Where Mechanism Ends: Thomas Reid on the Moral and the Animal Oeconomy
Theories of life have consequences for how the social order is conceptualized. I pursue this theme in the work of the Aberdeen philosopher of mind Thomas Reid (1710–96), or more accurately, in his reactions to others’ views. Reid typically developed his own ideas into a coherent view in juxtaposition to ideas to which he took exception. This means entering into a number of apparently discrete contexts before the unifying threads can be made plain. Let me introduce my theme with a not untypical example of Reid’s way of clarifying by accentuating difference. In 1794, just two years before he died, Reid gave two lectures to the Glasgow Literary Society. The subjects were apparently unconnected. In the first lecture Reid extensively criticized and commented on Joseph Priestley’s materialist philosophy. The central point of dispute was the inertness of matter and its consequences for physiology and religion: “By what force [the muscular fibers] are contracted and relaxed, either in voluntary or involuntary Motion, Philosophy has never discovered. . . . It is here that Mechanism ends, at least human wisdom has never been able to carry it farther; and some cause must operate that has the power of beginning motion” (Wood 1995, 202).
Active Powers of the Human Mind
Throughout the eighteenth century Scottish philosophers engage in lively debates about human agency, the will, and the powers that influence, incite, or determine human action. These debates culminate in the publications of Thomas Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers of Man (2010 [1788]) and Dugald Stewart’s The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (1854–1860: VI–VII). Reid distinguishes active powers from intellectual powers and understands action as the exertion of active power (2010 [1788]: I.1, 12–13). He argues that only beings equipped with understanding and will can have active powers (2010 [1788]: I.5, 27–29). Reid agrees with John Locke (1975 [1690]: II.xxi.5, 236) that our will enables us to begin, forbear, continue, or end actions. However, Reid understands active power in a more restricted sense than Locke does. For Locke, active powers are dispositions to produce change (1975 [1690]: II.xxi.2, 234). If active powers are exercised they produce actions, which for Locke include motions and thoughts (1975 [1690]: II.xxi.4, 235). This means that Locke allows that there can be active powers not only within the mental realm, but also in the external material world. Reid, by contrast, argues that all activity originates from a mind. For Reid, active powers are dispositions that are realised by volitions. Reid understands volition as ‘a Determination to do, or not to do, something which I believe to be in my Power.’ (2002: 131) Volitions presuppose some conception of what one wills; thus, they require understanding. Although volition and the will are not always carefully distinguished, Reid reserves the notion ‘the will’ for the faculty, and ‘volition’ for the act of willing (2002: 130, 2010 [1788]: II.1, 46) The will, which manifests itself in acts of volition, is a power to
An Essay on the Nature and Significance of the Normative Nature of Economics
It is conventional in economics to distinguish between the normative and the positive. The normative has to do with goodness and badness, and with what ought and ought not to be done;1 and the positive has to do with objective description and/or explanation, with what is and with what is necessary given some normative end. The normative has to do with desirability; the positive has to do with truth (in the sense of either descriptive accuracy or serviceability of a means to a given end).2