The Force of Our Motives: Thomas Reid on Scripture, Liberty, and Blameworthiness

Thomas Reid’s unpublished note, MS 2131/6/I/29 from the Birkwood Collection at the University of Aberdeen, says that rational actions require motives. Then, it names several synonyms for decorum, and, on the back, a list of ‘Scripture examples’. What could it mean? I suggest reading Reid’s Note On Motive alongside a letter Reid sent to Lord Kames, which says that motives come in two species, ‘force’ and ‘authority’. The virtue of decorum and the Scripture examples, I submit, motivate Reid’s position, contra Kames, that the human will responds to motives besides the force of desire. By recognizing two species of motives, Reid lends theoretical support to a minority view in criminal jurisprudence, Gideon Yaffe’s thesis that addictions can mitigate the blameworthiness of addiction-driven wrongdoings. According to Yaffe, to refrain from wrongdoing comes at significant cost to the addict, who can avoid the wrong only through an earlier surrender of his autonomy. Reid, I argue, can go a step further by explaining why addictions mitigate some wrongdoings even when the addict is not overwhelmed with temptation and without construing the wrong choice as a misjudgment.