like an ape than an angel. "Man falls much more short of perfect wisdom, ... than animals do of man" (Hume 1985, 83). Indeed, Hume was one of the first to suggest that humans and animals think alike, that we both form our beliefs through repeated trials or a process of experimental reasoning. Even our basic belief in causation is formed by custom, which in turn is but a "species of instinct." The very linchpins of habit and custom that enable us to form inductive knowledge of the world (and for Hume there is no other) are part and parcel of our lives as linguistic and social beings. As Hume observes numerous times, the regularity and uniformity of daily experiences that stem from social practices provide the raw material that in rum guides us toward the formation of trustworthy beliefs.

We are by nature conservative creatures, prone to tradition and the replication of custom. As Hume reminds us, we are not like silkworms or butterflies, eradicating ourselves entirely with each generation. Rather, the sequential process by which we breed means that each "new brood should conform themselves to he established constitution, and nearly follow the path which their fathers, treading in the footsteps of theirs, had marked out to them" (Hume 1985, 476-67). As a result, Hume diminishes the importance of individual actors on the historical stage. Great men--Hume cites Henry VIII and Charles I--make no "violent innovations" (ibid). Where it appears that one man brought about a revolution, closer inquiry reveals concomitant shifts in the institutions. And these are always gradual. Again and again Hume reminds us of our insignificance and impotency for genuine change, whether vis-a-vis other animals, or in the context of the stars above. (3) He also, in a number of places, suggests that there are cyclical patterns to the long duree of history. For example, we are prone to repeat the same mistakes; "Mankind are, in all ages, caught by the same baits: The same tricks, played over and over again, still trepan them" (Hume 1985, 363).