The voluntariness of virtue - And belief

Philosophy

Volumn 83, Issue 325, 2008, Pages 373-390

  Montmarquet, James A ^a  

^a TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 62149084854     PISSN: 00318191     EISSN: 1469817X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0031819108000739     Document Type: Review

References (23)

1. 'Virtues and Vices', Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Foot, however, it is only fair to say, speaks of this contention regarding the virtues as a 'first approximation.'
2. responsibility - wherein questions of control are internal to questions of virtue and vice, 'Two Faces of Responsibility', Philosophical Topics 24 (1996), section 4 especially. Both Watson and Wolf, I should point out, ultimately reject such approaches at least as providing a full account of moral responsibility
3. In terms of the ever-growing literature on the epistemic virtues, following Guy Axtell, 'Recent Work on Virtue Ethics', American Philosophical Quarterly 34 (1997), 1-26
4. I would distinguish 'virtue reliabilists, e.g., Ernest Sosa, Knowledge in Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)
5. as emphasizing cognitive capacities and 'virtue responsibilists,' e.g. Linda Zagzebski, The Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), as emphasizing qualities of character, more narrowly conceived
6. For a related discussion - of the conflict between belief and regarding one's evidence as insufficient - see Jonathan E. Adler, Belief's Own Ethics (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), chapter one
7. 'Will Power and the Virtues', Philosophical Review 93 (1984), p. 232. More controversially, Roberts goes on here to characterize the virtues of will-power as 'skill-like' in a way that more substantive moral and prudential virtues are not. Whatever the merits of the proposal, I must observe that cowardice is typically held blameworthy in a very different way from the way in which failures of skill are typically held so
8. See 'The Virtue of Faith', Faith and Philosophy 1 (1984), pp. 4-6
9. In a related essay, 'Involuntary Sins', Philosophical Review 94 (1985), 3-31, Adams explicitly rejects any reduction of the blameworthiness of beliefs to that of such voluntary behaviors as they issue in, suggesting that 'among the states of mind that have intentional objects, the ones for which we are directly responsible are those in which we are responding, consciously or unconsciously, to data that are rich enough to permit a fairly adequate ethical appreciation of the state's intentional object ...' (26)
10. 'The Ethics of Belief, reprinted in The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1999)
11. Among contemporary philosophers of religion, I would particularly draw attention to John Bishop, 'Faith as Doxastic Venture', Religious Studies 8 (2002), 471-87, whose voluntaristic views concerning belief we consider below
12. In a sense, this point goes back to Pascal's famous advice (Pensées, no. 233) as to how the unconvinced might acquire suitable religious beliefs (daily masses, holy water, etc.). In a more contemporary vein, see such discussions as those of Holly Smith, 'Culpable Ignorance', Philosophical Review 92 (1983), 543-71
13. Michael Stocker, 'Responsibility Especially for Belief, Mind 91 (1982), 398-417
14. John Heil, 'Doxastic Agency', Philosophical Studies 46 (1983), 355-64
15. Margery Naylor, 'Voluntary Belief, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (1985), 427-36
16. and Mark Leon, 'Responsible Believers', The Monist 85 (2002), 421-36
17. In The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition, John J. McDermott, ed., (New York: Random House, 1967)
18. On Bishop's employment of this theme, see op. cit., pp. 475-77
19. Notice, one could hold to a somewhat weaker position, simply to the effect that a belief is voluntary insofar as it accords with reasons for thinking-true. Such a view is advanced by Nishi Shah, 'Clearing Space for Doxastic Voluntarism', The Monist 85 (2002), 436-446
20. 'Deciding to Believe,' in Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 148
21. I develop at least the beginnings of this standpoint in my "Epistemic Virtue, Religious Experience, and Belief," Faith and Philosophy 22 (2005), 469-81
22. Alvin Goldman, A Theory of Human Action (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970)
23. To that extent the kind of 'asymmetrical view' Susan Wolf has advanced - see 'Asymmetrical Freedom, The Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980), 151-66