Hume goes on to argue that not only is necessity of this kind essential to human society, it is also “essential to religion and morality” (T 2.3.2.5 410), because of its relevance to the foundations of responsibility and punishment. If the motives of rewards and punishments had no uniform and reliable influence on conduct then law and society would be impossible (ibid.; cp. EU 8.28/ 97–98; see also T 3.3.4.4/609). Beyond this, whether we consider human or divine rewards and punishments, the justice of such practices depends on the fact that the agent has produced or brought about these actions through her own will. The “doctrine of liberty or chance,” however, would remove this connection between agent and action and so no one could be properly held accountable for their conduct (T 2.3.2.6/411). It is, therefore, “only upon the principles of necessity, that a person acquires any merit or demerit from his actions, however the common opinion may incline to the contrary” (ibid.; EU 8.31/99). Read this way, Hume is mostly restating a claim found in many other compatibilist accounts, that necessity (determinism) is needed to support a generally forward-looking, utilitarian theory of moral responsibility and punishment.