One reaction to the theory of moral responsibility Hume presentsis that the theory cannot be reconciled with his remarks about the self in Treatise, Book One. Hume declared a self or person to be nothing but a bundle of transient perceptions, arguing further that there is no one perception that continues invariably the same at any two moments of time. It would follow from such a view that, since one and the same bundle cannot logically exist at two distinct moments, (...) and hence a person at t1 is distinct and different from a person at t2, it is logically impossible, even unjust, to ascribe responsibility to a person at a later time for, say, a moral crime committed at a previous time. The reason is that the individual to whom responsibility will be ascribed is the successor of the criminal and not the criminal himself. But since this runs counter to our moral practices of making accountable the perpetrators of crimes, Hume would therefore have to give up or at least revise his theory of the self if he is to discuss intelligibly the issue of individual moral responsibility. (shrink)

Two significant aspects of Thomas Reid's thought seem to be irreconcilable with one another. On the one hand, Reid constantly refers to the substantive benefits which human knowledge receives from the Christian revelation. On the other hand, he does not justify philosophical or scientific beliefs by way of appeal to God. In this essay, I argue that a closer inspection of both Reid's philosophical reflection and scientific investigations shows that the two aspects just mentioned are compatible with one another. In (...) short, although an influence on rational investigation is somehow exerted by divine revelation, this does not limit the autonomy of reason, which is actually stimulated and promoted precisely because of a religiously rooted confidence in our rational faculties. (shrink)