Belief and Agency

Abstract

This is a collection of eleven new essays on belief in the context of practical rationality. Three focal themes emerge from the collection: belief as rational activity rather than state; the normativity of belief; and the significance of belief for action. The following discussion of individual chapters will be organized per theme. Belief as rational activity is the topic directly addressed in the essays by Pamela Hieronymi, Matthew Boyle, David Hunter and Eric Schwitzgebel. In particular, the fact that we cannot believe at will is central to Hieronymi's argument. According to Hieronymi, this fact is neither contingent, nor about our psychology. Instead, it tells us something important about the nature of belief as rational activity, with its own distinctive commitment: to settle the question of whether p, not that of whether it would be good for an agent to believe that p. The latter kind of discretion is what distinguishes voluntary or basic intentional actions, such as raising one's hand from believing. Although both are done for reasons, in the case of believing, there is a distinction between right and wrong kinds of reasons to be made; yet, this distinction doesn't make sense in the case of intentional action since anything that counts in its favour is a reason for performing it. This is a fascinating account. Still, one might have wished the author to also consider an alternative view of intentional action, as responsive to reasons in a way that requires a similar distinction between right and wrong kinds of reasons that is found on the side of believing. On this view, the kind of discretion that Hieronymi rejects as inappropriate for beliefs will also be inappropriate for actions. And if discretion is no longer the mark of the voluntary, the possibility of voluntary control over beliefs remains open.