Abstract
One prominent feature of belief is that a belief cannot be formed at will. This paper argues that the best explanation of this fact is that belief formation is a process that takes aim at the truth. Taking aim at the truth is to be understood as causal responsiveness of the processes constituting belief formation to what facilitates achieving true beliefs. The requirement for this responsiveness precludes the possibility of belief formation responding to intentions in a way that would count as forming a belief at will.
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Notes
Alston (1988) is a typical example.
Usually, the intention to φ will be acquired through experience but it is perhaps possible to have intentions in an a priori manner as, say, a requirement for being an intentional agent at all. Thanks to Dion Scott-Kakures for pointing out the possibility of a priori intentions.
Steup (2000) is another philosopher who recently has criticized the idea that beliefs cannot be formed at will. According to him, our constitution is such that when forming beliefs we do it in light of the importance of truth and that no other consideration can move us to form a belief.
Radcliffe (1997) makes a similar point. She gives an example of someone intending to believe p without having the belief that she is unjustified in believing p. Even if we interpret Scott-Kakures’s constraints on belief and intention as rationality constraints and not as constraints on what is psychologically or metaphysically possible, the constraints are false: in Ryan’s case, her intention to believe that the plane crashes are no accident is rational given her beliefs about what the evidence supports.
Steup (2000) also notes cases like Ryan’s to argue that there are cases of doxastic decisions that cause beliefs. He appeals to these cases to argue that belief formation is voluntary. Should he be interpreted as arguing that beliefs can be formed at will? There is a difference between believing voluntarily and forming a belief at will as noted in Sect. 2. And it seems that it is best not to interpret him as arguing that beliefs can be formed at will. After all, his main concern is to argue that beliefs can sensibly be evaluated deontologically, and for that he needs to argue that beliefs can be formed voluntarily. For this purpose, it may be neither necessary nor sufficient to argue that beliefs can be formed at will. Similar points apply to Ryan (2003). Her concern, too, is to argue that beliefs are voluntary and for this she may not have to argue that beliefs can be formed at will. Ryan’s argument that beliefs are voluntary is that they are intentional. Whether believing intentionally requires being able to believe at will is an issue that is beyond the scope of this paper.
How good must be the responsiveness? Obviously, a lousy shot can still count as taking aim. But there is a limit as to how lousy one can be. Carefully directing the rifle at one’s own left foot is not a way of taking aim at de Gaulle even under the most lenient understanding of how responsive one must be to what facilitates hitting de Gaulle.
Notice that this does not mean that the Jackal is not taking aim if he makes some calculations about how he needs to move and then forms to intention to move in that way and this causes him to move in that way. In this case, his bodily movement itself is proximately causally explained by his intention and hence is not a case of taking aim. But his whole activity which includes his forming the intention is an instance of taking aim since that activity is proximately causally explained by what facilitates hitting the target.
Shah and Velleman (2005, pp. 498–489) claim that a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for a state’s being a belief is that it must be a state that is causally regulated by a truth-tracking mechanism. They do not say much about what this regulation has to look like. The position outlined here can be seen as an explication of the notion of being causally regulated by a truth-tracking mechanism.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank an anonymous referee for this journal, Paul Moser and Dion Scott-Kakures for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Yamada, M. Taking aim at the truth. Philos Stud 157, 47–59 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9617-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9617-x