Are Any Beliefs Acquired At Will? Any Room for an ‘Ethics of Belief’?

William P. Alston boldly maintains that "no one ever acquires a belief at will." (Beyond Justification, Cornell 2005, 67) This blanket rejection of doxastic voluntarism — the view that some belief-formation is under the control of the will — sounds extreme. What about beliefs that one acquires as a result of reasoning? Are not some of the beliefs acquired in this manner acquired at will? And if so, then is it not right to talk deontically of the permissibility and impermissibility of some beliefs?

Note that there are two connected questions. One concerns whether or not any beliefs are under the control of the will. The other concerns the legitimacy of deontic talk in respect of beliefs. A negative answer to the first question removes the second question, while an affirmative answer to the first question leaves the second question open. Let's think about this.

The central problem of logic, Charles Sanders Peirce tells us, "is the classification of arguments, so that all those that are bad are thrown into one division, and those which are good into another . . . ." (Collected Papers vol. II, Elements of Logic, p. 119, sec. 14) On this characterization of logic's task, which I find attractive, it is a normative discipline: logic is not concerned to describe how people reason and argue as a matter of fact, but concerned to prescribe how they ought to reason and argue if they are to attain truth.

But talk of how people ought to reason, talk of what they ought to do and leave undone in matters of argument, presupposes that at least some belief formation comes under direct voluntary control. No one will contend that all our beliefs are subject to the control of the will, but if none of them are, then it seems there would be no possibility of reasoning, strictly speaking. And if there is no possibility of reasoning, strictly speaking, then there is no possibility of that normative study of reasoning called logic, which of course itself involves reasoning, namely, reasoning about correct and incorrect reasoning. Peirce:

Now, that which is uncontrollable is not subject to any normative laws at all; that is, it is neither good nor bad; it neither subserves an end nor fails to do so. But it is only the deliberate adoption of a belief in consequence of the admitted truth of some other proposition which is, properly speaking, reasoning. (p. 120)

The following argument suggests itself on the basis of this passage:

1. Reasoning is the deliberate adoption of beliefs on the basis of other beliefs.
2. Deliberate actions are under the control of the will.
Therefore
3. Reasoning is under the control of the will.
Therefore
4. Reasoning is subject to agential oughts and ought nots.
Therefore
5. There is room for an 'ethics of belief.'

For example, I open my mailbox and I see that it is empty. The belief that it is empty is not a belief I acquire at will; I can't help believing that the box is empty. Now consider four inferences I might draw: (a) The mailman is coming but has not yet come; (b) the mailman has come but had no mail for me; (c) today is a day on which mail is not delivered; (d) the mailman died on the way here. Reflecting on these inferences I realize that none of them are (deductively) valid and so I deliberately refuse to adopt any of the corresponding beliefs. But I do form the higher-order belief that none of the above beliefs is deductively justified by the perceptual deliverance. I also form the higher-order belief that it would be epistemically impermissible to think that the perceptual deliverance necessitates the truth of any one of (a)-(d).

My refusal to form any of the beliefs corresponding to (a)-(d) is directly under the control of my will. That looks to be clear evidence of the truth of doxastic voluntarism: in some cases, believing, disbelieving, and suspending of belief is under the direct control of the will.

What about my meta-belief that none of the first-order beliefs is entailed by the perceptual evidence? One could argue that one 'sees' that it is true, though not in the sense of 'see' in which I see that the mailbox is empty. Is this 'seeing' under the direct control of the will?

There is a distinction between direct and indirect belief-formation. Perhaps Alston would respond that my Peircean example pertains to indirect belief-formation whereas his thesis concerns direct belief-formation.