factor causes them both.”
“Right.”
“An empiricist of our own century, Bertrand Russell, has provided a more
grotesque example. A chicken which experiences every day that it gets fed when the
farmer’s wife comes over to the chicken run will finally come to the conclusion that
there is a causal link between the approach of the farmer’s wife and feed being put
into its bowl.”
“But one day the chicken doesn’t get its food?”
“No, one day the farmer’s wife comes over and wrings the chicken’s neck.”
“Yuck, how disgusting!”
“The fact that one thing follows after another thus does not necessarily mean
there is a causal link. One of the main concerns of philosophy is to warn people
against jumping to conclusions. It can in fact lead to many different forms of
superstition.”
“How come?”
“You see a black cat cross the street. Later that day you fall and break your arm.
But that doesn’t mean there is any causal link between the two incidents. In science, it
is especially important not to jump to conclusions. For instance, the fact that a lot of
people get well after taking a particular drug doesn’t mean it was the drug that cured
them. That’s why it’s important to have a large control group of patients who think
they are also being given this same medicine, but who are in fact only being given
flour and water. If these patients also get well, there has to be a third factor—such as
the belief that the medicine works, and has cured them.”
“I think I’m beginning to see what empiricism is.”
“Hume also rebelled against rationalist thought in the area of ethics. The
rationalists had always held that the ability to distinguish between right and wrong is
inherent in human reason. We have come across this idea of a so-called natural right
in many philosophers from Socrates to Locke. But according to Hume, it is not reason
that determines what we say and do.”
“What is it then?”
“It is our sentiments. If you decide to help someone in need, you do so because
of your feelings, not your reason.”
“What if I can’t be bothered to help?”
“That, too, would be a matter of feelings. It is neither reasonable nor
unreasonable not to help someone in need, but it could be unkind.”
“But there must be a limit somewhere. Everyone knows it’s wrong to kill.”
“According to Hume, everybody has a feeling for other people’s welfare. So we
all have a capacity for compassion. But it has nothing to do with reason.”
“I don’t know if I agree.”
“It’s not always so unwise to get rid of another person, Sophie. If you wish to
achieve something or other, it can actually be quite a good idea.”
“Hey, wait a minute! I protest!”
“Maybe you can try and explain why one shouldn’t kill a troublesome person.”
“’That person wants to live too. Therefore you ought not to kill them.”
“Was that a logical reason?”
“I don’t know.”
“What you did was to draw a conclusion from a descriptive sentence—That
person wants to live too’—to what we call a normative sentence: ‘Therefore you
ought not to kill them.’ From the point of view of reason this is nonsense. You might
just as well say ‘There are lots of people who cheat on their taxes, therefore I ought to