Hume as a Social Theorist

8/11/2019 Hume as a Social Theorist

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David Hume as aSocial Theorist

B R I A N B A R R Y

London School of Economics

This article examines Russell Hardins interpretation of Humes argument that greatsocial order depends on coordination convention. The main argument shows that despitean apparent move in that direction Humes main argument is that justice and the otherconvention-based virtues rest on a cooperative convention which solves a prisonersdilemma problem and that states are required when a society exceeds some smallsize because only states can solve the large number prisoners dilemma problems that

constitute the problem of social order. In this Humes argument is indebted to theoriginal form of this argument found in Hobbess Leviathan.

I. HUME AND HOBBES

Russell Hardin is a man with a mission. In his book on Hume, he

seeks to convince us that Hume was an acute and profound social and

political theorist or proto-social scientist, in the face of what he takes

to be widespread scepticism about Humes credentials on this score, as

represented by Barry Strouds assertion that, if Humes contributions

are to be judged as part of the empirical science of man, they will

appear ludicrously inadequate and there will be no reason to take him

seriously.1 My primary objective here is to assess Hardins claim for

the originality and fecundity of Humes ideas, especially in relation to

what Hardin calls the problem of social order. According to Hardin,

Humes solution to this problem, which rests on convention and slow

evolution. . . fails to convince many people, in many cases perhaps

because they have not understood the analysis of convention.2 I shall

suggest, however, that Hume has to bear part of the responsibility

for the difficulties readers have found in understanding him because

he employed two sharply different accounts of convention without

distinguishing between them. Of these two, Hardin attributes one

to Hume and claims that is the correct one for the explanation of

This article began as a review of Russell Hardins David Hume: Moral and PoliticalTheorist (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007) but soon developed into a much longer paper.

Although the paper retains its basis in a discussion of Hardins interpretation of Hume,it is clear that Barry chose to respond to Hardin with his own reinterpretation of Hume

along Hobbesian lines. I have therefore chosen to present the paper as a freestandingarticle. The paper was refereed and accepted in late 2008. Brian Barry died in March2009.

1 B. Stroud,Hume(London, 1977), p. 223.2 R. Hardin,David Hume: Moral and Political Theorist (Oxford, 2007), p. 214.

Cambridge University Press 2010 UtilitasVol. 22, No. 4, December 2010

doi:10.1017/S0953820810000300


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370 Brian Barry

social order. I shall defend the view that the other is the one that

was predominantly held by Hume and is also the right answer.

With regard to originality, Hardin concedes that Hume has many

often striking affinities to Hobbes,3 and cites Hobbes as Humes only

precursor in the analysis of social order.4 But I believe that Humesoriginality is greatly overstated by Hardin, at the expense of Hobbes.

The problem of social order is how to create and maintain a peaceful and

productive society, with stable possession of property and high levels

of obedience to government. There are, Hardin says, three possible

solutions. The first two are: (1) draconian force, as represented by

Hobbes, [and] (2) shared values, as represented by many moral sense

theorists in Humes time, many religious philosophers, Talcott Parsons,

and contemporary communitarians.5 Hardin does not name names,

but Michael Walzer and David Miller would seem to fit the bill. Sowould Rawls: the well-ordered society ofA Theory of Justice is one in

which everyone accepts and knows others accept the same principles of

justice,6 and the later overlapping consensus still requires agreement

on the principles, driven by a shared sense of the value of the political.7

The third solution is coordination on order as mutually beneficial even

for people whose values may be widely varied, which was Humes

unique invention.8 I shall devote the next section to this interpretation

of Hume. Before that, I want to make a few remarks about Hobbess

solution to the problem of order and the relation between Hobbes andHume.

I believe that it is a travesty to identify Hobbes with a position

in which social order depends solely on draconian force. Hume

undeniably said that as FORCE is always on the side of the governed,

the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is on

opinion only that government is founded.9 But Hobbes was equally

aware of the fragility of political power and for that reason devoted

half ofLeviathan the third and fourth of its four parts to refuting

religious ideas inimical to the authority of an absolute sovereign. If[the sovereign] give away the government of Doctrines, men will be

frighted into rebellion with the feare of Spirits.10 The sovereign also

needs control over political doctrines, as is shown by the way in which

3 Hardin,David Hume, p. 213.4 Hardin,David Hume, p. 215.5 Hardin,David Hume, p. 105.6 J. Rawls,A Theory of Justice (Oxford, 1971), p. 454.7 J. Rawls,Political Liberalism(New York, 1993), pp. 13372.8 Hardin,David Hume, p. 105.9 D. Hume, Of the First Principles of Government, Essays: Moral, Political and

Literary,rev. edn., ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis [1777] 1987), p. 32.10 T. Hobbes,Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge, 1991), p. 127.


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David Hume as a Social Theorist 371

the widespread belief that power could be divided between king, lords

and commons contributed to the Civil War. Except the vulgar be better

taught than they have hitherto been, belief in the division of powers,

with its destructive effects, will resurface whenever the lessons of the

last breakdown of order (such as the Civil War) have been forgotten.11Again, Hume certainly says that the stability of government rests

heavily on the shared belief among the subjects that it has a right

to power.12 But Hobbes matches this by saying that the power of

the sovereign rests (where it is stable) on a shared belief among its

subjects that they have a moral obligation to obey it. Hardin takes

issue with this interpretation, saying that many and maybe even most

scholars. . . suppose [Hobbes] argues that we are inherently morally

obligated to obey our sovereign because we promised or agreed to when

we entered the social compact.13 But Hardins attempted refutation ofthese scholars is unconvincing because it rests on a misinterpretation

of what Hobbes says about the obligation to obey a sovereign by

acquisition. Hardins error is evident from his describing a sovereign

by acquisition as a matter of imposition as against compact, where

compact is taken to be the origin of a sovereign by institution.14 But

there is a moral obligation to obey a sovereign by acquisition too. It also

derives from a compact, but this time vertically between subject and

sovereign rather than horizontally among the subjects-to-be as in the

case of a sovereign by institution.

A Common-wealth by acquisition, is that, where the Sovereign Power isacquired by Force; And it is acquired by force, when men singly, or manytogether by plurality of voyces, for fear of death, or bonds, do authorise allthe actions of that Man, or Assembly, that hath their lives and liberty in hisPower.15

The only difference, then, is that a sovereign by institution is set up by

a covenant entered into by the future subjects out of fear of one another,

whereas an existing sovereign gains new subjects by their entering intoa covenant with it out fear of what it can do to them.

It is not therefore the Victory that giveth the right of Dominion over theVanquished, but his own Covenant. Nor is he obliged because he is Conquered;that is to say beaten, and taken, or put to flight; but because he commeth in,and Submitteth to the Victor.16

11 Hobbes,Leviathan, p. 127.12 Hume, Of the First Principles of Government, p. 33.13 Hardin, David Hume, p. 110.14 Hardin, David Hume, p. 110.15 Hobbes,Leviathan, p. 138, emphasis suppressed.16 Hobbes,Leviathan, p. 141.


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This makes it clear that in both cases there is an obligation to obey

the sovereign that arises from covenant. The only difference lies in the

identity of the parties to the covenant.

Contrary to what Hardin claims, Hobbes is not ambivalent or

confused about the meaning of obligation in Leviathan. The confusionis Hardins and arises from his utter unwillingness to take on board

the definition of obligation that Hobbes provides and then sticks to

faithfully, according to which an obligation arises from the voluntary

act (which counts as voluntary even if entered into out of fear) of

renouncing or transferring a right.17 The mutual transferring of Right,

is that which men call CONTRACT. And a species of contract is a

covenant, which occurs where one party deliver[s] the Thing contracted

for on his part, and leave[s] the other to perform his part at some

determinate time; and in the mean time to be trusted.18 Hence, Hardinis simply wrong to say that for Hobbes

any obligation that you or I have to [a sovereign by institution] follows from itscapacity to enforce its will once it is in place, not from the way it has come intobeing. Indeed, Hobbes does not think we are morally bound, and obligationisthe wrong word unless its meaning is that we are merely coercively obliged tobe obedient, so that it is in our interest.19

On the contrary, Hobbes says that we are obliged (morally obliged if you

like the terminology) to obey the sovereign in virtue of our covenant,

either with our fellow subjects or the sovereign, depending on the way in

which obligation to obey arises. Thus, it is completely mistaken to hold,

as Hardin does, that there is nothing to Hobbess answer to the question

Why should I obey the sovereign? than an appeal to draconian force.20

Where Hobbes and Hume do differ, and Hume scores, is in their views

of the possibility of peaceful and harmonious social interaction that is

not imposed by the government. Especially in the Enquiry, Hume goes

on at some length about the various rules that arise without any control

17 Hobbes,Leviathan, pp. 923.18 Hobbes Leviathan, p. 94.19 Hardin,David Hume, p. 213.20 Hardins scepticism about Hobbess claim that the obligation to obey the sovereign

arises from covenant is created by his view that Hobbes generally insists that contractshave value only if they will be enforced by a greater power (Hardin,David Hume, p. 213).For starters, the problem arises not from contracts, where the exchange is simultaneous,but from covenants, where one party has to perform first and the other is due to performlater. It is perfectly true (though Hardin does not quote it) that Hobbes said covenantswithout the sword are but words. But the sword comes in not to compel obedience butto provide the background condition of assurance that makes the covenant a valid one.

Hence, even in the state of nature a covenant is binding on the second party that is due toperform where one of the parties has performed already. The other condition that makesa covenant valid is where there is Power to make him performe (Hobbes, Leviathan,p. 102). And we should be clear that the him is the party that is due to perform second.Thus, the sovereign supplies the guarantee that makes the covenant to obey it valid.


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or direction by government to make social interactions enjoyable and

harmonious. The laws of good manners [are] a kind of lesser morality,

calculated for the ease of company and conversation. . . . Everything,

which promotes ease, without an indecent familiarity, is useful and

laudable.21 Politeness is clearly a virtue that rests on convention, sincethe notion of a polite action abstracted from its context in the laws of

good manners is unintelligible. There are also rules in societies for

play, which are conventional (in a great measure . . . capricious and

arbitrary), while waggoners, coachmen, and postilions have principles,

by which they give the way; and these are chiefly founded on mutual

ease and convenience.22 Hume does not mention the rule of the road

(drive on the left or drive on the right), which Hardin takes as the

paradigm of a coordinating convention. (Before the advent of the

turnpike, were roads so narrow that the only issue between vehicleswas which one pulls to the side when two of them meet?) But Hume

does mention a pedestrian analogue: the right-hand entitles a man

to the wall, and prevents jostling, which peaceable people find very

disagreeable and inconvenient.23

Hume need not be taken to mean that such rules could be maintained

in a Hobbesian state of nature. The law still has to be in the background

to inhibit the escalation of quarrels about marked cards into shoot-outs,

as happened in the Wild West (or at any rate in the Hollywood take

on it). But with basic security in place, a whole mass of rules, manyof them customary, can be operative without any state involvement.

Common interest and utility beget infallibly a standard of right and

wrong among the parties concerned, as Hume sums it up.24 All of these

complex institutions of civil society are missing from Hobbess analysis.

Hardin draws a contrast between Hume and Hobbes along somewhat

different lines.

It is sometimes noted that major philosophers, such as Kant, have a moraltheory that does not lead to a political theory or, like Hobbes, they have apolitical theory that does not build on a moral theory. Hume is distinctivelydifferent because his moral and political theories are cut from a single cloth.The differences between the two are essentially a matter of scale or numbersinvolved.25

To cash this out, on both the micro and macro scale, it is equally

the case that for Hume virtues are those character traits that conduce

21 D. Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning thePrinciples of Morals, 3rd edn., ed. L. A. Selby-Biggs and P. H. Nidditch (Oxford, 1975),

p. 209.22 Hume,Enquiries, p. 210.23 Hume,Enquiries, p. 210, n. 1.24 Hume,Enquiries, p. 211.25 Hardin, David Hume, p. 106.


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374 Brian Barry

to utility, either of their possessor or of others. Now it is true that

Hobbes does not have a political theory that builds on a moral theory,

but Hardin does not claim that for Hume either. Rather, Hume has

the same theory for the small scale (e.g. promise-keeping) and the

large scale (e.g. respecting others property). Hobbes chooses not toaddress small-scale interactions explicitly: he has only two categories

of laws of nature, those that are a means to the preservation of men

in multitudes and other things tending to the destruction of particular

men: as Drunkenness and all other parts of Intemperance, which he

says are not pertinent enough to this place.26 But Hobbes, just as much

as Hume, has a unified theory for interactions, in the sense that he

brings to bear a single criterion for all rules, which is their prospective

contribution to peace and prosperity.

In fact, if we look at Hobbess laws of nature, we can discern anascent theory for small-scale interactions there, which could easily

have been developed. Thus, for example, the fourth law of nature

is: That a man which receiveth Benefit from another of meer Grace,

Endeavour that he which giveth it, have no reasonable cause to repent

of his good will.27 General observance of this in groups of any size

(including dyads) would surely encourage benevolence or trust: [and]

consequently. . . mutual help, as Hobbes says it will, sovereign or

no sovereign. Again, Hobbess fifth law is That every man strive to

accommodate himself to the rest, and this is the essence of politebehaviour.28 The next three, which require willingness to pardon,

caution in seeking revenge and care in not showing contempt for others,

are in just the same way entirely appropriate to small-scale relations.

My conclusion is therefore that Hume and Hobbes both had scale-

independent criteria, of a roughly similar kind.

II. COORDINATION, COOPERATION AND CONVENTION

The third of Hardins theories of social order is coordination on orderas mutually beneficial.29 Hardin says that the relevant concept of

convention was clarified only when David Lewis published his book

Convention,30 and that it is clear that the meaning [Hume] has in

mind is that of Lewiss analysis.31 But he does not spell out what that

meaning is. A simplified version of Lewiss final definition (which is all

we need) runs as follows:

26 Hobbes,Leviathan, p. 109.27 Hobbes,Leviathan, p. 105, emphasis suppressed.28 Hobbes,Leviathan, p. 106, emphasis suppressed.29 Hardin,David Hume, p. 105.30 D. Lewis,Convention(Oxford, 1986).31 Hardin,David Hume, p. 83.


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One of my defining conditions for the conventionality of a regularityR regardingchoice of action by agents in a situationS has been: In any instance ofS amongmembers ofP [some group], everyone prefers to conform to Ron condition thatthe others do, sinceSis a co-ordination problem and uniform conformity to Ris a coordination equilibrium inS.32

Elsewhere he writes A coordination equilibrium [is] a combination [of

different peoples actions] in which no one would have been better off

had any one agent alone acted otherwise, either himself or someone

else.33 By taking over Lewiss conception of convention, Hardin is thus

committing himself to the claim that virtues such as justice, fidelity and

allegiance, whose value depends on convention, represent coordination

equilibria. For this reason, he takes as the paradigm of a convention the

rule of the road. This is also one of Lewiss eleven sample coordination

conventions.34 Hardin describes this as the rare case. . .

of an ideal typethat is actually instantiated in the world, and he warns us that Humes

explanations of social practices and social order will have to allow for

a lot of slack and for some degree of failure to follow the convention that

governs the behavior of most of us.35 I propose instead that the problem

of social order (notably the stability of property and government) is not

solved by a coordination convention at all.

Does Hume agree with Hardin that social order (primarily stable

property and government) rests on a coordination convention? Yes and

no. In favour of the position that he does agree is the way in whichHume immediately goes on from introducing justice (respect for others

possessions) as a convention to what are indubitably coordination

problems, presenting them as illustrations of the same idea:

Thus, two men pull the oars of a boat by common convention for commoninterest, without any promise or contract: thus gold and silver are made themeasures of exchange; thus speech and words and language are fixed by humanconvention and agreement.36

These three examples are such paradigmatic cases of coordinationconventions that they are also included in Lewiss list of sample

coordination conventions.37 What makes these into coordination cases

is that every single transaction is mutually advantageous. The two men

may never expect to meet again, but if it takes two men to row the boat

(because the boat is configured so that two people have to sit side by

side and take an oar each) and they have a common destination, it is

32 Lewis,Convention, p.68.33 Lewis,Convention, p. 14.34 Lewis,Convention, pp. 6 and 445.35 Hardin, David Hume, p. 86.36 Hume,Enquiries, p. 306, emphasis supplied.37 Lewis,Convention, pp. 58, 44 and 4851.


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C D

C 2,2 0,3

D 3,0 1,1

Figure 1.Prisoners Dilemma

a simple matter to agree that they will join forces. Similarly, a would-

be seller will fail if he accepts only currency that nobody has and a

would-be buyer will fail if he offers only currency that nobody uses.Assuming a trade is mutually advantageous, buyer and seller have a

common interest in fixing on the same currency. And if you want to

communicate with somebody, you had better speak (or sign) in some

language that the other person understands. But again the mutual

advantage is fully contained in a single transaction: you may have no

wish to strengthen the language the other person speaks and may even

wish that it would die out. Now contrast all this with what Hume says

about justice, immediately before introducing these three examples:

if it be allowed . . .

that the particular consequences of every particular actof justice may be hurtful to the public as well as to individuals; it followsthat every man, in embracing that virtue, must have an eye to the wholeplan or system, and must expect the concurrence of his fellows in the sameconduct and behaviour. Did all his views terminate in the consequences of eachact of his own, his benevolence and humanity, as well as his self-love, mightoften prescribe to him measures of conduct very different from those which areagreeable to the strict rules of right and justice.38

Hume could hardly make it plainer, in the absence of the actual

vocabulary of game theory, that he is here making justice a cooperativeconvention in an indefinitely iterated prisoners dilemma.

Let me explain. A prisoners dilemma is a game with the payoff

structure laid out in figure 1. Played once, there is only one equilibrium,

D/D (both players defect): if the Column player chooses C, the Row

player (whose payoffs are on the left in each cell) gets 3 rather than 2

by playing D; and if the Column player chooses D, the Row player gets

1 rather than O by playing D. Of course, C/C is better for both than

D/D, but neither has a self-interested reason for choosing C. (Contrary

to a surprisingly common idea, this is not a question of trust: evenif Column has already chosen C, Row is still ahead playing D.) In a

38 Hume,Enquiries, p. 306.


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one-shot game, then, defection is a dominant strategy. But this fails to

carry over to indefinitely iterated plays, because what each player does

can be made contingent on what the other player(s) did previously.

We can now understand a cooperative convention to exist when a

convention to play the cooperative move in an indefinitely iteratedprisoners dilemma is established among the members of a group.

The most compelling way of showing the difference between a

coordination convention and a cooperative convention is as follows.

Where a coordination problem exists, it is advantageous to any one

agent to play C where the other parties all play C, regardless of any

expectations about what the other player(s) will do in future. But where

a cooperative problem exists, it is advantageous to any one agent to

play C only if that agent has a well-founded expectation that what he

or she does this time will change what the other player(s) will do infuture. In an indefinitely iterated prisoners dilemma (which is to say a

cooperative problem), it is always better to play D if you do not believe

that what you do will change the future behaviour of the other player(s).

Thus, in a two-person case, if the other player will play C regardless,

D/C beats C/C, and if the other player will play D regardless, D/D beats

C/D. Once we take away the shadow of the future, the iterated game

collapses into a series of one-shot plays. In a cooperative problem, the

cooperative behaviour of others is always a potential opportunity to

be exploited by defecting. By contrast, if all others play the cooperativemove in a coordination problem, cooperating myself is unconditionally

advantageous to me. There is simply no room for the idea of taking

advantage of others cooperation.

The obvious difficulty for Hume is this: somehow he has to convince

us that, when faced with a cooperation problem, acting in accordance

with the strict rules of right and justice really does without any

exceptions best serve the interests of the actor. In the case of a two-

person prisoners dilemma, this is not too problematic. It is well known

that if both parties play a tit-for-tat strategy, for example, they willnormally find themselves in a cooperative equilibrium. That is to say,

if the first party plays C and thereafter each follows a C with another

C and a D with another D, each will serve his own interests as well as

can be hoped for by playing C every time. Following a C with a D (the

dominant strategy in a one-shot play) will always reap an immediate

gain, but risks bogging down the interactions of the parties in a long

(perhaps indefinite) series of Ds from one party followed by Ds from the

other.

Hume in fact provides an example to illustrate the virtues of tit-for-tat. This is the case of two farmers whose corn ripens at different

times. If they cooperate on both harvests, they will both get their crops

reaped. But this will not happen if they take no thought for the morrow


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because they will not cooperate. The farmer whose crops ripen later

will not risk losing his labour, which is what will happen if the other

fails to reciprocate when the time comes. As a result, the cooperation

will not get off the ground and they will both lose (part of) their crops.

But things go well if I learn to do a service to another without bearinghim any real kindness; because I forsee, that he will return my service,

in expectation of another of the same kind. So, he is in turn inducd to

perform his part, as foreseeing the consequences of his refusal.39

Scale matters critically in cooperative contexts. For example, two

neighbours with a field in common will be able to drain it simply by

each indicating to the other a willingness to cooperate. The idea will,

obviously, be that neither will carry on digging unless the other digs

as well. But tis very difficult, and indeed impossible that a thousand

persons shoud agree in any such action.40 One reason Hume gives isthe difficulty of planning and executing the work. But this could be

met if the thousand people chose someone to plan the drainage scheme,

and the problem of executing it could be solved by collecting money

from each rather than requiring all thousand to take part in the work.

But that brings us to the other impediment: the free-rider problem.

Hume says that each seeks to free himself of the trouble and expense

and woud lay the burden on others.41 The only solution here is a

state, with its power to fund public projects by taxation and arrange

for them to be executed: political society easily remedies both theseinconveniences. . . . Thus bridges are built; harbours opend; ramparts

raisd; canals formd; fleets equipped; and armies disciplined; every

where by the care of government.42

Although Hardin treats public goods cases such as these as collective

action problems n-person prisoners dilemmas he distinguishes

them, as we have seen, from the stability of property and government,

which he categorizes as coordination problems. But Hume recognizes, I

believe, that these are just as much prisoners dilemmas cooperation

problems as is the provision of public goods. Justice is introduced

39 D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 2nd edn., ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H.Nidditch (Oxford, 1977), p. 521.

40 Hume,Treatise, p. 538.41 Hume,Treatise, p. 538.42 Hume, Treatise, pp. 53839. The ramparts, armies and fleets are paradigmatic public

goods. But the bridges could be paid for by tolls (and still are in some places), while thecanals could be paid for by barges and the harbours by shipping that uses it, thoughit might have been hard in a relatively undeveloped economy to raise the money upfront to pay for carrying out these works before there would be any offsetting revenue

stream. (But turnpikes illustrate the possibility of building toll roads privately, even inthe eighteenth century.) However, to the army and navy might be added the police andthe entire criminal justice system, and we could replace harbours with lighthouses. Ofcourse, a state is still required to enforce the collection of user charges but this is quitedifferent from the states having to fund and carry out these projects with tax money.


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by Hume with a two-person case of cooperation in respecting the

possessions of one another. Cooperation here depends on something

like mutual tit-for-tat strategies and these plausibly produce the

cooperative outcome over time.

I observe, that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession ofhis good, provided he will act in the same manner with regard to me. He issensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct. When this commonsense of interest is mutually expressd, and is known to both, it produces asuitable resolution and behaviour.43

In contemporary terminology, the players have common knowledge

that each will pursue a tit-for-tat strategy. Hume thinks that this line of

reasoning can be extended to groups larger than a dyad, and makes the

very strong claim that even every individual person must find himself

a gainer on balancing the account, since, without justice, society must

immediately dissolve and collapse into a Hobbesian state of nature.44

If a single act of injustice would precipitate all that, there would be an

overwhelming reason for refraining from committing any such acts. But

Hume concedes that it may be askd, how any disorder can ever arise

in society if this account is correct.45 He needs to answer that question

because he invokes the breakdown of the justice convention without

enforcement to provide an explanation of our need for government,

with its corresponding virtue of allegiance.

To the imposition then, and observance of these rules [of justice, men] are atfirst movd only by a regard to interest; and this motive, on the first formulationof society, is sufficiently strong and forcible. But when society has becomenumerous, and increasd to a tribe or nation, this interest is more remote; nordo men readily perceive, that disorder and confusion follow upon every breachof those rules, as in a more narrow and contracted society.46

Hume presents this as a cognitive issue, a kind of perceptual error:

a failure to assess accurately the effects of an individual act of theft

on the general stability of property. But as soon as a society becomeslarge, it really does become true that a single act of theft or even

a number of them will not bring the whole system crashing down.

But even if we were to accept Humes version, and say that a lot of

people are liable to calculate incorrectly, we would still get the result

that the justice convention collapses whenever we have a large group.

How large is large? If a thousand men could not drain a meadow in

the absence of a state, it seems to me highly doubtful that we would

need to get to anything like the size of a tribe or nation before the

43 Hume,Treatise, p. 490, emphasis in original.44 Hume,Treatise, p. 497.45 Hume,Treatise, p. 534.46 Hume,Treatise, p. 499.


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justice convention failed to bring about stability of possessions. The

solution, as with public goods, is the state. Thus, the origin of civil

government and allegiance lies in the advantage to all in having civil

magistrates, kings and their ministers, our governors and rulers who

are satisfied with the status quo, so they are not only inducd to observe[the] rules [of justice] in their own conduct, but also to constrain others

to a like regularity, and inforce the dictates of equity thro the whole

society.47

Hume actually brings together justice and allegiance at one point,

treating them as parallel cases. Government, by deciding disputes and

enforcing its decisions, provides security for possessions, which Hume

describes as protect[ing] men in those conventions [as those of justice],

they make for their mutual interest. Hume then adds the public goods

case under the description oblig[ing] them to make such conventions,and forc[ing] them to seek their own advantage, by a concurrence

in some common end or purpose.48 It will be observed that Hume

continues here to employ the language of convention, but once we have

a rule that is enforced we have lost whatever traction the concept of

convention can give us in the explanation of social order. In particular,

I can see no reason why every compulsory contribution to the cost

of a public good should be described as obliging taxpayers to make

conventions when the whole point is that the kind of convention that

enables two men to drain a meadow without enforcement has brokendown. Why not simply talk about property laws and taxes?

Partly for ideological reasons (he implausibly tries to recruit Hume

as a forerunner of . . . Friedrich Hayek and the Austrians in social

theory),49 Hardin is quite exercised about what he calls the public-

goods theory of the state. This he takes as having two elements. One

is the claim that certain characteristics of public goods require that

they be provided by a central agency acting on behalf of a larger

group of beneficiaries.50 He contrasts this with the view that collective

provision merely has advantages over individual provision. Hardinsays of the second that this is surely true in some cases, which

implies that the first claim is false.51 But while Hardin may believe

this personally, it is completely wrong as an interpretation of Hume,

since he said that it was impossible rather than merely difficult for

a thousand men to drain a meadow in the absence of government.52

Thus, it is simply false to suggest that what Hume has to say about the

47 Hume,Treatise, p. 537.48 Hume,Treatise, p. 538.49 Hardin,David Hume, p. 231.50 Hardin,David Hume, p. 122.51 Hardin,David Hume, p. 122.52 Hume,Treatise, p. 538.


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capacity of states to provide public goods is consistent with both the

first and second claims.53 Humes view is plainly that there are some

benefits for which states are indispensible, and I do not see how this

could reasonably be denied.

The other element in the public goods theory of the state isexplanatory: states exist because they are the solution to the problem

of providing public goods for a large group.54 Hume is clear that the

initial impetus is the need to secure property rights in a large group. 55

But he is equally clear, as we have seen, that states then take on the

additional job of providing public goods. Hardin complains that this

idea

is circular if it is supposed that the state is a public good [the solution to acooperation problem]. In frustration at failing to provide ourselves some publicgoods, we merely provide ourselves with one that then provides the one wefailed to provide.56

Hardin says that the fallacy involved is the one pointed out by Mancur

Olson57 in The Logic of Collective Action. According to this logic, I

rationally contribute to the provision of a collective good only if I get

53 Hardin, David Hume, p. 122.54 Hardin, David Hume, p. 123.55 It is not easy to reconcile Humes explicit statement that government takes its

origins in protecting property rights with his suggestion in the Treatise, which is also theline adopted in the essay Of the Origin of Government, that states originated in the needfor members of small-scale societies to band together in order to fight their neighbours,see Hume, Of the Origin of Government, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, revisededn., ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis, 1987), pp. 3741. According to Hume, hunter-gatherers do not have enough portable possessions to make it worth the while of themembers of the group to fight over them: An Indian is but little tempted to dispossessanother of his hut, or steal his bow (Hume, Treatise, p. 539). But Hume believes thatwarfare between such groups will nevertheless occur, though it is not apparent whatthese societies would be fightingabout, since they would have no cause for conflict overpossessions. Be that as it may, Hume picks up on Indians again to explain the remote

origins of states. He says that in the Americantribes,. . .

men. . .

never pay submissionto any of their fellows, except in time of war, when their captain enjoys a shadow ofauthority, which he loses after their return from the field, and the establishment of peacewith the neighbouring tribes (Hume, Treatise, p. 540). The normal state of these societies,then, would be one lacking government, but in which justice, that is, the observation ofthose three fundamental laws concerning the stability of possession, its translation byconsent, and the performance of promises, was maintained in the absence of coercion(Hume, Treatise, p. 541). I have to confess that Hume seems to me to be running twoalternative accounts, deriving the origin of government from the need to secure propertyin one place and from the exigencies of inter-societal warfare in another. For the presentpurpose, perhaps all that matters is that we can say that the need to secure propertycertainly stands up as an adequate basis for a state, even if there is another basis as

well. Hardin, incidentally, refers only to the version in which the rise of government. . .

was to secure defense against foreign attackers (Hardin,David Hume, p. 212, emphasissuppressed).

56 Hardin, David Hume, p. 121.57 M. Olson Jr,The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass., 1965).


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382 Brian Barry

more value from the bit of the collective good that my contribution

buys than the contribution costs me.58 Thus, the two men draining

the meadow each get half the value of the improved meadow, which

may well make it worthwhile to contribute a half share of the effort to

do the job. But if my contribution will produce only one-thousandth ofthe value to me of having the meadow drained, it is highly plausible,

to say the least, that contributing will not look like a good deal from

a self-interested viewpoint. Hence, although all of us might receive a

large net benefit if we all contribute, none of us may have any interest

in contributing individually.59

What Olson explodes, then, is the fallacy that in an n-person

prisoners dilemma it is sufficient to give everyone a self-interested

reason for cooperating that C/C is a higher payoff than D/D. This

shows that collective action (prisoners dilemma) problems involvinglarge numbers of agents cannot (in the absence of special conditions

that we need not enter into here) be resolved by counting on voluntary

contributions to the public good in question. But the conclusion that

Olson goes on to draw from this problem is that what is needed to get

this sort of public good supplied is what he called selective incentives,

which could be understood to include selective deterrents. These are

rewards or penalties that are individualized to give each potential

contributor a self-interested reason for coming through with a fair

share of the cost of supplying the public good. And the paradigmaticcase of an entity that can produce selective incentives and deterrents

is the state. Thus, there is no vicious circle created by bringing in the

state as the solution to the public goods problem, because the state

is a special kind of public good: a body that provides enforcement of

its own edicts. Hardin objects that if the government is an ongoing

resolution of a continuing society-wide prisoners dilemma or collective

action interaction, it cannot be stable, because it can be brought down

by free-riding at any time.60 But free-riders are deterred by the power

that the state provides to enable fare dodgers to be prosecuted. Publictransport does not normally rely on voluntary contributions to its cost.

Hardin adds that coordination is the dominant feature of stable

social organization because its continuing resolution faces no. . .

problems [of free-riding] and is therefore stable.61 This begs the

question by assuming that states actually do create something that

can properly be described as stable social organization. But waiving

that question for a moment, we might try to unpack this argument

58 Hardin,David Hume, p. 121.59 Hardin,David Hume, p. 122.60 Hardin,David Hume, p. 123.61 Hardin,David Hume, p. 123.


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as follows: (1) cooperative problems cannot have stable solutions; (2)

social organization (e.g. the system of property and the governmental

regime) is stable; therefore (3) the existence of social order proves that

it cannot be the solution of a cooperative problem; and (4) by a process

of elimination we arrive at the conclusion that social order must be thesolution to a coordination problem. Otherwise it could not occur at

any rate in large groups.

How persuasive is the claim that social order must solve a

coordination problem to account for its stability? An immediate problem

that crops up even in interpreting this claim is that Hardin mixes

together two different notions of stability. A solution, whether it

involves a convention or not, may be stable in the sense that it secures a

high level of compliance among the members of some group (call this c.s.

or compliance stability). Alternatively, a solution may be stable in thesense that changing [it] through spontaneous actions is commonly hard

to do, because the individuals first have to coordinate with each other

on switching the convention62 (call this i.s. or inertial stability). These

two kinds of stability can form four combinations, which I number as

follows:

(1) High c.s. and high i.s.

(2) High c.s. and low i.s.

(3) Low c.s. and high i.s.(4) Low c.s. and low i.s.

The last combination is of no interest for present purposes, but the

others all have examples in Hume and in reality in at least one

kind of convention and one size of group.

(1) Lewiss coordination conventions with large numbers provide

compelling incentives for compliance and are hard to change except

by a political authority (as with the Swedish change in the rule of

the road at 5 a.m. on 3 September 1967), or by a market leader (as

with the standard time zones introduced by the American railroads).63

If Hume is right that a group of people larger than two but smaller

than a thousand could arrive at the convention of regarding one

anothers possessions as off-limits, they would have a compliance-stable

cooperative convention. But in any but an extremely small group it

seems plausible that whatever pattern of possessions had already been

arrived at would also be inertia-stable. This is because permitting

disputes about rival claims to possess some good or piece of land would

open up a can of worms that would threaten the whole scheme.

62 Hardin, David Hume, p. 91.63 Hardin, David Hume, p. 90.


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384 Brian Barry

(2) High compliance stability and low inertial stability can be found in

many small-number coordination situations. Inertial stability in large-

number situations is high. Thus, What makes a soda fountain, coffee

house or bar in is the existence of a convention in some social circle

that it is the place to go when one wants to socialize.64 This coordinationconvention might be hard to change spontaneously, though we do know

that there are cases in which what is in can become out quite fast,

as with fashion in clothes. But if two people have agreed to have lunch

at a certain time and place, they can change their minds quite easily

and switch to a different one.65 This combination of high c.s. and low

i.s. could also hold for small-scale cooperative problems. Thus, the two

neighbours would have to agree on a plan for draining the field, but they

could easily agree to change it as the work progressed. This cooperation

would be compliance-stable if each gave the other to understand thathe would work as long as the other did and not otherwise (a form of

simultaneous tit-for-tat), but its focus could be changed by agreement.

(3) Genuine coordination problems have a built-in incentive for

everyone to comply with the solution regardless of the size of the group.

If you refuse to trade with one or more people except in a currency

they do not accept, you will miss out on the opportunity of mutually

beneficial exchange; if you set your watch to some idiosyncratic time,

you will miss trains and appointments; and so on. Thus, in coordination

problems, there is no difficulty in securing compliance with an ongoingconvention, regardless or the size of the group. It is only in cooperative

problems (prisoners dilemmas) that non-compliance becomes an issue.

As the size of the society grows, the property convention becomes more

subject to non-compliance, either through hope of gain (free-riding on

64 Lewis,Convention, p. 43.65 For Hume, agreements between two people will count as conventions. His two men

agree (not promise), he says, to row the boat together by convention. Similarly, two people

could state mutual intentions (which fall short of promises) to go to a certain place at acertain time for lunch, and this would constitute a Humean convention. Lewis suggeststhat the two men in the boat get under the wire only because in the process of rowingthey have to coordinate their timing: see Lewis, Convention, p. 44. This may be truefor Lewiss own analysis of convention, but as far as Hobbess account is concerned itis a gratuitous addition, since it is enough to establish a convention for the two men toagree to row together. Hardin buys in to the same idea as Lewis, that for a conventionsome coordinating beyond that of agreeing to row together is needed. But he reachesthe opposite conclusion about the case from Lewis, saying that once they have agreed torow the two men have no alternative to synchronizing their efforts, so we do not reallyhave a coordinating convention at all. It may be worth mentioning that in the TreatiseHume talks about convention and agreement in the same breath: the two men in a boat

pull the oars. . .

by an agreement or convention, tho they have never given promises toeach other. Even justice respect for property is indifferently a matter of conventionor agreement: thus justice establishes itself by a kind of convention or agreement; thatis, by a sense of interest, supposd to be common to all, and where every single act isperformd in expectation that others are to perform the like (Hume, Treatise, p. 498).


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others compliance) or fear of loss (the anticipation that if I alone

comply amid general licentiousness I shall become the cully of my

own integrity).66 Compliance stability is thus liable to be low in a large

group. But inertial stability as long as the convention can still be said

to hold at all will be high, since it would be extremely hard to changethe form of the convention (such as the distribution of property rights)

to another one by spontaneous individual actions. We witness the

complete collapse of compliance stability wherever government ceases

to have effective control over its territory. Somalia fits this description

fairly well, and the Congo has done so to a horrendous degree in the

recent past and is still subject to outbreaks of violence which the

government is powerless to control. At the same time, this kind of

anarchy is inertially stable in the sense that there is no way in which

concerted acts by individual citizens can end it by bringing into beinga government whose writ runs throughout the country.

I suggest that Hardin uses the term stability in different

senses when he says Large numbers stabilize social conventions in

coordination contexts but undercut standard kinds of cooperation in

collective action contexts.67 The sense in which the first claim is true

is that of inertial stability, which we have seen increases as a function

of group size in both coordination and cooperative problems. It would

not be true of compliance stability because all coordination conventions

are compliance-stable, regardless of size. To say (the second point) thatlarge numbers undercut cooperation in collective-action contexts (or

n-person prisoners dilemmas generally) is not to compare like with

like. For, as I have said, inertial stability increases in cooperation

conventions just as much as it does in coordinating conventions. The

instability here is compliance instability. Hardin is thus guilty of an

equivocation, employing different senses of stability in his two claims.

This equivocation underlies the fallacious argument mentioned

earlier. This runs as follows. Stability in large-number cases can be

provided only if they are coordination problems. And since states arestable, this means that they must be the solution to a coordination

problem. But the way in which large numbers make states stable is

that they make spontaneous individual action to change the form of

government to another one very difficult.68 This proposition would

66 Hume,Treatise,p. 535.67 Hardin, David Hume, p. 86, emphasis suppressed.68 The political regime in small groups could be changed by agreement among the

members of the group if Hume is right in saying that government arises out of the choiceof the members of the society. When men have once perceivd the necessity of governmentto maintain peace, and to execute justice, they woud naturally assemble together, woudchuse magistrates, determine their power, andpromisethem obedience. As a promise issupposd to be a bond or security already in use, and attended with a moral obligation,


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386 Brian Barry

hold for inertial stability equally well if the state were the solution

of a prisoners dilemma problem. We cannot therefore deduce from

anything said so far that a state must be the solution of a coordination

problem. Then we have the assertion that large numbers destabilize

prisoners dilemma problems. This is true of compliance stability. Butwhy should we accept that this refutes the idea that states are the

solution to a cooperation problem? Perhaps we should say that states do

suffer from varying degrees of non-compliance, ranging from some non-

compliance to total non-compliance where a situation has degenerated

into anarchy, and that this actually supports the conclusion that social

order is a cooperative rather than a coordination problem.

If a state is the solution (to the extent that it is) to a cooperation

problem, it will always be beset by the potential advantage to

individuals or small groups of breaking the law. Hardin treats anybodywho points to this difficulty as asking an invalid question: by far the

most common query or challenge is to pose a particular case in which a

person is a loser from the application of the law, the rules of property or

some other convention for mutual advantage. This is, he says, based

on a fundamental misconception because

having the overall system. . . of law makes us better off than we would have beenwithout the system of law. . . . To be a credible objection it must be formulatedas a whole-cloth rejection [this should read assertion] of the idea that thechaos of an unordered society would be preferred by at least one person over awell-ordered society.69

This is to commit precisely the fallacy picked out in Olsons logic of

collective action: the idea that if all-C in a large group is better for

everybody than all-D, that gives each person a self-interested incentive

to play C.

No doubt it is true that even a devoted thief must prefer a society

that is well enough organized to produce enough to steal.70 But the

tis to be considerd as the original sanction of government, and as the source of thefirst obligation to obedience (Hume, Treatise, p. 541). If this early form of governmentarises from actual agreement among group members, there is presumably no reason fora different choice not being made the next time round. For unlike Hobbes, Hume clearlydoes not maintain that a group can be said to act only if it has a sovereign to act for it.However, Humes use of actual contract to get government going clashes with Hardinsclaim that Hume does nothing but pour scorn on contract theories for the justification ofthe state: for Hume the whole apparatus of contracting is a silly idea (Hardin, David

Hume, p. 121). It is true that Hume does not think that the duty of allegiance rests onmutual promises now. But his account of the origins of government is in all essentials

identical with Hobbess account of the origins of sovereigns by institution. Hardin issimply incorrect to say that for Hume government arises from . . . convention and slowevolution (Hardin,David Hume, p. 214).

69 Hardin,David Hume, p. 184.70 Hardin,David Hume, p. 184.


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choice between refraining from stealing and living in a society with no

property worth stealing is not one that faces any individual thief in a

large society, because a single act of theft (or even a whole career of

theft) will not suffice to switch a society from comprehensive order to

comprehensive disorder, as Hume admitted when he conceded that asensible knave may think that an act of iniquity or infidelity will make

a considerable addition to his fortune, without causing any considerable

breach in the social union and confederacy.71 And in his essay Of

the Origin of Government, Hume again says: Some extraordinary

circumstances may happen, in which a man finds his interests to be

more promoted by fraud and rapine, than hurt by the breach which his

injustice makes in the social union.72

The fundamental objection to Hardins whole approach is that to

make a state the solution of a coordination problem is far too goodan explanation of social order. Coordination conventions have built-in

self-enforcing mechanisms that give everybody a strong incentive to

comply without any need for any additional enforcement. By contrast,

a state has to rely heavily on its ability to call down heavy sanctions

on those who break its laws or fail to pay its taxes. Even then, states

achieve nothing remotely like the high levels of compliance effortlessly

created by coordination conventions. A recent survey found that people

in Britain admit to breaking the law several times a week on average.

These are mostly traffic offences, but the clear-up rate on crimes such ascar theft and burglary is extremely low, while tax evasion is estimated

to cost many billions of pounds a year. At the other end of the scale

from relatively law-abiding Britain there are places where social order

has broken down completely, but in addition there are many other

countries that suffer from a very high level of offences against property

and person.

South Africa, for example, has thirty times the murder rate of Britain

and has been estimated to have more violent deaths per head than

any country not involved in warfare. It is a society sliding towards aHobbesian war of all against all. In addition to the high level of ordinary

crime, there have also been pogroms directed against refugees from

other African states, which have killed some and made many destitute

71 Hume,Enquiries, p. 282.72 Hume, Of the Origin of Government, p. 38. Hume says that it is according the

imperfect way in which human affairs are conducted that the sensible knave seesprospects of net gain (Hume, Enquiries, p. 282). This has to mean that Hume is

talking about conditions here and now, with legal penalties attached to theft, fraud,embezzlement, and so on. It is not only the possibility of damaging social order that theknave has to put in the balance but the chance of being caught and punished. Indeed, oneof Humes counter-arguments is that knaves may overreach themselves and undertakefurther exploits that result in their being detected (Hume, Enquiries, p. 283).


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388 Brian Barry

and homeless. Troops have been deployed in the townships for the

first time since the end ofapartheid, and the minister responsible for

the police has accepted the responsibility if they shoot first and ask

questions afterwards. Again, there are studies suggesting that Latin

Americas income could be 25% higher if its crime rate, which begansoaring in the 1980s, was similar to the rest of the world. The head

of the Organization of American States has described drug trafficking,

kidnapping and other crimes as an epidemic, a plague on our continent

that that kills more people than Aids or any other known epidemic. It

destroys more homes than any economic crisis.73 Across the world,

William Dalrymple, in The Age of Kali, described the breakdown of

social order in all its forms in the northern Indian state of Bihar:

crime is completely out of control: 64,085 violent offences. . .

took place betweenJanuary and June 1997. . . . According to [local editor] Sengupta, what washappening in Bihar was nothing less than the death of the state. . . . In the Patnahospital there were no bedsheets, no drugs and no bandages. The only X-raymachine in the city had been out of order for a year: the hospital could not affordto buy the spare parts. . . . Outside the capital, electricity had virtually ceasedto be supplied. . . . Without power, industry had been brought to a grindinghalt. No roads were being built. There was no functioning system of publictransport.74

Coming up to date, in Orissa state there is one district within which

there has been a two-month orgy of sectarian violence which has leftat least 59 people dead, 50,000 homeless and thousands of houses and

churches burnt to the ground.75

There is one final reflection I want to offer. While it is true that

regimes are seldom overthrown by non-organized individual action,

they certainly cannot be replaced by these means. They are quite

frequently changed in other ways. It is quite common in Africa

and Latin America for a fairly small group of military personnel to

overthrow a constitutional regime or for a constitutional president to

turn into a dictator by an autogolpe. This fact does not in itself pointus more towards states being solutions to one kind of problem rather

than the other. But if we reflect on its significance, we shall surely

see how implausible it makes the idea that states are solutions to

coordination problems. Nobody sheds blood over the time zone, the rule

of the road, or the system of weights and measures, even if they arouse

some degree of disagreement. Political power is only at the extreme

73 R. Carroll, Rampant Violence in Latin Americas Worst Epidemic, The Guardian,

9 October 2008, p. 23.74 W. Dalrymple, The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters (London, 1998),

pp. 17 and 19.75 G. Chamberlain, Thousands Flee as a New Hindu Rampage brings Fire and Sword,

The Observer, 19 October 2008, p. 31.


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margins concerned with coordination problems such as these. Control

of the government enables those who hold it to enrich themselves

corruptly (or in accordance with corrupt laws they have created), to

channel costs and benefits to some regions and ethnic groups and away

from others, and so on. Especially where other means of enrichment arescant, this power is worth fighting for. I apologize for the obviousness

of these reminders, but they seem to be needed.

III. DID HUME HAVE A NORMATIVE THEORY?

The bulk of Hardins book is devoted to the thesis that I began

by stating: that Humes social and political theory has not received

sufficient credit. But Hardin goes beyond seeking to substantiate

his claim that Humes social theory is both sophisticated and in allessentials correct. He also argues that Humes objectives in the Treatise

and the Enquiry are solely explanatory: he has a consistent and

systematic . . . anti-normative stance.76 Yet at the same time, Hardin

has chapters entitled Value Theory and Utilitarianism. According

to Hardin, Humes value theory is, in the current jargon, welfarist: the

only measure of value is subjective individual utility. And Humes moral

theory is utilitarian: the goodness of a state of affairs is some function

of the utilities of the people in it. Hume is not an aggregative utilitarian

on the lines of Bentham or Sidgwick: he has no use for the notion ofa sum of interpersonally comparable cardinal utilities. According to

Hardin, Hume is an ordinalist utilitarian or Paretian: situation A is

better than situation B if each person has more subjective utility in A

than in B (or at least some have more and none have less). I shall take

this up in a moment, but the immediate issue is that these claims look

awfully like asserting a first-order moral commitment made by Hume

in his own right. Can the circle somehow be squared?

I do not see how this could quite be done. But if Hume were to be

taken as saying that everybody is as a matter of fact a utilitarian, hecould simply tag along and associate himself with everybody else, which

would be pretty innocuous. Now it is true that Hume does sometimes

make such a claim. In theEnquiry (where utility plays the central role)

he says at any rate that the circumstance ofutility, in all subjects, is

a source of praise and approbation. . . . That it is the solesource of that

high regard paid to justice [etc., and] inseparable from all the other

social virtues.77 In A Dialogue he goes even further, and claims that

there never was any quality recommended by any one, as a virtue or

moral excellence, but on account of its beinguseful, or agreeable to a

76 Hardin, David Hume, p. 7.77 Hume,Enquiries, p. 231.


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390 Brian Barry

manhimselfor toothers.78 But saying that Hume is simply describing

the way things are will not stand up against Humes constant sallies at

views of morality that quite obviously fly in the face of this utility-based

normative criterion.

Although Hardin makes passing mention of the monkish virtues79

he does not stop to notice that Humes contempt for them is inconsistent

with any idea of utility as the universal foundation of morality. Hume

has to recognize that some people do in fact hold non-utilitarian

doctrines before he can disparage them. In his strongest statement,

he says that:

as every quality which is useful or agreeable to ourselves or others is, in commonlife, allowed to be a part of personal merit; so no other will ever be received,where men judge of things by their natural, unprejudiced reason, without the

delusive glosses of superstition and false religion. Celibacy, fasting, penance,mortification . . . and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason arethey everywhere rejected by men of sense, but because they. . .neither advancea mans fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member ofsociety . . .? We justly, therefore, transfer them to the opposite column, andplace them in the catalogue of vices.80

Who are we here? Surely Hume is associating himself with the

men of sense and says that those who extol the monkish virtues

are just plain wrong. In A Dialogue, Hume explicitly concedes that

his utilitarian theory simply does not work for those who, like Pascal,depart from the principles of common reason and are subject to the

illusions of religious superstition or philosophical enthusiasm.81 It is

all very well for Hume to say that an experiment. . .which succeeds in

the air, will not always succeed in a vacuum.82 But if Humes objective

had been to explain all moral judgements, rather than to endorse some

and condemn others as mistaken, he would surely have had to accept

that he needed to come up with an explanation that covered all the

varieties of moral judgement that are actually found in the world,

whether they fit the utilitarian model or not.Hardin concedes that Hume occasionally slips into what he calls

panegyric and advocates particular moral beliefs and actions. On one

occasion he virtually apologizes for the slip even while slyly defending

it: But I forget, that it is not my present business to recommend

generosity and benevolence, or to paint, in their true colours, all the

genuine charms of the social virtues.83 Hardin might more tellingly

78 Hume,Enquiries, p. 336.79 Hardin,David Hume, pp. 31 and 1645.80 Hume,Enquiries, p. 270.81 Hume,Enquiries, p. 343.82 Hume,Enquiries, p. 343.83 Hardin,David Hume, p. 7, quoting Hume, Enquiries, p. 177.


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still have cited Humes remarks right at the close of the Treatise,

where he says that his system may help us to form a just notion of the

happiness, as well as thedignityof virtue. He goes on there to say that

he forbear[s] insisting on this subject. Such reflexions require a work a-

part, very different from the genius of the present. The anatomist oughtnever to emulate the painter.84 But praises of the virtues are not the

right place to look for Humes breaches of his official role as a scientist

dissecting the phenomenon of morality an anatomist. My proposal

is that we instead direct our attention to the many places, especially in

theEnquiry, where he drops the mask and denounces what he regards

as pseudo-virtues that conduce to the benefit of neither their possessor

nor anyone else.

Let me now return to the question of what sort of utilitarian Hume

is. Hardin has to be right in saying that when Hume talks about publicinterest he never means a sum of interpersonally comparable cardinal

utilities along Benthamite lines. But Hardin is saddling Hume with

his own ideas when he claims that Humes utilitarianism (ordinalist or

Paretian) supports pursuing the interests of others only where there

is mutual advantage, so that the actor benefits along with others.

This leaves out fully half of Humes utilitarianism: that part which

covers the social virtues of humanity and benevolence as against the

social virtues of justice and fidelity.85 Hume actually addresses the

conception of morality attributed to him by Hardin when he writes thatthose philosophers were excusable, who fancied that all our concern for

the public might be resolved into a concern for our own happiness and

preservation, the excuse lying in that close union of interest, which is

so observable between the public and each individual.86 Against this,

Hume says that:

we have found instances, in which private interest was separate from public;in which it was even contrary: And yet we observed the moral sentimentto continue, notwithstanding this disjunction of interests. . . . If usefulness,

therefore, be a source of moral sentiment, and if this usefulness be not alwaysconsidered with a reference to self; it follows, that everything, which contributesto the happiness of society, recommends itself directly to our approbation andgood-will.87

Of course, the public and society are only the outer limits of our

altruistic appraisal. In contrasting humanity and benevolence with

justice and the other convention-based virtues, Humes examples are

a parent or a friend. And as the good, resulting from their benign

84 Hume,Treatise, p. 620.85 Hume,Enquiries, pp. 303486 Hume,Enquiries, pp. 21819.87 Hume,Enquiries, p. 219.


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392 Brian Barry

influence, is in itself complete and entire, it also excites the moral

sentiment of approbation.88 Hardins difficulty in coming to terms with

these virtues (natural as against artificial in theTreatise) may have

something to do with his analysis of strategic types, in which he puts

benevolence in the category of Pure Conflict.89 This is curious, becauseconflict should involve an opposition of wills. It is true of course that,

if I give you money that you need or help you to move house, I am

disposing of money or time that I might have used on myself. But if

I want to help and choose to do so, and you want my help, there is a

coincidence of wills rather than a conflict. There remains a question

about how far Hume thinks that people are moved to be benevolent by

the thought that benevolence is a virtue (as he says they are moved at

least to some degree by the thought that injustice is a vice) and how

far by a direct impulse to help, as a parent or a friend, for example.But I do not see that anything much turns on this, since either way

benevolence is for Hume a virtue as lustrous as justice.

IV. CONCLUSION

Coming full circle, where does all this leave Hardins objective of calling

attention to Humes merits as a non-normative social and political

theorist? This claim is, I suggest, vindicated. Without the benefit of any

formal apparatus, Hume showed a remarkably sure grasp of strategicanalysis. Hardins specific argument that Humes great contribution

was to show that social order depends on coordination conventions

fares less well. It is true that Hume shows a pronounced wobble in that

direction immediately after introducing the idea of justice as resting on

a convention by adducing as illustrations three paradigmatic examples

of a coordination convention. But Humes overall line is that justice and

the other convention-based virtues rest on a cooperative convention

which solves (to the extent that it does) a prisoners dilemma problem

and that states are required when a society exceeds some small sizebecause only states can solve the large number prisoners dilemma

problems that constitute the problem of social order. However, this

does not detract from Humes merits quite the contrary, since it is

the right answer. Admittedly it makes Hume less original than Hardin

would have him be, since Hobbes also held that the problem of order is

a prisoners dilemma. But I think it is fair to say that, while Hobbes is

the superior writer, Hume is the more precise and subtle thinker.

88 Hume,Enquiries, p. 304.89 Hardin,David Hume, p. 62, table 3.1.

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Hume as a Social Theorist

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