Believing in compatibilism

In this response, I argue that we do not need to appeal to incompatibilist conceptions of agency to understand how belief formation and revision can be agential. When our belief formation mechanisms are appropriately reasons responsive and reactive, they partially constitute our agency, but such rea...

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Main Author: Levy, N
Format: Journal article
Published: University of Oviedo 2018
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author Levy, N
author_facet Levy, N
author_sort Levy, N
collection OXFORD
description In this response, I argue that we do not need to appeal to incompatibilist conceptions of agency to understand how belief formation and revision can be agential. When our belief formation mechanisms are appropriately reasons responsive and reactive, they partially constitute our agency, but such reasons responsiveness does not require indeterminism. For similar reasons, I deny that our responding appropriately and mechanistically to evidence constitutes our being forced to our beliefs: rather, under appropriate conditions it constitutes our agentially adopting them. Moreover, I suggest that the kind of diachronic belief formation Peels highlights works in the same kind of broad way as synchronic belief formation, and therefore could not solve any problems that beset the latter. I close with some doubts over Peels' claim that our dispositional beliefs may underwrite our responsibility.
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spelling oxford-uuid:ca4e8c52-d12a-425f-a490-3b514fad20712022-03-27T07:06:23ZBelieving in compatibilismJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:ca4e8c52-d12a-425f-a490-3b514fad2071Symplectic Elements at OxfordUniversity of Oviedo2018Levy, NIn this response, I argue that we do not need to appeal to incompatibilist conceptions of agency to understand how belief formation and revision can be agential. When our belief formation mechanisms are appropriately reasons responsive and reactive, they partially constitute our agency, but such reasons responsiveness does not require indeterminism. For similar reasons, I deny that our responding appropriately and mechanistically to evidence constitutes our being forced to our beliefs: rather, under appropriate conditions it constitutes our agentially adopting them. Moreover, I suggest that the kind of diachronic belief formation Peels highlights works in the same kind of broad way as synchronic belief formation, and therefore could not solve any problems that beset the latter. I close with some doubts over Peels' claim that our dispositional beliefs may underwrite our responsibility.
spellingShingle Levy, N
Believing in compatibilism
title Believing in compatibilism
title_full Believing in compatibilism
title_fullStr Believing in compatibilism
title_full_unstemmed Believing in compatibilism
title_short Believing in compatibilism
title_sort believing in compatibilism
work_keys_str_mv AT levyn believingincompatibilism