Choosing to Believe
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 63 (1/3):55 - 69 (2008)
| Abstract | This article defends a regulative ethics of voluntary belief. In order to determine the occasion and the scope of such an ethics, the article begins with an examination of the concept of belief in conversation with the view of J. L. Schellenberg. Next, against the dominant position in contemporary epistemology, it argues that some beliefs can be voluntary, in the sense that they are under the immediate control of the believer, and replies to William Alston's influential objections to doxastic voluntarism. If some beliefs are subject to the immediate control of the believer, then in these cases believers are ethically responsible not only for how they investigate those beliefs, but also for the choice of whether or not to believe them. The article concludes by formulating and defending two types of regulative ethical principles governing voluntary belief | |||||||||
| 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: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesAlfred R. Mele (1994). Self-Control and Belief. Philosophical Psychology 7 (4):419 – 435.
Matthew Chrisman (2008). Ought to Believe. Journal of Philosophy 105 (7):346-370.
Robert Audi (2008). The Ethics of Belief: Doxastic Self-Control and Intellectual Virtue. Synthese 161 (3):403 - 418.
Miriam McCormick (2011). Taking Control of Belief. Philosophical Explorations 14 (2):169 - 183.
Matthias Steup (2011). Belief, Voluntariness and Intentionality. Dialectica 65 (4):537-559.
Nikolaj Nottelmann (2006). The Analogy Argument for Doxastic Voluntarism. Philosophical Studies 131 (3):559 - 582.
Matthias Steup (2000). Doxastic Voluntarism and Epistemic Deontology. Acta Analytica 15 (1):25-56.
Andrei A. Buckareff (2004). Acceptance and Deciding to Believe. Journal of Philosophical Research 29:173-190.
Rico Vitz, Doxastic Voluntarism. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads34 ( #35,279 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,327 of 548,984 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
