Abstract:Booth, Anthony Robert (2014) On some recent moves in defense of doxastic compatibilism. Synthese, 191 (8). pp. 1867-1880 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/59411/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version.
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“…When we act intentionally, we necessarily exercise our power of choice, a power we cannot fail to exercise freely (when we exercise it)" (Booth 2014(Booth , 1874.…”
Beliefs are held to norms in a way that seems to require control over what we believe.Yet we don't control our beliefs at will, in the way we control our actions. I argue that this problem can be solved by recognising a different form of control, which we exercise when we revise our beliefs directly for reasons. We enjoy this form of attitudinal control not only over our beliefs, but also over other attitudes, including intentions -that is, over the will itself. Closely tied to our capacity for reasoning, attitudinal control is in important respects more fundamental than the voluntary control that we exercise over our actions. In the course of developing this account I respond to two objections recently raised against an earlier version of it by Anthony Booth (2014).It is widely held that there are prescriptive norms governing belief. On the face of it, this presupposes that we can be responsible for what we believe, and, in turn, that we have some form of control over our beliefs. Yet we do not seem to control our beliefs in the same way that we control our bodily actions. This is the problem of epistemic responsibility.The solution, I argue, lies in recognising a form of attitudinal control, which differs from the voluntary control we exercise over our bodily actions. What is crucial for responsibility to certain norms is the capacity to respond to the reasons associated with those norms. Through attitudinal control we respond to the reasons that bear on our attitudes -attitudes including not only beliefs, but also, notably, intentions. Indeed, this form of control is in important respects more fundamental than voluntary control.In what follows I set out more fully the problem of epistemic responsibility and argue for the solution just sketched. I then take up two objections from Anthony Booth (2014). In responding to them I 2 refine and deepen my account of responsibility, of attitudinal control, and of its relation to the way we control our actions. I argue that these kinds of control can helpfully be understood in terms of the different ways they are exercised through reasoning.
The Problem of Epistemic Responsibility and How to Solve It
The ProblemThe problem of epistemic responsibility can be expressed through four claims that seem individually plausible but are jointly incompatible. 1 (i) Our beliefs, like our actions, are governed by prescriptive norms.
2(ii) If beliefs are governed by prescriptive norms, then we can be responsible for our beliefs, as we can be for our actions.(iii) Being responsible for our beliefs requires that we have the same kind of control over our beliefs as we do over our actions.(iv) We don't have the same kind of control over our beliefs as we do over our actions.In the rest of this subsection I will clarify these claims and try to bring out their prima facie plausibility.By prescriptive norms I mean norms of the sort that we express using terms like 'ought', 'may', 'must', 'obligation' and 'permission' in their ordinary senses. Such norms require, enjoin, permit or 1 ...
“…When we act intentionally, we necessarily exercise our power of choice, a power we cannot fail to exercise freely (when we exercise it)" (Booth 2014(Booth , 1874.…”
Beliefs are held to norms in a way that seems to require control over what we believe.Yet we don't control our beliefs at will, in the way we control our actions. I argue that this problem can be solved by recognising a different form of control, which we exercise when we revise our beliefs directly for reasons. We enjoy this form of attitudinal control not only over our beliefs, but also over other attitudes, including intentions -that is, over the will itself. Closely tied to our capacity for reasoning, attitudinal control is in important respects more fundamental than the voluntary control that we exercise over our actions. In the course of developing this account I respond to two objections recently raised against an earlier version of it by Anthony Booth (2014).It is widely held that there are prescriptive norms governing belief. On the face of it, this presupposes that we can be responsible for what we believe, and, in turn, that we have some form of control over our beliefs. Yet we do not seem to control our beliefs in the same way that we control our bodily actions. This is the problem of epistemic responsibility.The solution, I argue, lies in recognising a form of attitudinal control, which differs from the voluntary control we exercise over our bodily actions. What is crucial for responsibility to certain norms is the capacity to respond to the reasons associated with those norms. Through attitudinal control we respond to the reasons that bear on our attitudes -attitudes including not only beliefs, but also, notably, intentions. Indeed, this form of control is in important respects more fundamental than voluntary control.In what follows I set out more fully the problem of epistemic responsibility and argue for the solution just sketched. I then take up two objections from Anthony Booth (2014). In responding to them I 2 refine and deepen my account of responsibility, of attitudinal control, and of its relation to the way we control our actions. I argue that these kinds of control can helpfully be understood in terms of the different ways they are exercised through reasoning.
The Problem of Epistemic Responsibility and How to Solve It
The ProblemThe problem of epistemic responsibility can be expressed through four claims that seem individually plausible but are jointly incompatible. 1 (i) Our beliefs, like our actions, are governed by prescriptive norms.
2(ii) If beliefs are governed by prescriptive norms, then we can be responsible for our beliefs, as we can be for our actions.(iii) Being responsible for our beliefs requires that we have the same kind of control over our beliefs as we do over our actions.(iv) We don't have the same kind of control over our beliefs as we do over our actions.In the rest of this subsection I will clarify these claims and try to bring out their prima facie plausibility.By prescriptive norms I mean norms of the sort that we express using terms like 'ought', 'may', 'must', 'obligation' and 'permission' in their ordinary senses. Such norms require, enjoin, permit or 1 ...
“…The preservation of the analogy between doxastic responsibility and a non‐attitudinal form of responsibility avoids what it is appropriate to call “the objection of doxastic ad‐hocness”. The objection of doxastic ad‐hocness has been given a convincing presentation in two recent papers by Anthony Booth (, ). Here is one enlightening extract:The doxastic compatibilist owes us a principled account of why her criteria are criteria about freedom .…”
Section: The Consequential Conception Of Doxastic Responsibilitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The proponent of DC [the thesis that doxastic responsibility should be conceived along compatibilist lines, n.a] cannot now respond: they determine whether action is free, so they also determine whether belief is free. (Booth, , p. 1868)…”
Section: The Consequential Conception Of Doxastic Responsibilitymentioning
We are occasionally responsible for our beliefs. But is this doxastic responsibility analogous to any non-attitudinal form of responsibility? What I shall call the consequential conception of doxastic responsibility holds that the kind of responsibility that we have for our beliefs is indeed analogous to the kind of responsibility that we have for the consequences of our actions. This article does two things, both with the aim of defending this somewhat unsophisticated but intuitive view of doxastic responsibility. First, it emphasizes the advantage of preserving, as the consequential conception does, the analogy with the non-attitudinal realm, i.e., with the realm of actions and their consequences. Second, this article regiments the most important objections to the consequential conception and answers them. The upshot is that there are no serious drawbacks to the consequential conception. There is, therefore, no reason not to favour it over accounts of doxastic responsibility that do not preserve the analogy with the non-attitudinal realm.
“…See McCormick (), Steup (), and McHugh () for arguments that even if our agency isn't involved in belief as it is in action, we nonetheless count as free with respect to and responsible for what we believe in the normal case. See Booth () for a response. Whatever we say about the freedom we exercise over our beliefs, we need some explanation of the way believing as we should relates to exercising our cognitive agency as we should.…”
On the assumption that genuinely normative demands concern things connected in some way to our agency, i.e. what we exercise in doing things with or for reasons, epistemologists face an important question: are there genuine epistemic norms governing belief, and if so where in the vicinity of belief are we to find the requisite cognitive agency? Extant accounts of cognitive agency tend to focus on belief itself or the event of belief‐formation to answer this question, to the exclusion of the activity of maintaining a system of beliefs. This paper argues that a full account of epistemic normativity will need to make sense of this activity as a core locus of cognitive agency. This idea is used to motivate the conclusion that one important and often overlooked kind of epistemic norms is the kind of norms governing the various cognitive activities by which we check, sustain, and adjust our belief systems.
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