Joel Garver - Responsible Believing - Chapter Two: Section Four

RESPONSIBLE BELIEVING

S. Joel Garver

CHAPTER TWO

On What the Queen Told Alice:
Willing to Believe

Section IV

Stocker admits that beliefs are not actions--and here he means, I think, basic or nonbasic actions as we have discussed them. Nor are beliefs omissions, "which are a sort of failed act." The question, then, is whether it is only actions or omissions for which we can be active and responsible. A distinction, therefore, might be drawn between actions (as seen paradigmatically in bodily actions) and activity. Correlatively, a distinction might also be drawn between lack of action and passivity or lack of responsibility. If the distinction holds, lack of action is no sure sign of passivity or lack of responsibility. In fact, lack of action might well accompany activity. Beliefs, then, while lacking action, might be activities for which we are responsible.

Stocker argues the point in two ways. First, it is clear that activity and responsibility are not tied merely to acts or actions, but can also attend conditions such as states, dispositions and the like. Sitting, standing, being here, having wavy hair, being able to drive a car are all conditions and, furthermore, conditions in regard to which we are typically active and responsible. That is, we had to do something or a number of things to arrive at that condition and to maintain that condition.

In the case of wavy hair, it might be brought about by willingly performing a number of tasks, none of which in themselves consists in making one's hair wavy, but which nevertheless entail responsibility for one's wavy hair. In the case of sitting or standing, the condition is not only brought about by an act of will, but it is also willingly and responsibly maintained, not by a certain number of little volitions, but by a disposing and directing of the will in a certain continuous and seamless way. That is why one stands rather than falls on the ground in a heap of dead weight.

The second point is that belief-formation is quite often associated with inquiry, attentiveness, calculation, judgment, accepting and so on. These are clearly actions as well as responsible activity. The question is whether "believing, taken as a condition, may be so closely related to these [actions] that it...[is possible] to allow activity and responsibility for them, but not believing" (1982:400). Stocker's points invite the following comparison between the condition of being able to drive a car and of having a belief. Surely certain actions and practices were engaged in from which the ability to drive emerged. Surely tho e actions and practices were activities for which one is responsible. Upon engaging in those activities, however, one could not help but be able to drive. Nevertheless, one is responsible for that ability.

In a similar fashion, certain doxastic practices (inquiring, attending, calculating, etc.) were engaged in from which the belief emerged. Those practices were activities for which one is responsible. Upon engaging in those practices, however, one could not help but form the belief. Nevertheless--the comparison suggests--one is responsible for that belief.

If such a comparison is fair and, more importantly, if it reveals something true about belief-formation, then it seems we should alter our assumptions regarding responsibility for belief. Responsibility for belief, it appears, cannot be so much in terms of individual, particular beliefs (i.e., the propositional content of beliefs and the attendant psychological states), but rather must be conceived holistically as involving, say, mechanisms, doxastic practices, language-games, or some similar framework. A shift in our view of responsibility will also mark a shift in our view of the kind of foresight necessary for responsibility. These points will be picked up again below.

As Stocker notes, foresight is important for responsibility "so, for example, non-negligent ignorance of effects may often preclude responsibility for them" (1982:401). In his treatment of foresight Stocker rehearses two types of arguments that attempt to show a conflict between belief and foresight. The two types of argument have already been at least sketched by Williams and Alston and, accordingly, I will not repeat them here. I will instead focus on Stocker's reply.

Stocker's reply turns on a distinction between what he calls "act foresight" and "character foresight." The distinction is this:

Put very briefly and broadly, we have act foresight about an act or outcome of an act only if or to the extent it is present and clear to mind in or before acting. So for example, I have act foresight of getting water from this fountain if I push the button. I see what pushing the button will accomplish...Character foresight is the sort of foresight one has in possessing and using a skill, even if the exact foresight necessary for act foresight is absent. (1982:404)

It would seem, then, that act foresight is the kind of foresight that Williams has in mind when he writes, "If in full consciousness I could will to acquire a 'belief' irrespective of its truth, it is unclear that before the event I could seriously think of it as a belief, i.e. as something purporting to represent reality" (1973:148; emphasis mine). His statement presupposes that to acquire a belief at will a particular "belief" must be held in mind as the object to be acquired. Similarly and as we have noted before, in respect to nonbasic immediate voluntary control Alston distinguishes between "doing A in order to bring about E, for some definite E, and doing A so that some effect within a certain range will ensue" (1989b:130; emphasis mine). In the former case--where some definite E is envisioned as the object of willing--act foresight is in question. The latter is a case of character foresight. It is the former, however, that Alston deems necessary for immediate control of belief and is also what we lack.

If we are to see responsibility for belief more holistically, then we will also have to see it in terms of character foresight. Stocker writes, "I call it 'character foresight' because of its connections with practical knowledge and skill and thus intellectual or practical character" (1982:404). It is a holistic view of responsibility that accounts for these connections. As an example of character foresight Stocker notes the accomplishment of a skilled explorer who tries to find the location of a particular mountain. If the exact location were already known (i.e., act foresight) then the search would have very little point in terms of locating the mountain. What an explorer does in searching is to engage his expertise of "how to conduct an expedition, what to look for, how to recognize and record findings, and the like" (1982:404). This use of character foresight, however, allows that the discovery by the explorer is an activity for which he is responsible. It seems also that the actual discovery is something undergone or passive.

Of course, as Stocker mentions, some skill is involved even in act foresight and it is that skill which gives the subject act foresight. He maintains, however, that the distinction is clear enough. Nevertheless, I prefer to see act foresight only as a very specialized sort of character foresight and would emphasize that mere character foresight (without act foresight) is regularly sufficient for activity and responsibility.

We can now apply character foresight to the acquisition of belief. Stocker provides us with the following:

Consider a chemist Charles, with many years' experience, just now finishing his work on formula F. He comes to the belief that F is mistaken, and his reasons come from his experiments, calculations, theoretical considerations, and the like. We may readily agree that he did not have act foresight of what he would come to believe or of the reasons for his belief...But it would be a mistake to hold that because he lacked act foresight of his belief, he was passive and thus not responsible in regard to it. Suggestions of passivity are contradicted at every turn by his hard work, his use of his abilities, training, and the like. (1982:404)

Charles is very much like our explorer searching for his undiscovered mountain. Like the explorer, he is active and responsible for his discovery, not in every feature of it, but generally (although in the moment Charles came to his belief, he could not have prevented it). This is due to the character foresight involved in his research.

We have responded, then, to earlier questions. [1] Yes, the lack of action in acquiring beliefs is compatible with activity and responsibility. [2] Yes, we can still praise and blame individual beliefs, but not simply on the basis of their propositional contents and the psychological attitude towards those contents. Rather praise and blame extend from more holistic considerations of what responsible activity led to the beliefs in question. [3] Yes, foresight is necessary for responsibility, but character foresight is sufficient. It is possible, then, to have some form of foresight in respect to belief and, thus, some responsibility. These responses, however, fall short of a positive account of acting voluntarily in respect to belief. It is to such an account we will now turn.