UC Riverside

My dissertation attempts to establish the plausibility of a thesis that I call moderate direct control over belief. This thesis tells us that a significant percentage our beliefs, or more specifically their formation, retention and elimination, are subject to our direct control. Moderate direct control is in direct conflict with the dominant view in philosophy, which claims that we lack direct control over belief. I make my argument first by appealing to common sense, including our standard responsibility-attributing practices and experiences. I suggest that an intuitive and defensible interpretation of these factors provides a basic presumption in favor of direct control which the skeptic must overcome. I then argue that such a refutation is not available, first by offering theoretical arguments in support of direct control, and then by examining and criticizing various responses offered in the relevant literature on doxastic control and responsibility.

In this latter task of providing theoretical support, I try to proceed in as neutral a manner as possible. It is impossible to operate without a theoretical framework of some kind, so I instead operate by identifying the major distinctions in the relevant literature (intellectualist, voluntarist, libertarian and compatibilist), and then in turn adopting as assumptions the various positions available within the debate over doxastic control. In each case, the broad structure of my argument is to examine relevant criteria of control over action offered within the given theoretical space, and then to show its applicability to the formation, retention and dissolution of belief. I thus do not attempt to defend a particular account of the necessary and sufficient conditions of control, but rather argue that those persons who embrace the reality of control and responsibility over action within one of these conceptions (which together comprise the majority of viewpoints on control) are thereby committed to a similar view regarding belief.