Judging as a non-voluntary action

McHugh, Conor

doi:10.1007/s11098-009-9478-3

Cited by 21 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…The claims I discuss will all concern the kinds of considerations that can play the role of reasons for which one believes in the deliberative motivation of belief. On the relations between motivation, control and voluntariness, see McHugh (2011a, 2012a). Note also that I am exclusively concerned with reasons for which one forms a particular belief—such as the belief that p— and not with reasons for which one goes about forming a belief about a particular subject‐matter.…”

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confidence: 99%

Normativism and Doxastic Deliberation

McHugh

2013

Philosophical Books

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When we deliberate about what to believe, considerations relevant to what is true play a special role in motivating us to believe or not believe one thing or another. This special role should be understood, according to Nishi Shah, in terms of the phenomenon of transparency.Shah takes transparency as the base of an inference to the best explanation, whose conclusion is a normativist account of (the concept of) belief. In this paper I distinguish the alleged phenomenon of transparency from a range of other possible phenomena that might characterise truth's role in doxastic deliberation. I do not address the question which of these phenomena are genuine and which spurious. Rather, I argue that normativism does not explain transparency (if genuine), and furthermore that it explains at most a relatively weak claim about rational doxastic deliberation. Since this claim can also be explained in other ways, including by rival accounts of belief, doxastic deliberation gives no support for normativism. Doxastic DeliberationDoxastic deliberation is deliberation framed by the question what to believe about some subject matter (e.g. whether to believe p) and that aims to conclude in the formation of a belief about that subject matter (e.g. the belief that p or the belief that ~p).1 Although doxastic deliberation is deliberation about what to believe, it involves a special role for a seemingly different question, namely what is true (e.g. whether p is true; or simply whether p).Normally, the considerations on the basis of which a doxastic attitude is formed through deliberation are considerations seen as relevant to what is true with respect to the subject matter addressed (e.g. evidence about whether p). Truth thus has a special role in the 1 Doxastic deliberation can also conclude in withholding belief (suspension of judgment) about the relevant subject matter. This is an unsuccessful outcome, in so far as doxastic deliberation involves the aim to make up one's mind. By using the term 'deliberative motivation' I do not intend to suggest that beliefs are formed voluntarily. Rather, I refer to cases in which there are reasons for which one believes, where these reasons are or can be taken up in consciousness and their probative force as reasons for belief explicitly or implicitly recognised, and where one believes directly on the basis of these reasons. Motivation in this sense, while not necessarily involving voluntary control, is not mere causation either. Pragmatic considerations certainly can causally influence belief (as Shah is careful to point out), but this does not mean that they can be reasons for which one believes. The claims I discuss will all concern the kinds of considerations that can play the role of reasons for which one believes in the deliberative motivation of belief. On the relations between motivation, control and voluntariness, see McHugh (2011aMcHugh ( , 2012a. Note also that I am exclusively concerned with reasons for which one forms a particular belief-such as the belief that p-and not with reasons...

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confidence: 99%

Normativism and Doxastic Deliberation

McHugh

2013

Philosophical Books

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“…First, many events that are beyond an agent's control (e.g., the sun rising Latus 2000) clearly are not lucky, so that the control conception of luck in general is inadequate. Second, and more importantly, belief formation, in particular, is typically not (and possibly never) under the agent's control (McHugh 2011), so that the control conception of epistemic luck is inadequate, as it implies, implausibly, that virtually all true beliefs, and certainly all basic perceptual beliefs, are lucky. Since we want a unified conception of luck (so that if the control conception is inadequate with respect to perceptual beliefs, it is simply inadequate), this is not necessary for my argument here, but note that an analogous point can be made with respect to memory beliefs: formation of many memory beliefs (though perhaps not those that result from a deliberate decision by an agent to endorse the content of a retrieved memory representation) is beyond the agent's control, for much the same reason as formation of basic perceptual beliefs is beyond the agent's control-she finds herself seeming to remember that P, and this is already enough to produce in her a belief that P, just as seeming to see that P is sufficient to produce in her a belief that P.…”

Section: The Modal Conception Of Epistemic Luckmentioning

confidence: 99%

The information effect: constructive memory, testimony, and epistemic luck

Michaelian

2011

Synthese

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The incorporation of post-event testimonial information into an agent's memory representation of the event via constructive memory processes gives rise to the misinformation effect, in which the incorporation of inaccurate testimonial information results in the formation of a false memory belief. While psychological research has focussed primarily on the incorporation of inaccurate information, the incorporation of accurate information raises a particularly interesting epistemological question: do the resulting memory beliefs qualify as knowledge? It is intuitively plausible that they do not, for they appear to be only luckily true. I argue, however, that, despite its intuitive plausibility, this view is mistaken: once we adopt an adequate (modal) conception of epistemic luck and an adequate (adaptive) general approach to memory, it becomes clear that memory beliefs resulting from the incorporation of accurate testimonial information are not in general luckily true. I conclude by sketching some implications of this argument for the psychology of memory, suggesting that the misinformation effect would better be investigated in the context of a broader "information effect".The incorporation of post-event testimonial information into an agent's memory representation of the event via constructive memory processes gives rise to the misinformation effect, in which the incorporation of inaccurate testimonial information results in the formation of a false memory belief. While psychological research has focussed primarily on the incorporation of inaccurate information, the incorporation of accurate

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“…They seem to be cases in which there is sufficient evidence by the subject's lights for her belief. 15 I offer some thoughts on it in my (McHugh 2011), and a different view in (McHugh, forthcoming a). See also Owens (2000) and Nickel (2010).…”

Section: The Anti-voluntarism Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, when I typed the letter 'r' just now, my behaviour was open to being influenced by any kind of reason that I might have recognised or perceived as relevant to how to act: if I had seen some excellent reason to type 's' instead, or to type nothing at all, then I would have reacted accordingly, barring some Frankfurtian impediment to the exercise of my will. 20 The claim that practical considerations can be motivating in cases where epistemic support is present is defended by Frankish (2007), and, for the case of judgment, by McHugh (2011). For a different and intriguing treatment of cases where the subject's evidence is 'adequate' but not conclusive, see Nickel (2010).…”

Section: The Anti-voluntarism Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic Deontology and Voluntariness

McHugh

2011

Erkenn

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We tend to prescribe and appraise doxastic states in terms that are broadly deontic. According to a simple argument, such prescriptions and appraisals are improper, because they wrongly presuppose that our doxastic states are voluntary. One strategy for resisting this argument, recently endorsed by a number of philosophers, is to claim that our doxastic states are in fact voluntary (This strategy has been pursued by Steup 2008; Weatherson 2008). In this paper I argue that this strategy is neither successful nor necessary. Our doxastic states are not voluntary in any interesting sense. But once we see why our doxastic states are not voluntary, we can also see that there is no apparent reason to think that deontic prescriptions and appraisals-epistemic ones, at any rate-presuppose doxastic voluntarism. Indeed, there is good reason to deny that they do so. Finally, I diagnose the misleading attraction of the idea that what I call 'epistemic deontology' presupposes doxastic voluntarism.

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Judging as a non-voluntary action

Cited by 21 publications

References 23 publications

Normativism and Doxastic Deliberation

Normativism and Doxastic Deliberation

The information effect: constructive memory, testimony, and epistemic luck

Epistemic Deontology and Voluntariness

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