Abstract
To be committed to the truth of a proposition is to constrain one’s options in a certain way: one may not reason as if it is false, and one is obligated to reason as if it is true. Though one is often committed to the truth of the propositions that one believes, the states of belief and commitment are distinct. For historical reasons, however, they are rarely distinguished. Distinguishing between the two states allows for a defense of epistemic deontology against the charge that beliefs are not under the voluntary control of believers, and so cannot be subject to deontic evaluation. It also allows for the resolution of some disputes between naturalists and non-naturalists in epistemology, and permits us to account for obvious facts about the connection between belief and truth in a theoretically parsimonious way.
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Notes
In his (1988) Alston also considers the possibility that believers have indirect control over their beliefs, in the way that one has indirect control over whether or not the lights in a room are on, and he finds that they do not. He does say that they have “long-range” control over their beliefs, but that this control is not sufficiently reliable to ground epistemic deontology. On this point see Alston (1988, pp. 275–276).
I should head-off a foreseen misunderstanding. The claim that “what one believes is not subject to deontic evaluation” may be ambiguous between saying that the propositions believed are not subject to deontic evaluation, and the acts of believing those propositions are not subject to deontic evaluations. The latter is meant, not the former. Indeed, the former seems to be incoherent. However, I will talk about states as objects of evaluation, e.g., the state of belief. This is done for the sake of convenience only. I take it that to occupy the state of belief with regards to the proposition that p simply is to believe that p. (Likewise to occupy the state of commitment with regards to the proposition that p simply is to be committed to the truth of p and to occupy the state of acceptance with regards to p is to accept p.)
This is the central argument of Alston (1988).
See Brandom (2000, p. 83).
I assume that the fact that sneezing involves some neurological cause is insufficient to give it a mental cause.
I will leave open the possibility that there are atypical cases, in which deontically evaluable behavior is caused by mental states other than beliefs and desires. But my argument will not turn on whether or not there are such cases. All that matters is that, if there are, they are atypical.
Alternatively, the causal connection may be deviant. For example, it would still be correct to say that she took the lunch accidentally if her desire to take Beth’s lunch caused her to feel guilty about her own desires, which caused her to attempt to take her own lunch, which, because her lunch bag looks much like Beth’s, caused her to take Beth’s lunch.
This position is implied by common views in the literature. For one example, see Steup (2015, p. 3).
Ryle has a related argument against the idea that behavior is a product of volitions, which are, themselves, subject to evaluation in the same terms as behavior. See Ryle (1949, p. 67).
Page citations labeled ‘AT’ refer to the Latin version of the Meditations edited by Adam and Tannery. They are also to be found in the margins of the 1993 Hackett edition.
This section is reminiscent of Sellars’ Myth of Jones (see Sellars 1997, §45 ff.), although Sellars was trying to do rather more with the Myth of Jones than I am trying to do here.
It could be that other psychological states, like fears, may also be well or poorly justified.
If doxastic voluntarism is false beliefs might still be subject to epistemic evaluation, just not in deontic terms.
Recall that accepting that p requires acting as though p is true. As it is usually in our interest to be committed to what is true, acting as though p is true will ordinarily involve doing what is necessary to be committed to the truth of p. There will, however, be exceptions. For example, those with an interest in deceiving others about p may act as though p is true by conspicuously failing to undertake a commitment to p.
In the limiting case everyone has standing.
There are some cases in which one cannot enter into the commitment without proper standing. Allison simply cannot undertake the commitment that is involved in actually marrying Brian (as opposed to undertaking the commitment to marry him) if she is already married.
Despite superficial similarity with this position, I think that it is important to not read “The Ethics of Belief” (Clifford 1877) as defending this position. Clifford’s argument that it is wrong to believe on insufficient evidence is based on the fact that beliefs produce action. (This is why his paper is titled ‘The Ethics of Belief’ instead of, more generically, ‘The Deontological Significance of Belief’.) Thus it is essential to Clifford, as to Descartes before him, to tie together epistemology and psychology.
There are those who argue that assertions simply are the undertaking of certain kinds of commitments. For an early but relatively clear exposition of this position, see Brandom (1983). This view is, however, controversial, and not essential to my project, so I will not endorse it here.
One’s belief that one is under a particular commitment might cause one to carry out the obligations which are imposed on one by that commitment. But a belief about a commitment is not itself a commitment.
Lackey uses a very similar thought experiment to argue that properly asserting that p does not require believing that p. See Lackey (2007). Schwitzgebel argues that situations like this present “in-between” cases of belief, in which it is neither right to ascribe belief to the subject, nor to say that the person does not hold the relevant belief (Schwitzgebel 2010). I suspect that we do better to say that the subject does hold the belief, but is not committed to its truth.
The envisioned situation might have the flavor of a Moorean paradox; one might worry that those who are committed to the falsity of their own beliefs might occupy a position analogous to those who assert sentences of the form: p, but I don’t believe that p (see Moore 1962, p. 277). Asserting an unelaborated Moorean sentence may be paradoxical, but if one explains why one does not believe that p, such assertions need not be paradoxical. Consider the fact that there is nothing odd about asserting a sentence like ‘my brother is dead, but I’m still working through my grief and don’t really believe it yet’. And in the cases like those discussed in the main text, the believers are aware that their beliefs have non-rational causes.
See Lynch (2009, p. 10).
Lynch says that many or most philosophers who work on truth subscribe to some sort of deflationism (Lynch 2009, p. 105). Bourget and Chalmers report that about 25% of philosophers that they surveyed (their sample was not limited to those studying truth) are deflationists. (See the results in §3.3 of their 2014.)
This might be slightly too strong. There is some plausibility to the idea that those who are culpably ignorant may still be subject to these requirements. The issue will not affect the argument to follow, however, so it will not be pursued any further.
This is an instance of something like the ought-implies-can principle. Without being aware of one’s deontic requirements, one cannot fulfill them, at least not purposefully or intentionally.
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Acknowledgements
Michael Williams and Dean Moyar gave me comments on very early drafts of the material in the first three sections of the paper. It has changed so much since they read it that they probably won’t recognize it, but I’d still like to thank them for their assistance.
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Tebben, N. Belief isn’t voluntary, but commitment is. Synthese 195, 1163–1179 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1258-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1258-y