Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T07:16:36.934Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

DOXASTIC RESPONSIBILITY, GUIDANCE CONTROL, AND OWNERSHIP OF BELIEF

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2019

Robert Carry Osborne Open the ORCID record for Robert Carry Osborne [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The contemporary debate over responsibility for belief is divided over the issue of whether such responsibility requires doxastic control, and whether this control must be voluntary in nature. It has recently become popular to hold that responsibility for belief does not require voluntary doxastic control, or perhaps even any form of doxastic ‘control’ at all. However, Miriam McCormick has recently argued that doxastic responsibility does in fact require quasi-voluntary doxastic control: “guidance control,” a complex, compatibilist form of control. In this paper, I pursue a negative and a positive task. First, I argue that grounding doxastic responsibility in guidance control requires too much for agents to be the proper targets for attributions of doxastic responsibility. I will focus my criticisms on three cases in which McCormick's account gives the intuitively wrong verdict. Second, I develop a modified conception of McCormick's notion of “ownership of belief,” which I call Weak Doxastic Ownership. I employ this conception to argue that responsibility for belief is possible even in the absence of guidance control. In doing so, I argue that the notion of doxastic ownership can do important normative work in grounding responsibility for belief without being subsumed under or analyzed in terms of the notion of doxastic control.

Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 82 - 98
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alston, W. 1988. ‘The Deontological Conception of Epistemic Justification.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 2: 257–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, M. 2009. ‘Active Belief.’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 39(1): 119–47.Google Scholar
Boyle, M. 2011. ‘‘Making up Your Mind’ and the Activity of Reason.’ Philosophers’ Imprint, 11(17): 1–24.Google Scholar
Calhoun, C. 1989. ‘Responsibility and Reproach.’ Ethics, 99: 389–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrisman, M. 2008. ‘Ought to Believe.’ Journal of Philosophy, 105(7): 346–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrisman, M. 2018. ‘Epistemic Normativity and Cognitive Agency.’ Noûs, 52(3): 508–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, J. M. & Ravizza, M. 1998. Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, M. 2000. ‘Hobartian Voluntarism: Grounding a Deontological Conception of Epistemic Justification.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 81: 130–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hieronymi, P. 2006. ‘Controlling Attitudes.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 87: 45–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hieronymi, P. 2008. ‘Responsibility for Believing.’ Synthese, 161: 357–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, N. 2007. ‘Doxastic Responsibility.’ Synthese, 155(1): 127–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCormick, M. 2011. ‘Taking Control of Belief.’ Philosophical Explorations, 14(2): 169–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCormick, M. 2015. Believing Against the Evidence: Agency and the Ethics of Belief. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCormick, M. 2018. ‘Responding to Skepticism about Doxastic Agency.’ Erkenntnis, 83: 627–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHugh, C. 2013. ‘Epistemic Responsibility and Doxastic Agency.’ Philosophical Issues, Epistemic Agency, 23: 132–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHugh, C. 2014. ‘Exercising Doxastic Freedom.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 88: 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHugh, C. 2017. ‘Attitudinal Control.’ Synthese, 194(8): 2745–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHugh, C. and Whiting, D. 2014. ‘The Normativity of Belief.’ Analysis, 74(4): 698–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nolfi, K. 2015. ‘How to be a Normativist about the Nature of Belief.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96(2): 181–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peels, R. 2017. Responsible Belief. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, S. 2003. ‘Doxastic Compatibilism and the Ethics of Belief.’ Philosophical Studies, 114: 47–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. M. 2005. ‘Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life.’ Ethics, 115(2): 236–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. M. 2008. ‘Control, Responsibility, and Moral Assessment.’ Philosophical Studies, 138(3): 367–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. M. 2012. ‘Attributability, Answerability, and Accountability: In Defense of a Unified Account.’ Ethics, 122(3): 575–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. M. 2015 a. ‘Attitudes, Tracing, and Control.’ Journal of Applied Philosophy, 32(2): 115–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. M. 2015 b. ‘Responsibility as Answerability.’ Inquiry, 58(2): 99–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, R. J. 1994. Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weatherson, B. 2008. ‘Deontology and Descartes’ Demon.’ Journal of Philosophy, 105(9): 540–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar