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" Voluntary Belief and Its Consequences in Locke and Descartes "
Boespflug, Mark
Pasnau, Robert
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1114492
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| Doc. No
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TLpq2408511473
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| Main Entry
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Boespflug, Mark
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Pasnau, Robert
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| Title & Author
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Voluntary Belief and Its Consequences in Locke and Descartes\ Boespflug, MarkPasnau, Robert
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| College
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University of Colorado at Boulder
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| Date
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2020
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| student score
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2020
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Page No
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115
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| Abstract
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René Descartes and John Locke were some of history’s most outstanding proponents of the idea that deontological concepts are appropriately applied to the domain of belief. Inasmuch as it is allowed that “ought” implies “can,” then, this suggests that both authors held that our beliefs are somehow under our direct voluntary control. This is the central topic of this study: Locke and Descartes’ respective positions on the degree of control that we have over our beliefs as well as the consequences of their respective positions on this issue for their broader epistemologies. In spite of their agreement regarding epistemic deontologism, however, I have found that Locke and Descartes’ considered positions on doxastic voluntarism are quite different. In fact, they appear to occupy nearly opposite ends of the spectrum of possible positions on the voluntariness of belief. While Descartes maintains that all of our beliefs are the product of free decisions, Locke holds that essentially none of them are. Surprisingly enough, many scholars have undertaken to demonstrate the opposite: that is, they’ve attempted to extricate Descartes from his apparent deep commitment to voluntarism, and they’ve strived to implicate voluntarism of Locke in spite of his persistent disavowal of it. I argue that Descartes should be interpreted as a direct doxastic voluntarist and that Locke should be interpreted as a doxastic involuntarist.
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Belief
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Descartes
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Doxastic voluntarism
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Locke
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Rationality
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Will
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