Epistemic Deontology and Voluntariness
Erkenntnis 77 (1):65-94 (2012)
| Abstract | We tend to prescribe and appraise doxastic states in terms that are broadly deontic. According to a simple argument, such prescriptions and appraisals are improper, because they wrongly presuppose that our doxastic states are voluntary. One strategy for resisting this argument, recently endorsed by a number of philosophers, is to claim that our doxastic states are in fact voluntary (This strategy has been pursued by Steup 2008 ; Weatherson 2008 ). In this paper I argue that this strategy is neither successful nor necessary. Our doxastic states are not voluntary in any interesting sense. But once we see why our doxastic states are not voluntary, we can also see that there is no apparent reason to think that deontic prescriptions and appraisals—epistemic ones, at any rate—presuppose doxastic voluntarism. Indeed, there is good reason to deny that they do so. Finally, I diagnose the misleading attraction of the idea that what I call ‘epistemic deontology’ presupposes doxastic voluntarism | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMatthias Steup (2000). Doxastic Voluntarism and Epistemic Deontology. Acta Analytica 15 (1):25-56.
Matthew Chrisman (2008). Ought to Believe. Journal of Philosophy 105 (7):346-370.
Michael J. Shaffer (2013). Doxastic Voluntarism, Epistemic Deontology and Belief-Contravening Commitments. American Philosophical Quarterly 50:73-82.
Conor Mchugh (forthcoming). Exercising Doxastic Freedom. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Danny Frederick (2013). Doxastic Voluntarism: A Sceptical Defence. International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 3 (1):24-44.
Andrei A. Buckareff (2006). Doxastic Decisions and Controlling Belief. Acta Analytica 21 (1):102-114.
Rico Vitz, Doxastic Voluntarism. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Matthias Steup (2011). Belief, Voluntariness and Intentionality. Dialectica 65 (4):537-559.
Andrei A. Buckareff (2005). An Essay on Doxastic Agency. Dissertation, University of Rochester
Philippe Chuard & Nicholas Southwood (2009). Epistemic Norms Without Voluntary Control. Noûs 43 (4):599-632.
Anthony Robert Booth (2012). All Things Considered Duties to Believe. Synthese 187 (2):509-517.
Allan Hazlett (2012). Higher-Order Epistemic Attitudes and Intellectual Humility. Episteme 9 (3):205-223.
Nikolaj Nottelmann (2006). The Analogy Argument for Doxastic Voluntarism. Philosophical Studies 131 (3):559 - 582.
Andrew Reisner (forthcoming). Leaps of Knowledge. In Timothy Chan (ed.), The Aim of Belief. OUP.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-07-15Total downloads71 ( #11,988 of 549,521 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #19,303 of 549,521 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
