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Constitutional Political Economy

Erschienen in:

16.08.2021 | Original Paper

Convention without convening

verfasst von: Erik W. Matson, Daniel B. Klein

Erschienen in: Constitutional Political Economy | Ausgabe 1/2022

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Abstract

David K. Lewis published his brilliant PhD dissertation in 1969, Convention; A Philosophical Study. With a lag, scholarship on David Hume has come to elaborate the similitude between Lewis and Hume on convention. Reading Hume along the lines of Lewis gives us a vocabulary with which we can better appreciate and articulate the innovativeness of Hume’s theory of convention. This study contributes to that appreciation and to rearticulates Hume’s innovative analytical framework for thinking about the unformalized duties and obligations—sometimes glossed as institutions or culture—underlying social interaction and economic behavior. After summarizing Lewis, we treat Hume’s account of the emergence of the conventions of language, justice, and political authority in broadly Lewisian terms. Another purpose is to draw on Hume to develop a concept of “natural convention.” A natural convention is a social practice whose concrete form in time and place is conventional in a Lewisian sense, but whose generalized form is necessary, and hence natural, for more advanced social organization. In the final section of the paper, we consider the semantic originality of Hume’s convention talk. Drawing from a largescale textual search, we find scant evidence that the English word “convention” was used in a Lewisian sense—that is, in a sense that did not entail a literal convening—prior to Hume.

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Abbreviations: References to A Treatise of Human Nature or the Treatise are to Hume (2007b [1739/1740]), abbreviated as ‘T,’ followed by book, part, section, and paragraph. References to An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals or the Second Enquiry are to Hume (1998 [1751]), abbreviated as ‘EPM,’ followed by section, part [when one exists], and paragraph. References to the Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary or the Essays are to Hume (1994), abbreviated as “EMPL,” followed by page. References to “A Dissertation on the Passions” are to Hume (2007a [1757]), abbreviated as ‘DP,’ followed by section and paragraph. In references to Hume, italics are original to the editions cited unless otherwise noted.

With the help of Jonathan Matt, to whom we are grateful, we have conducted a systematic search of texts in English (including translations of Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, etc.) at Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty. The coverage includes all thinkers in the following groups at the Liberty Fund site: “17^th Century Natural Rights Theorists,” “18^th Century Commonwealthmen,” “The Levellers,” “Pre-Smithian Economists,” “The Philosophical Radicals,” “The Protestant Reformation,” “Puritans,” and “The Scottish Enlightenment.” The resultant 800-row Excel file shows the text containing “convention”(https://www.dropbox.com/s/rsx51i9i18j30qj/Appendix%20to%20%27Convention%20without%20Convening%27.xlsx?dl=0).

We mean “commutative justice” in Adam Smith’s (1982b [1790], 269) sense of the expression, which is the primary sense in which Hume uses the term “justice.” For an exposition of the three senses of justice maintained by Smith, see Klein (2021a).

Other works in Hume scholarship up to 2012 that highlight similitude between Hume and Lewis on convention include: Ardal (1977); Charron (1980); Sugden (2005 [1986]; 2011); Vanderschraaf (1998); Hardin (1999; 2007), and Sabl (2012). For an attempt to develop an economic theory of institutions from Lewis’s ideas, although without reference to Hume, see Schotter (1981).

Lewis (1969) arrives at his final definition of convention on page 78. Thereafter in the book he contrasts convention with several other concepts and then employs his analysis to address issues of the conventionality of language and to clarify issues of analyticity.

The Schelling-Lewis coordination discussed here is mutual coordination, as opposed to concatenate coordination, which is about what a spectator of the whole concatenation finds pleasing (Klein 1997; 2012, 37–77).

For example, Murphy (2010, 119, 122) suggests that multiple Nash equilibria is the defining characteristic of a coordination problem.

The second version of the final definition simply specifies indices (d₀, d₁, d₂, d₃, d₄, d₅) to expresses degree, in lieu “almost any instance,” “almost everyone conforms,” etc. in the first version.

Seeing the relevant population is critical to Lewis’s conclusions about analyticity. At the end he writes: “I have given an account of the proper kind of analyticity—analyticity relative to a population of language users” (207).

For a list of conventions in Hume, see Hardin (2007, 85).

J.L. Mackie (1980, 88–91) seems to view conventions of reciprocity as the main sort of convention in Hume. He emphasizes the “experimental spirit” by which conventions are spread throughout a population (89). Recognizing themselves in a recurring situation, individuals attempt what they take to be mutually beneficial actions, continuing in those actions if others cooperate.

A similar point is made by H.L.A. Hart (2012 [1961], 193–200) in his discussion of “the minimum content of natural law.”

Lewis (1969, 48) himself seems to pick up on Hume’s theory of property along such lines.

Our notion of “natural conventions” relates to Binmore’s idea of “natural justice,” although like Hume we eschew discussion of “social contracts.” Binmore (2005, 48) observes that “it is natural that a human society should have a social contract [i.e., rules of justice enforced by an established political authority], but its actual social contract is an artifact of its cultural history.” H.L.A. Hart advances similar ideas in his discussion of the minimum content of natural law. Some “minimum forms of protection for persons, property, and promises […] are indispensable features of municipal law,” although the exact features of municipal law differ in time and place (Hart 2012 [1961], 199). Natural conventions have both universal and particular aspects. The universal aspects derive from the principles of human nature; the particular aspects derive from varying ways in time and place that these universal aspects find concrete expression in different societies (e.g. different forms of political arrangement, rules of possession, language, etc.).

“This theory concerning the origin of property, and consequently of justice, is, in the main, the same with that hinted at and adopted by GROTIUS” (EPM Appendix 1 n63).

Hume’s language throughout his writing affirms the idea of self-ownership as natural. In the Treatise, he says that war puts at stake “the most considerable of all goods, life and limbs” (T 3.2.8.1). His autobiographical essay “My Own Life” suggests self-ownership in its title; he recounts “the great decline of my person” caused by illness at the end of his life (EMPL, xl). In his essay on suicide, Hume would seem to presuppose self-ownership when speaking if “our natural liberty” and “native liberty” (EMPL, 588 n6, 580). In another essay he speaks of the English government’s obligation “to secure every one’s life” (EMPL 12).

On pride in Hume see Matson (2021, 853–56); Taylor (2015, 37–50).

In Book 1 of the Treatise Hume compares the soul to a republic (T 1.4.6.19). For other remarks on the soul, see T 2.1.3.3, 2.1.3.5, 2.1.5.4; DP 3.6, 6.12.

Hume’s correspondence to Schelling and Lewis on salience has been treated by Sugden (2005 [1986], 96; 2011). On the importance of salience in Hume’s account of political authority, see Sabl (2012).

It should be noted that Hume takes the natural conventions of justice and the rules of property to precede the institutions of government (T 3.2.10.2).

On the relationship between what Forbes calls Hume’s “establishment political philosophy” with his presumption of liberty in political economy, see Matson (2019, 44–47).

For further discussions on Hume and contractarianism, see Whelan (1994); Hardin (2007); Salter (2012).

Anthony de Jasay (2010) criticized Sugden (2009), saying that one cannot be a contractarian without embracing some form of social contract theory, a theory that “goes right against the Humean grain” (Jasay 2010, 401). Hume’s position entails the idea of acquiescing to institutionalized coercive political power, not contracting or agreeing with others to constitute that power. In framing Hume’s conventionalist account of acquiescing to political authority as “contractarian,” or something that “might reasonably be called” a matter of “implicit agreements” (Sugden 2013, 65), one goes against Hume and, we think, undermines understandings and semantics that are vital to liberal civilization. That said, we join Sugden (2013, 62–63) in saying that de Jasay errs in aligning Hume with “ordered anarchy” (Jasay 2010, 402). Nowhere in Hume do we see sentiments that would deny legitimacy to governmental authority, per se, or savor the abolition of the state—Hume would see such sentiments as a species of political enthusiasm and “false philosophy.”

Hume sent Hutcheson Book III of the Treatise in manuscript in 1739 and it was published in 1740. It is likely that Hume paid a visit to Hutcheson in the winter of 1739–40 (Turco 2007, xviii). Hutcheson (2007) was first published in Latin in 1742 and a second revised edition in 1745, and the English translation in 1747. Hutcheson died in 1746. Hutcheson (1755) was brought forward by his son, also named Francis.

For the sake of completeness and future reference, note that Hume uses the words “tacit” and “implicit” to modify “promise,” “consent,” or “agreement” in the following instances in his Treatise: T 3.2.3.6, 3.2.8.3, 3.2.8.9. In his Essays, he uses “tacit” in connection with “promise,” “consent,” or “agreement,” only critically in “Of the Original Contract” (EMPL, 465–487). “Implicit” is not used in such a way in the Essays. Neither “tacit” nor “implicit” are used to modify these terms in his Enquiries.

The reader is encouraged to check “tacit convention” in Google’s Ngram Viewer.

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Titel: Convention without convening
verfasst von: Erik W. Matson
Daniel B. Klein
Publikationsdatum: 16.08.2021
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Constitutional Political Economy / Ausgabe 1/2022
Print ISSN: 1043-4062
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-9966
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-021-09347-5

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