Abstract
Pragmatists have argued that doxastic or epistemic norms do not apply to beliefs, but to changes of beliefs; thus not to the holding or not-holding, but to the acquisition or removal of beliefs. Doxastic voluntarism generally claims that humans (sometimes or usually) acquire beliefs in a deliberate and controlled way. This paper introduces Negative Doxastic Voluntarism according to which there is a fundamental asymmetry in belief change: (i) humans tend to acquire beliefs more or less automatically and unreflectively, but (ii) they tend to withdraw beliefs in a controlled and deliberate way. I first present a variety of philosophical, empirical and logical arguments for Negative Doxastic Voluntarism. Then I raise two objections against it. First, the apparent asymmetry may result from a confusion of belief with other doxastic attitudes like assumption, supposition, hypothesis or opinion. Second, the apparent asymmetry seems to vanish if we focus on doxastic states rather than just beliefs. Some rejoinders and their consequences for the vague concept of belief are sketched.
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Notes
Cf. Spohn (2012, p. 118), “[t]he issue looks idle. At least each acquired belief has been acquired at some point through a belief change, and so if the belief change has a reason, so has the belief, and vice versa.” I think this is too quick. Some time ago, I may have had perfectly good reasons to acquire a belief that I am still holding, but that has ceased to be justified because a lot of counterevidence has accumulated since then.
Levi (1998, p. 179).
Levi (2004, p. 3). Notice that while the first passage quoted seems to require justification only if beliefs are actually changed, the second quotation demands justification already if changes are on offer (thanks to an anonymous reviewer for alerting me to this difference). If one is obliged to justify a “program for making changes”, this does not entail that a change of belief actually takes place.
I do not want to commit myself to a particular frequency claim here. Most positive doxastic voluntarists hold that perceptive beliefs are acquired involuntarily, some of them hold that the voluntary acquisition of beliefs is actually rather rare. In the following, nothing depends on my somewhat simplistic formulation of PDV.
Compare the careful distinction regarding the (potential) epistemic blameworthiness of forming, preventing, suspending and sustaining beliefs in Nottelmann (2007, pp. 87 and 102–104). Thanks to Andrea Kruse and an anonymous reviewer for pointing me to these passages. Nottelmann remarks that he does “not engage much with modes of abortive doxastic control” (p. 94).
Audi (1999, p. 89). The distinction here appears to be one that is made between the columns within the first row of Table 1. The text continues: “The two kinds of control might seem to be on a par, each equally supporting voluntarism. They are surely not: That one can bring something about at will is at least some reason to consider it an action, but the capacity to prevent something at will need not be such a reason.” In Audi (2008, pp. 404–405), he draws the distinction in a different (if not fully explicit) way. He seems to identify negative doxastic control with the “power to resist”, and positive doxastic control with the “power to eliminate” (the latter is, according to Audi, “commonly ‘automatic’ ”). This is a distinction between the rows within the left column of Table 1.
To put it in Levi’s words, this is a distinction between different types of occasion “when change in belief is on offer.”—I will not say anything about the unconscious and gradual processes of forgetting and coming to believe.
Phenomenologically speaking, this claim must be called into question. The great 17th century epistemologists Descartes and Locke have both been interpreted as emphasising that freedom and decision are (“chiefly”, “commonly”) involved in the maintenance of non-belief: “[W]hen Descartes maintains that assent is an act of will, what chiefly interests him, of course, is the negative side of this doctrine: not so much that it is in our power to assent as we choose, but that it is in our power to withhold assent as we choose. The important point about this ‘freedom of judgement’, in his eyes at least, is that it is a freedom to suspend judgement.” (Price 1969, p. 224) “Though Locke held that only rarely are the circumstances such that one can decide to believe, he clearly held that we are commonly in circumstances in which we can decide to withhold belief, or decide to resist believing, or decide to believe with a particular firmness.” (Wolterstorff 1996, p. 102)
Hume (1739–40, pp. 112, 120, 123 and 626). The last point was made famous by Peirce in his belief-doubt model: “Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else. On the contrary, we cling tenaciously, not merely to believing, but to believing just what we do believe.” (Peirce 1877, p. 114) This is in direct opposition to the ancient skeptics’ idea that suspension of judgment (epoché) is the road to tranquility.
Reid (1764, p. 196). We find similar statements in the 19th century, for instance in Alexander Bain (1859, pp. 511–512): “The leading fact in Belief, according to my view of it, is our Primitive Credulity. We begin by believing everything [...We are said properly ...] to believe in what has never been contradicted, as we disbelieve in what has been contradicted.”
Nietzsche (1882, pp. 171–172).
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point.
In more recent analytic philosophy, it has even been claimed that primitive credulity is necessary to begin to build up knowledge or to learn a language. Credulity has thus been advocated as a norm for good thinking and speaking. Swinburne (1979, p. 254), Lycan (1988, p. 165) and (2013) have put forward principles of credulity in epistemology, Lewis (1975, p. 7, with credits to Stenius 1967) a convention of trust (which is very similar to a convention of credulity) in philosophy of language. While these principles underscore the importance of credulity and seem to presuppose its consistency with human nature, they also raise a problem: norms and conventions apply to voluntary actions, not to things that we cannot help thinking or doing.
Gilbert (1991, p. 113). Here “rejection” refers not to the resisting of a new, but to the elimination of a previously accepted proposition in the sense of Table 1. Gilbert uses “unacceptance” as an unambiguous alternative term. The first part of the Spinozan hypothesis sounds trivial (as an anonymous reviewer pointed out), so it is the second part that carries all the weight. Gilbert’s point is that acceptance comes with comprehension, before a critical assessment of the proposition in question has even started. Also compare Gilbert (1993).
In Fregean terms, this is the distinction between thinking (Denken) and judging (Urteilen), i.e., between the grasping of a thought and the acknowledgement of its truth (Fassen eines Gedanken vs. Anerkennung der Wahrheit des Gedanken).
Gilbert (1991, pp. 116–117).
Gilbert (1991, p. 108).
The paradox of fiction arises from the fact that we are emotionally moved when reading novels, knowing very well that their characters and events are purely fictitious. Here is the original passage of Coleridge (1817, Vol. 2, p. 6): “[...] it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”
After reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre of 1847.
After reading “Murder at the Mall”, a crime story specifically devised for the experiments. All examples are taken from Gerrig and Rapp (2004).
Gerrig (1993, pp. 130, 140). A reviewer has alerted me to the fact that Gerrig’s slogan is ambiguous. “Disbelief” may refer either to belief of the negation (cf. Quine and Ullian 1978, pp. 12–13) or to nonbelief, i.e., the absence of belief (this is the reading common in English, according to the dictionaries). It is pretty clear that Gilbert follows the latter usage. Gerrig does not tell, but I think the same is true for him.
For an overview of such theories and their role in psychology, see Evans (2008).
Similar to the other authors discussed in this section, Kahneman relies on the criterion of voluntariness, see for instance Kahneman (2011, pp. 20–21, emphasis added): “System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.”
Kahneman (2011, p. 81). In the title of the chapter from which this quote is taken, he labels System 1 a “machine for jumping to conclusions”.
Kahneman (2011, p. 122).
The classical models of partial meet contraction, possible models contraction, safe contraction and entrenchment-based contraction are presented in Gärdenfors (1988), later developments are surveyed in Rott (2008a, b). In contrast to contraction, logical or metaphysical subtraction is supposed to be an objective matter. There is only comparatively little work on subtraction. Humberstone (2011, pp. 677–708) offers the most elaborate treatment that I know, Yablo (2014, pp. 131–164) has a good philosophical discussion.
Namely, choices of (most) plausible possible worlds or (most) implausible propositions, as well as choices concerning the method of contraction. More on this in Sect. 3.2.
The Levi Identity (cf. Levi 1991, Sects. 2.9 and 4.6) has a dual that defines belief contractions in term of belief revision. It is called the Harper Identity:
. It can be shown that these two bridge principles fit together perfectly in the logic of belief change (Gärdenfors 1988, Chap. 3). Thus from a purely formal point of view, it seems arbitrary whether we take expansions and contractions as primitive and define revisions by the Levi Identity, or whether we take revisions (including consistent expansions as special cases) as primitive and define contractions by the Harper Identity. But it is the Levi Identity that can claim superior epistemological backing. In so far as the Levi Identity identifies a simple operation of expansion and a sophisticated operation of contraction as the fundamental operations of belief change, it is in line with our logical argument in favour of NDV.A first worry concerning the use of external revision and semi-revision can easily be put aside. The Levi Identity avoids inconsistency. However, the Reverse Levi Identity and the recipe for semi-revision, with their sequence acceptance–reflection–rejection, frequently pass through inconsistent belief states. Even though the very raison d’être of the field of belief revision theory is that a reasoner’s belief set should be kept consistent, classical belief change models are perfectly suitable for the formal modelling of contractions of inconsistent theories if full belief states are taken into account (see Sect. 3.2 below). The easiest way of doing this is to use essentially the same plausibility ordering (system of spheres or entrenchment ordering) for the representation of a consistent and an inconsistent belief state: just add the empty sphere to the systems of sphere model, or add the layer of minimally entrenched sentences to capture the inconsistent belief set. This answers a criticism repeatedly voiced by Sven Ove Hansson (1993, pp. 641, 643), (1997b, pp. 155, 157) and (2014, Sects. 6.2 and 6.3). Hansson points out that there is only one inconsistent belief set (since belief sets are supposed to be logically closed). But this does not entail that there is only one way of changing the inconsistent belief set. In fact we recognise that there are many such ways as soon as we take belief states rather than belief sets as the objects of belief change.
One reading of this objection construes it as suggesting that belief acquisition is a two-stage process, consisting of a largely subconscious and uncontrolled forming of candidate beliefs, followed by an effortful and controlled process of consolidation. Beliefs then are those candidate beliefs that survive the consolidation process. According to this conception, the process of belief acquisition as a whole involves effort and control.
For the paradigmatic notion of acceptance, cf. in particular Cohen (1992) and Nottelmann (2007, pp. 23–31). Another mental act that is in some respects similar to belief is imagination. Imagination is even more clearly voluntary than the notions just mentioned. But it is not the result of automatic System-1-style acquisition either.
Cf. in particular Meinong (1902).
Though conjectures are again more act-like.—There are also some more or less technical terms that might seem appropriate to fill the role of almost-beliefs: half-belief (Price and Braithwaite 1964), subdoxastic state (Stich 1978), in-between believing (Schwitzgebel 2002) and alief (Gendler 2008). Interesting as they are, these terms have not won large numbers of followers yet, and as far as I can see, they don’t denote the kind of mental state what would be suitable to flesh out the thesis of Negative Doxastic Voluntarism.
For the latter point, see Rott (2009a) where expectations are introduced as a kind of almost-beliefs. Like beliefs, the expectations of (idealised) agents are closed under conjunction and singleton entailment, and like beliefs, they admit of varying degrees of entrenchment or plausibility. However, there is one respect in which such expectations are not suitable for our present purposes: they are supposed to be consistent with one another.
Doxastic preferences have similar formal properties to, but must not be confused with, preferences in the more usual sense, i.e., preferences expressing comparative desires, values, utilities, degrees of pleasure or happiness.
The innermost sphere and each of the rings around it are supposed to contain at least one possibility. If two distinct possibilities v and w are in the same ring, they are tied with respect to plausibility: \(v\sim w\). Ties may lead to suspensions of judgement. If v and w are both considered maximally plausible by the agent (that is, if both v and w are in the innermost sphere) and if A is true at v and false at w, then the agent suspends judgement with respect to A.
For more details, see Rott (2009b, pp. 275–281).—We may add here that according to Spohn’s Laws of Belief, the consistent expansion of a belief state (represented by a Spohnian ranking function) is also an equivocal affair. Spohn advocates a single method of rational belief change called conditionalisation, but the input A for a conditionalisation may (and always must) be tagged with a certainty parameter n. Interestingly enough, the contraction of a Spohnian belief state is uniquely defined. Cf. Spohn (1988, p. 133) and (2012, pp. 89–90, 171).
The problem of iterated belief change may alternatively be regarded as a problem of rational choice between various doxastic preference relations, subject to the condition that the input sentence A be accepted by them. One would then expect that meta-preferences, i.e., preferences between preferences, get employed for this task. But as far as I know, no author has actually used such devices.
Spohn (2012, p. 54) claims that belief states generally contain all information needed for their own changes: “The simple, but essential point is that, whatever the doxastic transition from the prior to the posterior state, the disposition for that transition is already contained in the prior state. This disposition is not something over and above, but part of the prior doxastic state.” This is true only if one is willing to commit oneself to a single method of belief change. In Spohn’s model, this method is uniquely fixed (except that is allows for varying certainty parameters n): the laws of belief are given by the conditionalisation of ranking functions.
Theories of belief change commonly assume such a doxastic aim as given. However, exactly the idea that the addition or withdrawal of A should be predetermined as the result of a belief change operation runs counter to the idea of Positive and Negative Doxastic Voluntarism, respectively! Cf. the discussion of “non-prioritized” belief revision in Hansson (1997a).
She may also apply more sophisticated methods for changing belief states than the ones considered so far. For instance, she may choose a number n as a certainty parameter for the expansion or contraction with respect to the input proposition A (Brewka 1991; Spohn 1988 and 2012). The certainty parameter for A can also be specified non-numerically with the help of some reference sentence B (see, e.g., the methods of “revision by comparison” and “bounded revision” surveyed in Rott 2009b, pp. 282–288). Choosing the certainty parameter for a particular belief revision method is less of a choice than choosing the method itself; but it may be decisive for whether or not A gets accepted or rejected in the posterior belief state.
Rik Peels has argued (in discussion) that if a suspension of judgement is determined by the agent’s doxastic preferences (or by the equal force of her reasons for and against A), then this speaks against doxastic voluntarism. This inference does not strike me as convincing. It is a peculiarity of the choices involved in belief change that they always allow for a “compromise” between all good/best possibilities (i.e., a suspension of judgement: a union of possibilities, a disjunction of propositions). Such compromises are not normally possible in the practical choice of an action. It is right that the agent may feel compelled to suspend her judgement about the truth of A. But I endorse the compatibilist point that if this sort of compromise is determined by the agent’s own preferences (in a sense yet to be fleshed out), then her willfulness and freedom are not jeopardised. Picking at random one of several most preferred options would not add to a person’s free will.
Here “belief base” is short for the more precise term “belief-and-almost-belief base”. Bases differ from belief sets in that they need not be logically closed and consistent. I presume that a prioritisation is a weak ordering of the elements of a belief base. Intuitively, a prioritisation reflects the relative certainty (reliability, safety) of the subject’s basic beliefs and almost-beliefs.
See for instance Rott (2001, p. 41). Being the only method of removing \(\bot \) from prioritised bases that, as it were, suggests itself, prioritised base contraction has been proposed many times before.
However, we should point out once more that the addition of a belief in this model requires the choice of a priority parameter, an aspect that needs further philosophical elucidation. Cf. footnotes 42, 46 and 49 above.
. It can be shown that these two bridge principles fit together perfectly in the logic of belief change (Gärdenfors References
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Acknowledgments
I have been entertaining, with much sympathy, the idea of Negative Doxastic Voluntarism for 15 years, and I have been grateful to many people along the way. My more recent thanks go to Georg Brun, Eva-Maria Konrad, Tim Kraft, Andrea Kruse, Rik Peels, Jaroslav Peregrin, Vladimír Svoboda, Verena Wagner, Heinrich Wansing, Frank Zipfel, and the participants of the Bochum Workshop on “Doxastic Agency and Epistemic Responsibility” held in June 2014 for their friendly criticism of some of my intermediate attempts to come to grips with this topic. Last but not least, I am very grateful to three anonymous referees of this journal for numerous perceptive critical comments.
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Rott, H. Negative Doxastic Voluntarism and the concept of belief. Synthese 194, 2695–2720 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1032-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1032-1