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We consider ourselves as active with regard to what we believe and we also evaluate the performance of others in that respect: we blame people for their credulity, we praise them for critical thinking and we demand that some things simply have to be believed, cannot be doubted or must not be ignored. It is not clear, however, what constitutes epistemic agency and what kind of control is required such that theses evaluations are justified.
In this seminar, we will approach the issue of epistemic agency from diverse angles. One central aspect will be the notion of doxastic voluntarism, that is, the thesis that we can form our beliefs at will. This leads to a dilemma: Can we make ourselves by an act of will believe against what we know to be true? If we can, it seems to be wrong that our beliefs aim at truth. If we cannot, it seems that we cannot be held responsible for our beliefs. We will discuss very different approaches and solutions to this problem.
Further, we will briefly explore questions about moral responsibility for beliefs: Do we have a moral duty to gather sufficient evidence? Can we be morally blamed for false beliefs? Are racists only to be blamed for their morally wrong actions or also for their racist beliefs? For many of these questions, a look into the free will debate will prove useful. We will also discuss the different kinds of doxastic attitudes like belief, non-belief, disbelief and suspension of judgment. |
