Abstract
Blake Roeber argues that examples of a certain neglected kind cast doubt on the following piece of epistemological orthodoxy: your acquisition of a particular belief couldn’t itself be a directly voluntary action. In this paper, I undermine and then rebut Roeber’s anti-involuntarism conclusion. After arguing for the denial of one of the premises on which Roeber’s conclusion is based, I articulate a plausible pro-involuntarism explanation of Roeber’s focal example.
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Notes
GDI is the denial of the thesis that Robert Audi (2015, pp.27–8)—one of Roeber’s main interlocutors—labels ‘the genetic version of doxastic voluntarism’ in the following passage: “…[doxastic voluntarism] is the thesis that belief is sometimes under direct voluntary control… On a strong interpretation, it expresses the view that believing itself is an action-type having some tokens that are directly voluntary. On a weaker interpretation, it expresses the view that forming a belief is… such an action-type. Call the first view the behavioral version of doxastic voluntarism and the second the genetic version.” Roeber (2019, p.845, fn.8) makes it clear that his anti-involuntarism argument isn’t designed to support the behavioral version of doxastic voluntarism. Assuming that Roeber isn’t talking past Audi and other main interlocutors, his anti-involuntarism argument is designed to impugn the genetic version of doxastic involuntarism (= GDI).
Bare page references are to Roeber (2019).
Any affirmation that P (in the relevant sense) is a ‘basic’ action—i.e., an action not done by doing something else, not performed by performing a different action. Since any judgment that P (in the relevant sense) is an affirmation that P, any judgment that P is a basic action. To be sure, there’s a reading of ‘by’ on which we can accurately say that one judges that P by affirming that P (cf. Roeber 2019, p.850, fn.14). This sense of ‘by’ is more clearly expressed (not with ‘by means of’ but instead) with ‘in’ (cf. Roeber [2019, p.843, my emphasis]: “…judging that P consists in affirming P in order to affirm the correct answer to the question whether P…”). That you judge that P in affirming that P is consistent with your judgment’s being a basic action. (Compare: in bringing my middle finger into contact with my thumb and then simultaneously sliding my thumb to the right and my middle finger downward, I perform a basic action of snapping my fingers.) For additional pertinent discussion of the distinction between basic and non-basic action, see section 2 below. (Thanks to an anonymous referee for comments that led me to add this note.).
I assume that you decide to A iff you actively form an intention to A (cf. Mele 2005, p.146). Roeber gives no hint of rejecting this ubiquitous view
Throughout his article, Roeber highlights several different cases in which an intention to A is, he claims (either explicitly or implicitly), “directly causally responsible” for an A-ing. With only one exception (discussed momentarily), each of the relevant actions—a judgment-constituting affirmation (p. 848), a sincere assertion (p. 849), an ordinary raising of one’s arm (p. 850), an ordinary snapping of one’s fingers (p. 850), a guess (p. 853, fn.17)—is plausibly deemed both basic and intentional. This constitutes additional (to the second sentence of Roeber’s commentary on ‘directly causally responsible’) evidence that Roeber would accept the partial stipulative definition of ‘directly causally responsible’ adopted in the main text. So far as I can see, Roeber makes only one claim that conflicts with the adopted partial definition: “You can shoot someone at will in a case of murder…” (p. 851, fn.16). Assuming that your shooting X involves (among other things) a bullet’s striking X, your shooting X isn’t plausibly deemed a basic action. I’m confident, though, that the claim quoted in the sentence before last is simply a slip (in a relatively unimportant footnote) on Roeber’s part. There’s just no plausible interpretation of ‘directly causally responsible’ on which it might be true that your intention to shoot X is directly causally responsible for your shooting X—as opposed to, say, your moving your trigger finger. Here, it’s important to keep in mind that Roeber’s usage of the expression ‘directly causally responsible’ isn’t wholly stipulative. (Thanks to an anonymous referee for comments that led me to add this note.).
Roeber writes (2019, p.839): “…let’s define ‘equipollent cases’ so that S is in one just in case (a) S thinks that she’s in a [situation where her total evidence supports suspending judgment on P and believing P equally well], (b) S neither feels compelled to believe P nor feels compelled to suspend judgment with respect to P, and (c) S feels a stronger attraction toward each of believing P and suspending judgment with respect to P than she feels toward disbelieving P.” On this definition, Blake’s Judgment is an equipollent case.
Note that, so interpreted, (3) concerns the same phenomenon as does GDI—viz., belief acquisition.
According to Roeber, in light of his presentation and defense of the AFE, GDI “emerges as an article of faith” (p.841).
I assume that any directly voluntary action is a basic intentional action—i.e., an intentional action not performed by performing a different action. Roeber gives no hint of rejecting this ubiquitous view. For an example of a passage that’s clearly underwritten by the indicated assumption, consider the following from Audi (2015, p.29): “We can… bring about belief formation by abstaining from suppressing it, for instance in a case in which, as a child gives us implausible excuses, we let our defenses down and believe the child’s fabrication. But this is only a case of indirectly voluntary belief formation: it is by doing something else, for instance putting out of mind our thoughts of the child’s past lies, that we make way for, and thereby complete the sufficient conditions for, belief formation.”
If it’s the case that (2) is defensible only if (2) is incompatible with (1), then the AFE defeats itself and Roeber’s overall anti-GDI argument fails. Below, I articulate and defeat an argument for the thesis that (2) is defensible only if (2) is incompatible with (1). I’m happy to concede to Roeber the conditional claim that (2) is compatible with (1) provided that (2) is indeed defensible.
On the basis of the quotation in the sentence to which this note is appended, I’m confident that Roeber would accept the thesis that belief onset is essentially momentary. But there may be readers who are open to the possibility of non-momentary belief onset. Any such readers are invited to interpret this section as aiming to establish the following thesis: unless there could be non-momentary belief onset, the AFE is either invalid or has an indefensible premise. While this qualified thesis is of course logically weaker than is this section’s actual target conclusion (viz., the thesis that the AFE is either invalid or has an indefensible premise), establishing just the qualified thesis would (I believe) be an interesting and important achievement. (Thanks to an anonymous referee for comments that led me to add this note.).
Recall that, in light of Roeber’s commentary on ‘directly causally responsible’, (D1) should be interpreted so that it entails that any action performed at will is a basic intentional action.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for comments that led me to add this paragraph as well as much of the material in the next one.
I assume that Blake affirmed that J in order to affirm the correct answer to Q only if Blake’s affirmation that J was based on some motive (e.g., a desire) to affirm the correct answer to Q. Roeber’s citation of “intellectual courage” (p.848) in his explanation of Blake’s decision to affirm that J indicates that he accepts such a view (presumably, your being “intellectually courageous” involves your having a motive to affirm the correct answer to “theoretical” questions you consider).
Audi (2020, p.78ff.) provides a helpful discussion of reasons for action that are expressed infinitivally.
Recall that I’m conceding to Roeber the conditional claim that (2) is compatible with (1) provided that (2) is indeed defensible.
On the possibility of a decision’s constituting an abstention from performing a different basic intentional action, see Capes and Swenson (2017, p. 971).
Compare Audi’s (2015, p. 29) example of the adult who comes to believe the content of a child’s testimony by actively refraining from preventing himself from coming to believe the content of the testimony (see fn.9 above for a more detailed description of this case).
Many thanks to Robert Audi and the anonymous reviewers recruited by this journal for comments that enabled me to improve significantly upon earlier drafts.
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Coffman, E.J. Involuntarism impugned?. Synthese 200, 362 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03849-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03849-x