ABSTRACT

Synopsis Reid’s book on the Active Powers is an extended theory of human action built on a basic principle of Reid’s philosophy, namely, that we have active power, the power of agency, the power to act as an efficient cause. The two fundamental assumptions of Reid’s philosophy are that innate principles of conception and belief produce our basic convictions and that innate principles of volition and action produce our basic actions. The principles of conception and belief are the principles of an input system receiving information from the outside world producing effects in the mind, while the principles of volition and action are the principles of an output system in the mind producing effects on the outside world. The intellectual powers depend on innate principles to supply the first premises from which we infer our conclusions. The active powers depend equally on innate principles to supply the first premises from which we determine our actions. We have the liberty to determine what actions we will; however, such determination is not necessitated, even by our innate principles. The innate principles of the mind supply us with motives for action by informing us which actions are good on the whole and which are our duty, but the agent has the power to will or not to will such actions. The agent is an efficient cause of free action. Reid rejects a deterministic theory of action and defends an indeterministic model of action in detail. We shall proceed by first considering his theory of action and morals and, subsequently, turn to his defence of the doctrine of liberty.