Abstract

The best-known Humean theory of laws of nature is David Lewis’s best-system analysis. Almost all of the other Humean theories of laws in the literature are also “best-system theories”: like Lewis’s account, they say that to be a law is to belong to a system of statements or propositions that maximizes some desirable feature. In fact, in conversation, philosophers commonly use “the Humean account of laws” and “the best-system account of laws” interchangeably. But Humeanism about laws and the best-system approach to laws are not the same thing: Humeanism imposes a metaphysical constraint on an acceptable theory of laws, and the best-system approach is one strategy for meeting that constraint. There are other theories of lawhood that also meet the constraint. This chapter aims to present a sketch of a new Humean theory that eschews all reference to best systems, and to make it clear that this theory is plausible enough to be worth looking into further.