Taking control of belief

McCormick, Miriam Schleifer

doi:10.1080/13869795.2011.569745

Cited by 27 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…A number of philosophers have attempted to provide just such an account (e.g. Smith , Nottlemann , Hieronymi , McCormick , McHugh , and Peels ). By contrast, my focus is on a distinct challenge, namely to provide an account of what it is to blame someone for their beliefs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is Epistemic Blame?

Brown

2018

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is Epistemic Blame?

Brown

2018

Nous

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“…Note, this is not to object that the process view fails to make sense of our being free with respect to our beliefs or of our being appropriately held responsible for them. See McCormick (), Steup (), and McHugh () for arguments that even if our agency isn't involved in belief as it is in action, we nonetheless count as free with respect to and responsible for what we believe in the normal case. See Booth () for a response.…”

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confidence: 99%

Epistemic Normativity and Cognitive Agency

Chrisman

2016

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On the assumption that genuinely normative demands concern things connected in some way to our agency, i.e. what we exercise in doing things with or for reasons, epistemologists face an important question: are there genuine epistemic norms governing belief, and if so where in the vicinity of belief are we to find the requisite cognitive agency? Extant accounts of cognitive agency tend to focus on belief itself or the event of belief‐formation to answer this question, to the exclusion of the activity of maintaining a system of beliefs. This paper argues that a full account of epistemic normativity will need to make sense of this activity as a core locus of cognitive agency. This idea is used to motivate the conclusion that one important and often overlooked kind of epistemic norms is the kind of norms governing the various cognitive activities by which we check, sustain, and adjust our belief systems.

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“…Many writers on this topic make this assumption either explicitly or implicitly, e.g. Smith (, ), O'Brien (), Hieronymi (), McCormick ().…”

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“…A Wolf‐style view is applied to belief and desire by Pettit and Smith (). Efforts to apply a Fischer‐and‐Ravizza‐style account to epistemic responsibility can be found in McHugh (, forthcoming) and McCormick (). Elements of the Fischer‐and‐Ravizza view that I will take on, and that are not shared by all views in the same spirit, include a commitment to a counterfactual analysis of capacities, and a focus on mechanisms rather than whole agents.…”

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Epistemic Responsibility and Doxastic Agency

McHugh

2013

Philosophical Issues

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How can we be responsible for our beliefs? It is tempting to think that this responsibility is grounded in a form of agency that we exercise in our doxastic lives. If so, what exactly is the nature of this connection, and can it be given some deeper explanation? In this paper I argue that the central condition on responsibility is a kind of reasons-responsiveness, and that it is only because we are doxastic agents-because we can regulate our beliefs through the activity of inquiry, and, in particular, acts of judging-that as believers we can satisfy this condition.In the first section I motivate and develop the view that responsibility for belief is grounded in doxastic agency. But agency, I note, is not sufficient for responsibility. In the second section I argue that the central condition for responsibility is a reasons-responsiveness condition. I criticise an alternative view associated with Thomas Scanlon, arguing that it gives mistaken or questionable verdicts in both epistemic (paranoid delusions and alienated beliefs) and practical (psychopaths) cases. In the third section I argue that the reasons-responsiveness condition explains why and when agency makes us responsible, because reasons-responsiveness can only be secured through agency. Responsibility for Belief and Doxastic Agency Responsibility for BeliefIt seems that we are often responsible for what we believe. To say this is not merely to say that our beliefs are attributable to us-the same is true of our handsomeness or our intelligence-but that we are accountable for them. The buck for our beliefs lies with us.

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Taking control of belief

Cited by 27 publications

References 15 publications

What is Epistemic Blame?

What is Epistemic Blame?

Epistemic Normativity and Cognitive Agency

Epistemic Responsibility and Doxastic Agency

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