...other. For these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact. By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations...hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute. (Hume, 1748, VIII,...

...liberty and necessity the most contentious question of metaphysics, 624. liberty can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will, 624; cf. Hobbes, 90, 98; Locke, 164, 169. liberty, when opposed to necessity instead of to constraint,...

...meant by liberty, when applied to voluntary actions? ... By liberty . . . we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations...at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may" (Ibid., VIII I, p. 95). "Liberty, according to that definition above mentioned, in which all men agree,...

...absence of hindrances to the execution of one's decisions. He describes it in the Enquiry thus: "a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations...rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may." He immediately adds that it is possessed by "every one who is not a prisoner and in chains" (EHU 8.1,...

...to an unprovable cause of experienced effects. "By liberty," he asserts, "we can only mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will." The will is described as "the internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give...

...6 This is liberty of spontaneity or hypothetical liberty. When we enjoy liberty of this kind, then, "if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may". This sort of liberty is to be contrasted not with causation and necessity but rather with force or...

...interpretation of moral freedom. Hume maintains that liberty, properly understood, is simply "a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will" (EU, 95). 6 This is liherty of spontaneity or hypothetical liberty. When we enjoy liberty of this kind,...

...writes, 'we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the mil; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may' (£95). This 'hypothetical liberty', as he calls it, 'is universally allowed to belong to every one...

...with a certain degree of uniformity from the other. ... By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations...at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may" (1748/1955, Vol. 7, pt. 1). Hume's positions regarding intentional actions and causes have been tenacious....

...time. And this is hardly surprising. Liberty of spontaneity is glossed by Hume in the following way: if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, vm. i). How, given that both possibilities are granted,...