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Rettler, Lindsay- Dissertation .pdf (624.69 KB)

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Making Sense of Doxastic Blame: An Account of Control over Belief

Rettler, Lindsay Marie
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1430102825

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Philosophy.
In this dissertation, I offer a way to reconcile the view that we can be legitimately blamed for our beliefs with the view that we do not have the same kind of control over our beliefs that we have over action. In chapter one, I argue that we hold people accountable for their beliefs by blaming them, and that this blame has a characteristic force similar to the force of moral blame for action. After distinguishing between moral and epistemic blame for beliefs, I argue that accounts of moral blame for action can be extended to account for both forms of doxastic blame. In chapter two, I defend a view of doxastic control that helps ground the legitimacy of this doxastic blame. I argue that while we lack the same direct voluntary control over our beliefs that we enjoy over action, such control is not necessary to satisfy the control condition for blame. I argue instead that we enjoy a form of indirect control over our beliefs in the form of the capacity to actively engage in reflection. And finally, in chapter three, I bring the considerations of the previous chapters to bear on faith. I argue that it’s plausible to think that faith is partly constituted by belief. But in that case, since we lack direct voluntary control over belief, we also lack voluntary control over faith. However, I argue that since we still have indirect control over whether we have faith, we can still be held accountable for our faith.
Declan Smithies (Advisor)
Abraham Roth (Committee Member)
Timothy Schroeder (Committee Member)
201 p.
Philosophy
philosophy; belief; doxastic control; doxastic blame; blame; faith; epistemology; deontological justification; doxastic voluntarism; doxastic involuntarism; reflective control; reason-responsiveness

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Rettler, L. M. (2015). Making Sense of Doxastic Blame: An Account of Control over Belief [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1430102825

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Rettler, Lindsay. Making Sense of Doxastic Blame: An Account of Control over Belief. 2015. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1430102825.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Rettler, Lindsay. "Making Sense of Doxastic Blame: An Account of Control over Belief." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1430102825

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1430102825
373
© 2015, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Making Sense of Doxastic Blame: An Account of Control over Belief by Lindsay Marie Rettler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.