Responding to Skepticism About Doxastic Agency

Abstract

In what sense or to what extent is agency exercised in the doxastic realm? Some argue that the kind of control we have over beliefs is sufficient for doxastic agency, while others argue that the nature of beliefs precludes agency being exercised in what we believe.But getting clear on the nature of these disagreements is difficult because the disputants do not always share a common notion of what is required for agency in general, and doxastic agency in particular. A skeptic about doxastic agency may agree with everything an antiskeptic says but insist that none of what is proposed counts as real agency. My main aim in this paper is to clearly lay out the dialectic as it stands and argue that most conceptions of doxastic agency do not respond to the skeptic's challenge. Of course, one way to address a skeptic is to argue that the demands are unfair, or incoherent, and so do not need a response but, instead, a dissolution. This may indeed be what some proponents of doxastic agency view as the proper way to address the skeptic.I will begin by considering some of the main reasons for thinking that we are not doxastic agents. I will then turn to a discussion of those who try to make sense of doxastic agency by appeal to belief's reasons-responsive nature. What they end up calling agency is not robust enough to satisfy the challenge posed by the skeptics. To satisfy the skeptic, one needs to make sense of the possibility of believing for non-evidential reasons. While this has been seen as an untenable view for both skeptics and anti-skeptics, I will conclude by arguing it is a position that has been too hastily dismissed. I am not here providing a full defense of this view but, rather, will argue that the arguments against the possibility which are often taken to be decisive are not. Further, the view that only evidential reasons can be

Controlling our reasons

“…This resembles what McHugh and Way call the 'negative condition' on inference: '[i]nferring q from p entails not taking p not to support q' (2016, p. 316).7 E.g McHugh (2013), McCormick (2018. 2015, p. 630).…”

“…All going well, I will cease to do so if the weather forecast says that it will in fact be sunny. Yet I might lack guidance control if I always believe that it will rain 19 Although see Ginet (2001), Leary (2017), McCormick (2018 Reisner (2014), and Rinard (2019. At any rate, I will assume this as it makes my case harder.…”

Doxastic Responsibility, Guidance Control, and Ownership of Belief

“…29McCormick (2018) has recently discussed and defended Boyle's view. While she does not appear to endorse it wholesale, she seems to prefer it over the alternatives, e.g., Chrisman's (2018) view.…”

“…35As McCormick (2018: 643) has recently pointed out, sometimes we want to say “‘Be a better believer’, not ‘Be a better belief-system maintainer.’”…”

Can Beliefs Be Based on Practical Reasons?

“…The weaknesses in these conceptual arguments have been pointed out in a number of recent discussions. (See Rinard (2015Rinard ( , 2017, Leary (2016), McCormick(2015, 2017, Sullivan-Bissett (forthcoming) , Reisner (2009,2014), Way ( 2016)). I do not have space here to reconstruct the various arguments opposing the view that the nature of belief precludes that one can have practical reasons for believing.…”