Self-Knowledge in “Deciding to Believe”

Dialogue-Canadian Philosophical Review

Volumn 36, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 136-510

  Pieper, Laurie ^a  

^a KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 85011438692     PISSN: 00122173     EISSN: 17590949     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0012217300017029     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. The title of this paper refers to Bernard Williams's influential article, “Decid- ing to Believe,” originally published in 1970, reprinted in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 136–51. I would like to express my gratitude to Andrew Hsu, Sean Foran, Michael O'Rourke, and especially to Tyler Burge for reading drafts of this paper and supplying helpful conversation and comments.
2. Problems of the Self., p. 148.
3. Williams has a second argument for this conclusion which is based on the fact that “factual beliefs can be based on evidence.” (The argument is given in “Deciding to Believe,” pp. 148–49. The foundation for this argument is laid on p. 141 in the discussion of the characteristic of being based on evidence.) I do not address that argument in this paper.
4. “Deciding to Believe,”., p. 148.
5. “Deciding to Believe,”, p. 148. Emphasis added.
6. “Deciding to Believe,”. Emphasis added.
7. Williams's view on this matter is shared by Barbara Winters in “Believing at Will,” The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1979): 245
8. Brian O'Shaugnessy in The Will: A Dual Aspect Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) pp. 21–28;
9. Dion Scott-Kakures in “On Belief and Captivity of the ‘Will,”Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, 53 (1993): 77–104;
10. and Louis Pojman in “Believing and Willing,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 15 (1985): 37–55.
11. In some cases, it would also be correct to say that one cannot decide to do something if one lacks the ability to do it at will. For example, I have the ability to digest lactose, but digesting lactose is not something I do at will. When lactose is broken down by my digestive system it is not because I have decided that my digestive system should do this. Terrence Irwin discusses such cases in “Reason and Responsibility in Aristotle,” in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, edited by Amelie Oskenberg Rorty (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), pp. 122–23.
12. Williams, “Deciding to Believe,” p. 137. At present, I will not take issue with this claim.
13. Williams likens acquiring a belief by conscious decision (even if not at will) “because it is fashionable or comfortable or in accordance with the demands of social conformity to believe that thing” to a “project of trying to get oneself to believe the false” (“Deciding to Believe,”., pp. 150–51.) He then raises moral and practical objections to non-truth-centred motives for acquiring a belief. But having a non-truth-centred motive would not entail that the belief one acquired would be false.
14. “Deciding to Believe,”., p. 137. According to Williams, part of aiming at truth is the fact that to say “I believe that p” is a way of asserting p. Williams claims that this fact is related to Moore's paradox; that is, to the paradox in one's saying “I believe that p, and p is false.”
15. “Deciding to Believe,”., p. 149. This is the second reason Williams gives for thinking it is a necessary fact that a belief cannot be acquired at will.