Studies On Doxastic Voluntarism

"Problem of doxastic control" is one of the centrol problems of contemporary epistemology.The discussion of this problem will make some effects on other important theories such as the ethics of belief,doxastic normativity,belief attribution,internalism and so on.In the domain of action,the voluntariness of action is one of the conditions to attribute responsibility to that action.The same in the domain of belief.The voluntariness of belief is one of the conditions to attribute doxastic responsibility to that belief.Voluntariness of belief means the subject has some kind of voluntary control over his doxastic attitude.It’s the problem of doxastic control.The debate of doxastic control can be devided into doxastic voluntarism and involuntarism.The main arguments of doxastic involuntarism are conceptualimpossibility and psychological impossibility argument.Conceptual impossibility argument first arised by Bernard Williams.He thinks that the aim of belief and the doxastic voluntariness is contradicted conceptually.The voluntariness of belief is logically false.Developed by other researchers,the conceptual impossibility argument is based on the contradiction between one of the natures of believe(such as the rational capitivity of belief or the receptivity of cognitive reason)and the concept ofvoluntary belief,as the argumentation for doxastic involuntarism.Psychological impossibility argment first arised by William Alston.He argues that the belief formation process is unintentional.The formation of belief is not caused by our doxastic control.Psychologically speaking,we human being cannot believe at will.Developed by other researchers,the psychological impossibility argument is basd on the unintentional belief thesis and casual inefficacy of voluntary belief thesis to argue for the doxastic involuntarism.The main methods of reply for the two main arguemnts for doxastic involuntarism suggested by the voluntarists can ben understand as strong version of voluntarism and soft version of voluntarism.Soft doxastic voluntarism can be used as an option against the conceptual impossibility argument.It suggests that we can form some example we believe at will,such as for the comfortable reason someone may believe the doors are locked before he leaving home.Strong doxastic voluntarism is aimed at argue against psychological impossibility argument.The mian idea of it is the belief can be intentional.Based on the intentional belief thesis,the voluntariness of belief is the same as the voluntariness of action.Since that,if our action is somewhat free,in that sense,belief can be as free as our action.For example,some of our actions are free for they meet the requirements of reason-responsivenss compatibilism,our beliefs are also free for thet meet the requirements of doxastic reason-responsiveness compatibilism.The innovation of my paper is as follows.First,I raise an argument called"cognitive fissure argument".It shows that conceptual impossibility argument is false.If we can believe P at will,it means we can transit our belief state voluntarily.The transition process from an incoherent belief set to a coherent belief set cannot be accomplished by mere voluntary control.In other words,according to the rational mechanism in belief modifying revealing by the argument,there is always a cognitive fissure in the process of believe at will.By this argument we can get that there is no conceptual contradiction between the nature of belief and voluntariness.We can conclude that the conceptual impossibility argument is false.Second,I try to defend a position that we can enjoy doxastic freeom in the sense of pessimistic libertarianism.According to the strong doxastic voluntarism,our voluntrainess in action and belief is alike.As a version of strong doxastic voluntarism,the doxastic compatibilism is a conditional thesis.It cannot avoid doxastic determinism.I arise a new argument to solve this problem.The doxastic pessimistic libertarianim is based on the action pessimistic libertarianism.Our desire to action can be measured.After deliberation,S finds that no obvious reasons support he choose action A or action B,it provided S an open future to either choose A or B is free.The same in doxastic domain.Our evidence for believing can be measured.After doxastic deliberation,S finds that no obvious reasons support he choose believe P or suspend judgement,it provided S an open future to either believe P or suspend judgement is free.The doxastic pessimistic libertarianism is another version of strong doxastic voluntarism.It can provide a new argument for doxastic voluntarism.Third,this paper tries to defend epistemology conservatism.The epistemology conservatism combines three important epistemlolgy position,the deontological conception of doxastic justification,internalism and doxastic voluntarism.The internalism thinks that justification is something internal to th subject.We have doxastic control over our beliefs.In our epistemic activity,we have the duty to find reason to justfy our beliefs.These two conditions assure that the internalism is true.On the background that contemporary epistemology is influenced by externalism,involuntarysm and non-deontological theories,we think that we can successfully defend the the deontological conception of doxastic justification and doxastic voluntarism,and they can support the internalism.I combine these three positions and call them epistemology conservatism compared to the more aggressive epistemological position.