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Belief, Values, and the Will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Trudy Govier
Trudy Govier
Affiliation:
Trent University
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Extract

In this paper I shall presuppose that:

(1) logic and epistemology are disciplines which supply us with normative statements pertaining to states of belief.

(2) as such, logic and epistemology have implications concerning what we ought and ought not to believe.

(3) as such, logic and epistemology presuppose that there is some sense in which a person controls what he believes — some sense in which ‘can’ has a place in contexts where one comes to believe things.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 642 - 663
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1976

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References

1 Reasons for this rather vague locution “have implications concerning” will be apparent from the discussion below.

2 See Lewis's The Ground and Nature of the Right and Values and Imperatives and Chisholm's Perceiving and “Lewis's Ethics of Belief (in The Philosophy of C.I. Lewis, edited by P.A. Schilpp).

3 In Reason in Theory and Practice, Capter III.

4 In Problems of the Self.

5 See Price, H.H., “Belief and the Will”, Proc, of the Aristotelian Society, 1954-1955Google ScholarO'Hear, A., “Belief and the Will”, Philosophy, 1972Google Scholar and Szabados, B., “Self-Deception”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 1974Google Scholar.

6 Lewis, C.I., Values and Imperatives, pages 65–66Google Scholar.

7 Page 64.

8 For an account of criteria for application of the concept of belief see Robert Audi's paper, “The Concept of Believing” (Personalist, 1972). An account of the concept of belief rather similar to Audi's, though less thoroughly developed than his, is put forward by Mitchell Ginsberg in his recent book Mind and Belief.

9 “Deciding to Believe”, in Problems of the Self, pages 148–9.

10 Ibid., pages 148–9.

11 I say 'automatically' because I do not wish to rule out the possibility of alterations of reality as a result purely of mental activities — think, for instance, of psychokinesis; also of psychosomatic illnesses. Interestingly, the minimum independence of reality suggested by saying that it must not be such as to automatically attune itself to the will seems to be a necessary feature of having beliefs about reality at all. (Cf. Wiggins, David' argument in “Freedom, Knowledge, Belief and Causality” in Knowledge and Necessity, edited by Vesey, G.N.A..)Google Scholar

12 Williams does not consider the possible relevance of one's evidential situation when one is attempting to believe by fiat; some brief suggestions as to how this might be relevant are given below.

13 This suggestion was made by Prof. Alan Orenstein, on an occasion when an earlier version of this paper was presented at Trent University. Prof. Orenstein is not responsible, of course, for the exposition of the position given here.

14 This example is taken from Williams.

15 It is. of course, true that emotional states are often based upon factual presuppositions, but this point does not substantially affect the contrast which is involved here.

16 If we do not make this qualification, we seem to make Super-Mind into a god who can control reality by fiat. That kind of Super-Mind would not be useful to consider in the present context because it is questionable whether there would be any such thing as belief without a minimal independance of reality from the will of the putatively believing subject.

17 This applies to Williams, to Edgley, and to the writers mentioned under note 6 above.

18 Edgley, , Reason in Theory and Practice, pages 63–4Google Scholar.

19 Firth, Firth, “Chisholm and the Ethics of Belief, Philosophical Review, 1959Google Scholar.

20 Chisholm, , Perceiving. See page 4Google Scholar pages 6–7; all of Chapter Seven.

21 Ibid., page 4.

22 Griffiths, , “On Belief”, in Proc. of the Aristotelian Society, 1962-1963, pages 181–2Google Scholar.

23 See, for example, “Why should I be Moral?”, by Marvin Glass, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 1973.

24 I would like to thank Professor J.T. Stevenson for giving me a copy of his paper “On Doxastic Responsibility”, and for his helpful critical remarks on my own paper.