Many assume that we can be responsible only what is voluntary. This leads to puzzlement about our responsibility for our beliefs, since beliefs seem not to be voluntary. I argue against the initial assumption, presenting an account of responsibility and of voluntariness according to which, not only is voluntariness not required for responsibility, but the feature which renders an attitude a fundamental object of responsibility (that the attitude embodies one's take on the world and one's place in it) also guarantees that it could not be voluntary. It turns out, then, that, for failing to be voluntary, beliefs are a central example of the sort of thing for which we are most fundamentally responsible.
I hope to show that, although belief is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, "believing at will" is impossible; one cannot believe in the way one ordinarily acts. Further, the same is true of intention: although intention is subject to two quite robust forms of agency, the features of belief that render believing less than voluntary are present for intention, as well. It turns out, perhaps surprisingly, that you can no more intend at will than believe at will. I hope to show that believing could not be "voluntary," that is, one could not believe in the way one can perform an ordinary intentional action. You could not believe in the way that you can raise your right hand or look left or prepare dinner. Moreover, this is, as suspected by Bernard Williams, a conceptual matter, traceable in part (but only in part) to the relationship between belief and truth: beliefs "aim at truth" or "purport to represent reality." However, I also hope to show that, while there is a sense in which belief is not "voluntary," it is nonetheless subject to two quite robust forms of agency, and, further, that these two forms of agency are also exercised with respect to intention. In fact, we will see that the features of belief that render believing less than voluntary are present for intention, as well -even without the aim at truth. It will turn out, perhaps surprisingly, that you can no more intend at will than believe at will.
Such an account faces a difficult problem, however. Any account of genuine forgiveness must articulate the revision in judgment or change in view in a way that allows the forgiver to hold fixed the following three (interrelated) judgments: (1) The act in question was wrong; it was a serious offense, worthy of moral attention. (2) The wrongdoer is a legitimate member of the moral community who can be expected not to do such things. As such, she is someone to be held responsible and she is worth being upset by. (3) You, as the one wronged, ought not to be wronged. This sort of treatment stands as an offense to your person.When these judgments are warranted, our first response is, and ought to be, anger and resentment. To be angry and resentful is to be involved with and committed to these judgments in a way that goes beyond merely assenting to their truth. (I take the difference between merely assenting to these judgments and being angry or resentful to be the same sort of difference as that between agreeing that something is good and wanting it, or agreeing that something is dangerous and fearing it.) Resentment, I believe, should be understood as protest. In resentment the victim protests the trespass, affirming both its wrongfulness and the moral significance of both herself and the offender. The challenge for any account of forgiveness, as I see it, lies in articulating how we can maintain the three judgments listed and yet abandon the protest.One must maintain the three judgments, because denying any one of them absolves the wrongdoer of culpability, and to absolve of culpability is to excuse, not to forgive. The three judgments thus correspond to three not-wholly-distinct strategies for imitating forgiveness-for acting as if one has forgiven: in light of the costs of sustained anger or the inconvenience of strained relations one might attempt to "forgive" by abandoning one's commitment to one of the
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