RESPONSIBLE BELIEVING

S. Joel Garver

CHAPTER ONE

The Problem of Epistemic Obligations

Section IV

Keeping in mind all the points outlined thus far, we can return to our starting point: how are we to account for those situations, like Patrick's, in which a subject believes what she ought not to believe or in which she fails to believe or know what she ought to believe or know, where "ought" has prescriptive import? I will be aiming my discussion primarily at cases of doxastic blameworthiness because they seem to me to be clearer than cases of praiseworthiness. There is also the simple fact that the discussion must be limited in some respects. To further that last end, let us pause for a moment and delineate precisely what our goals shall be.

It seems that our account--if it is to be successful--must explain the following:

I propose to construct an account along the following lines, taking stock of [1] - [7]. The second chapter will explore, in a very broad and general way, the kind(s) of volitional control we have over belief using as its basis Alston's "The Deontological Conception of Justification" (1989b:115-152) and Bernard Williams "Deciding to Believe" from his Problems of the Self (1973: 136-151). Alston argues that direct control of belief is psychologically impossible. Williams instead argues that it is logically or conceptually impossible since beliefs aim at truth and if we could knowingly acquire a mental state irrespective of its truth, whatever else it might be, it would not be a belief. In their positions Alston and Williams are contending against a strong philosophical tradition apparently in favor of doxastic voluntarism. This tradition is said to include Augustine and Aquinas (though I think his view of volitional cognition is compatible with less direct forms of control; cf. Ross 1984:245-269 and Stump 1991) as well as to underlie the entire Victorian ethics of belief debate (Clifford, Mill, William James; cf. McCarthy 1986; for an extensive historical survey see Pojman 1986:1-140).

I agree with Alston that the sort of control over belief that is possible is indirect control or influence, but I will explore, also in a very broad and general way, the fact that we have such control and the conceptual terrain of that control. In this discussion I will draw Michael Stocker's article "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs" (1982). A central issue of the third chapter will be whether the control we have allows us to attach obligations and other evaluative notions at the level of doxastic practices, rather than at the level of individual beliefs and also the relation between doxastic practices that are permissible and those which Alston calls "well-established." This will draw on Alston'’s doxastic practice approach to epistemology

In the fourth chapter, I will try to outline what sorts of structures are possessed by doxastic practices and the possible connections that may exist with wider spheres of practice. In this effort I hope to employ Alston's general approach with further insight and elucidation from Alan Millar's Reasons and Experience (1991), especially as they apply to perceptual belief. Millar's insights can be applied in analogous ways to doxastic practices other than perceptual ones and that will pave the way for a discussion of Michel Foucault's epistemology.

As an example in the fifth chapter, I will use material drawn from some investigations of the psychological, social, emotional, and other structures involved in spousal abuse. In this particular example it is quite clear that power structures are intimately involved with the doxastic practices. Thus I will begin by turning to the work of Michel Foucault (particularly The Archaeology of Knowledge [1972] and the relevant essays in Power/Knowledge [1980]) and spend the better part of the chapter outlining his conceptions of "discursive formations" and "power/knowledge."

While I sympathize with much of Foucault's general account, I will provide a more "realist" reading of Foucault than is usually provided or, perhaps, warranted. At any rate, Foucault's account allows more easily for taking stock of socially constructed objects of knowledge such as gender roles and economic relations that play such a large role in spousal abuse. Foucault's account, however, does not commit us to various and differing concepts of truth each bound up within a particular language game as do Wittgenstein and his followers. Furthermore, Foucault's valorization of what he calls "subjugated knowledges" as epistemically superior and normative, provides an interesting foil--or, maybe, a complement--to Alston's privileging of "more well-established" practices. I will contend that Foucault's "subjugated knowledges" are said to be better since they are structured so that their grounds are accessible (e.g., they do not function to conceal power as it affects belief-formation) and in this respect Foucault reflects the same concerns as Alston's "An Externalist Internalism" (1989b:227-245). Moreover, these concerns can be incorporated into our account of epistemic obligations.

Does this use of Foucault, however, help us in explicating responsibility? After all, Foucault is notorious for his failure to leave room for agency (at least in his early work) and thus he is thought by some to be politically and ethically paralyzing. If power is diffused in the way he suggests and located in large social structures rather than in the hands of individuals, how can we hold people responsible for what practices they engage in or how they engage in them, including doxastic practices?

Foucault's later work, which discusses desire, provides a partial answer to this question in his preference for "subjugated knowledges" as well as his analysis of Greek and Roman ethics. Taking Foucault's development in this area, along with Nietzsche's discussion of "how one becomes what one is" (cf. Nehemas 1985) and Frankfurt's discussion of our identification with subsets of desires (1982) some progress can be made. Thus, the question of agency within socially established structures will be the subject of my sixth chapter.

In the seventh chapter I will turn from the role of power and desire to the role of emotions. It seems that emotions are closely connected to certain forms of belief and knowledge, particularly forms of evaluation (ethical, psychological, aesthetic, etc.). It seems that it is particularly in the area of evaluative beliefs that we are likely to be characterized by epistemic vices (though we can violate our epistemic obligations in almost any area).

Michael Stocker has argued, "there are deep and systematic epistemological connections between emotions and value and evaluation" (1993:51). Furthermore, he argues that "having certain emotions is often systematically connected with being epistemologically well-placed to make good evaluative judgments, and more strongly that not having certain emotions is often systematically connected with being epistemologically ill-placed to make good judgments" (1993:51). Stocker's arguments can be used to further expand the analysis of doxastic practices already provided using Alston and Foucault.

The problem that arises when tracing the connections between emotions and doxastic practices is that we seem to have as little control over emotions as we do over beliefs. Thus, examination of the connections of emotions to our doxastic life will do little to help us understand the control we have over beliefs. What is further needed is an analysis of emotions and our control over them. Robert C. Roberts provides such an analysis in his article "What an Emotion Is: A Sketch" (1988; cf. 1984a; 1984b; 1992). On his account, emotions essentially involve "construals" and we have a great deal of (often indirect, but fairly immediate in terms of effect) control over construals (by means of changing behavior and the like). I will present Roberts' views and how they address our problems in my seventh chapter.

In the eighth and final chapter, I will summarize our findings and draw some conclusions. I will also show how the account I have provided answers the various concerns that were listed above: [1] - [7].