Hume

In "Universal Principle of Human Nature" Hume essentially does what he claims people do in "Of the idea of Necessary Connexion" He claims, "The same motives always produce the same actions." Here, he is making a connection between cause and effect. Yet, he claims that it is impossible to actually see the connection between cause and effect; that this is only infered after observing a pattern of similar circumstances and results. So how can such an absolute exist about human behavior? Perhaps its possible to make such generalizations about a people as a whole based on what has been observed in the past, but I believe its impossible to truly predict what any individual person will do in any circumstance. Even if human beings do essentially share a core human nature, their circumstances and the conditioning that they have received from life will be an influence on their behavior. Though, in general, there may be expected results from similar circumstances that people face, people make suprising decisions everyday. There is no way to truly predict what the actions of men will be.