Reason and Determinism
My supervisor did not think you could reason without having free will. He did not present his view very convincingly, but I could dissuade him no more effectively. But sociobiology does firmly hold a deterministic thesis. And I can't well say that I don't reason just because I happen to believe in sociobiology. So I am going to have to reconcile reason with determinism somehow.
I have just conducted a web search for "reason determinism". The top-ranked article is "Dominos, Determinism, and Naturalism" by Gregory Koukl. Its central argument is that if determinism is true, then we could never know it. To know something is to choose to believe in it based on the evidence. But if determinism is true, then we cannot choose to believe anything, we simply believe because of prior physical conditions.
What a weak article! Even if libertarianism is true, nobody "chooses" to believe anything, because beliefs are not subject to voluntary control. I cannot choose not to believe in determinism, I do believe in determinism. I have reviewed the arguments and the evidence has so impressed me that I simply naturally find that I believe in determinism. I cannot choose to believe in libertarianism simply in order to please libertarians. If my belief is to change, then I must review libertarian arguments that are actually impressive. This one simply isn't!
I thought that it was a standard view in philosophy that beliefs are involuntary. I have just conducted a web search for the exact phrase "beliefs are involuntary". The top-ranked page is "Considering creatures by the name of Hard Cases, we are to assume that their perceptual beliefs are involuntary in the 'hard way' where they do not retain intellectual authority over what they believe." It claims that John Searle argues that we enjoy "voluntary control of belief".
I must admit that I find that to be a very strange way of looking at beliefs. If beliefs were voluntary, then what would stop us from believing absolutely anything we wanted? I might believe that I could step in front of a bus and have it pass straight through me. Yet something seems to stop me from believing this--so Searle must be wrong.
I have just performed a web search for the exact phrase "voluntary control of belief". The top-ranked page is still the preceding page. But the second-ranked page is "Evidentialism" by Professor Michael Sudduth. The paragraph that contains the phrase also uses another term to describe the view, namely "doxastic voluntarism".
I have just performed a web search for the exact phrase "doxastic voluntarism". The top-ranked page supports my view, "We Cannot Choose Our Beliefs", by Tim Holt. What I especially like is that it introduces the conception of doxastic voluntarism in relation to an objection to Pascal's Wager. This was how the notion of doxastic involuntarism was first introduced to me: Apparently, Pascal is actually not silly enough to say, "Believe in God, because it's a 'good bet'". He actually says, "Go to church, get down upon your knees, and hope it takes!" In other words, Pascal recognises that beliefs are not subject to voluntary control.
Well, one may still believe that some belief is subject to voluntary control. As paragraph two mentions, we cannot simply choose to believe that it is the year 2020. We also cannot simply will ourselves to believe that elephants rule the earth. But there may still be other beliefs over which we may indeed have some control.
Well, those are examples where there is a lot of evidence against the beliefs in question. There may be other examples where the evidence is not so clear-cut. For any interesting problem in philosophy, this will be the case. Yet it would seem to me that even here, we do not exactly choose which belief that we end up having in philosophy. I did not choose to be a determinist; I simply am, and I cannot simply choose to be something else. There is certainly a human tendency to form an opinion on issues one way or the other. But it is far from clear that this is a voluntary process.
In paragraph three, much the same point is made. Beliefs are formed on the basis of the evidence, not desire. I cannot choose to believe something simply on the grounds that I desire it to be true; I must actually have some kind of evidence to support it.
Paragraph five provides a reply to the objection from doxastic involuntarism. It notes that if there is much evidence against a proposition, then we cannot choose to believe in it. But sometimes the evidence is not so conclusive. Certainly it does not seem to be very conclusive either way regarding the existence of God. We might therefore be able to exercise a greater amount of voluntary control over whether to believe in God.
Paragraph six introduces a stronger reply again. It concedes that we do not have direct control over our beliefs, but notes that we still have indirect control. Specifically, it advocates exercising control over the kind of evidence to which we are exposed.
OK, can I say that I have a visceral reaction to this kind of reply?! Manipulating the evidence so as to induce a belief is a pretty shocking breach of integrity. You should examine all the evidence and it is from this evidence that you derive your theory. You must adjust theories to suit facts, and not facts to suit theories.
The third reply offered is even more cynical again. Simply hypnotise yourself to believe in God--and my objection to the second reply holds for this one as well. The second and third replies presuppose irrational means of arriving at beliefs. The only rationally acceptable means of arriving at a belief is on the basis of all the available evidence. We should be rational, so these means of arriving at beliefs must be unacceptable.
I have just conducted a web search for "reason determinism". The top-ranked article is "Dominos, Determinism, and Naturalism" by Gregory Koukl. Its central argument is that if determinism is true, then we could never know it. To know something is to choose to believe in it based on the evidence. But if determinism is true, then we cannot choose to believe anything, we simply believe because of prior physical conditions.
What a weak article! Even if libertarianism is true, nobody "chooses" to believe anything, because beliefs are not subject to voluntary control. I cannot choose not to believe in determinism, I do believe in determinism. I have reviewed the arguments and the evidence has so impressed me that I simply naturally find that I believe in determinism. I cannot choose to believe in libertarianism simply in order to please libertarians. If my belief is to change, then I must review libertarian arguments that are actually impressive. This one simply isn't!
I thought that it was a standard view in philosophy that beliefs are involuntary. I have just conducted a web search for the exact phrase "beliefs are involuntary". The top-ranked page is "Considering creatures by the name of Hard Cases, we are to assume that their perceptual beliefs are involuntary in the 'hard way' where they do not retain intellectual authority over what they believe." It claims that John Searle argues that we enjoy "voluntary control of belief".
I must admit that I find that to be a very strange way of looking at beliefs. If beliefs were voluntary, then what would stop us from believing absolutely anything we wanted? I might believe that I could step in front of a bus and have it pass straight through me. Yet something seems to stop me from believing this--so Searle must be wrong.
I have just performed a web search for the exact phrase "voluntary control of belief". The top-ranked page is still the preceding page. But the second-ranked page is "Evidentialism" by Professor Michael Sudduth. The paragraph that contains the phrase also uses another term to describe the view, namely "doxastic voluntarism".
I have just performed a web search for the exact phrase "doxastic voluntarism". The top-ranked page supports my view, "We Cannot Choose Our Beliefs", by Tim Holt. What I especially like is that it introduces the conception of doxastic voluntarism in relation to an objection to Pascal's Wager. This was how the notion of doxastic involuntarism was first introduced to me: Apparently, Pascal is actually not silly enough to say, "Believe in God, because it's a 'good bet'". He actually says, "Go to church, get down upon your knees, and hope it takes!" In other words, Pascal recognises that beliefs are not subject to voluntary control.
Well, one may still believe that some belief is subject to voluntary control. As paragraph two mentions, we cannot simply choose to believe that it is the year 2020. We also cannot simply will ourselves to believe that elephants rule the earth. But there may still be other beliefs over which we may indeed have some control.
Well, those are examples where there is a lot of evidence against the beliefs in question. There may be other examples where the evidence is not so clear-cut. For any interesting problem in philosophy, this will be the case. Yet it would seem to me that even here, we do not exactly choose which belief that we end up having in philosophy. I did not choose to be a determinist; I simply am, and I cannot simply choose to be something else. There is certainly a human tendency to form an opinion on issues one way or the other. But it is far from clear that this is a voluntary process.
In paragraph three, much the same point is made. Beliefs are formed on the basis of the evidence, not desire. I cannot choose to believe something simply on the grounds that I desire it to be true; I must actually have some kind of evidence to support it.
Paragraph five provides a reply to the objection from doxastic involuntarism. It notes that if there is much evidence against a proposition, then we cannot choose to believe in it. But sometimes the evidence is not so conclusive. Certainly it does not seem to be very conclusive either way regarding the existence of God. We might therefore be able to exercise a greater amount of voluntary control over whether to believe in God.
Paragraph six introduces a stronger reply again. It concedes that we do not have direct control over our beliefs, but notes that we still have indirect control. Specifically, it advocates exercising control over the kind of evidence to which we are exposed.
OK, can I say that I have a visceral reaction to this kind of reply?! Manipulating the evidence so as to induce a belief is a pretty shocking breach of integrity. You should examine all the evidence and it is from this evidence that you derive your theory. You must adjust theories to suit facts, and not facts to suit theories.
The third reply offered is even more cynical again. Simply hypnotise yourself to believe in God--and my objection to the second reply holds for this one as well. The second and third replies presuppose irrational means of arriving at beliefs. The only rationally acceptable means of arriving at a belief is on the basis of all the available evidence. We should be rational, so these means of arriving at beliefs must be unacceptable.
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