Doxastic Voluntarism vs Determinism
In another thread, Agustino provided two very interesting quotes from Kierkegaard and William James.
Kierkegaard writes: "One may be deceived in many ways: one may be deceived by believing the false, but one may also be deceived by not believing the true [...] Whose recovery is more doubtful? [...] To awaken one who is sleeping or to awaken one who, awaking, dreams that he is awake?"
James writes: "Scepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error,-that is your faith-vetoer's exact position."
These quotes, I admit, almost cracked my skepticism, but then it occurred to me what such arguments for faith, particularly religious faith, are assuming, which is doxastic voluntarism. Such a term is not often bandied about on these forums, but it effectively states that human beings have the freedom to choose their beliefs. Doxastic determinism claims the reverse: we do not possess the freedom to choose what we believe in. Before I go on, it's interesting to note that if actions follow from beliefs, and doxastic determinism is true, then determinism more generally is true.
So, what reply can we give to Kierkegaard and James? I would say that it is at least not certain whether I can choose my beliefs or not. If I cannot, then it makes no difference whether I ought to make the leap of faith, as these philosophers would encourage me to do, for I have no control over whether I will or not. However, I would go further and argue that doxastic determinism is true, though at present only by means of an appeal to personal experience. I have never felt that what I believed in was in any way up to me. True, I have witnessed my beliefs change over time, but I could not honestly tell you why they did. One would like to think they did because I became convinced by certain arguments, but what exactly causes me to be convinced of said arguments in the first place? It can't be because they are true, since we are convinced by the false more often than not. What else is it? I suppose, then, one might assume doxastic determinism to be true in the absence of any coherent explanation for how doxastic voluntarism could be true. I welcome anyone to provide me with one, though.
Kierkegaard writes: "One may be deceived in many ways: one may be deceived by believing the false, but one may also be deceived by not believing the true [...] Whose recovery is more doubtful? [...] To awaken one who is sleeping or to awaken one who, awaking, dreams that he is awake?"
James writes: "Scepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error,-that is your faith-vetoer's exact position."
These quotes, I admit, almost cracked my skepticism, but then it occurred to me what such arguments for faith, particularly religious faith, are assuming, which is doxastic voluntarism. Such a term is not often bandied about on these forums, but it effectively states that human beings have the freedom to choose their beliefs. Doxastic determinism claims the reverse: we do not possess the freedom to choose what we believe in. Before I go on, it's interesting to note that if actions follow from beliefs, and doxastic determinism is true, then determinism more generally is true.
So, what reply can we give to Kierkegaard and James? I would say that it is at least not certain whether I can choose my beliefs or not. If I cannot, then it makes no difference whether I ought to make the leap of faith, as these philosophers would encourage me to do, for I have no control over whether I will or not. However, I would go further and argue that doxastic determinism is true, though at present only by means of an appeal to personal experience. I have never felt that what I believed in was in any way up to me. True, I have witnessed my beliefs change over time, but I could not honestly tell you why they did. One would like to think they did because I became convinced by certain arguments, but what exactly causes me to be convinced of said arguments in the first place? It can't be because they are true, since we are convinced by the false more often than not. What else is it? I suppose, then, one might assume doxastic determinism to be true in the absence of any coherent explanation for how doxastic voluntarism could be true. I welcome anyone to provide me with one, though.
Comments (61)
Choosing your beliefs doesn't have to be so black and white. Maybe you can't choose freely in any circumstance - some beliefs are forced on you. But can you influence at least some of the beliefs you have? Even a Spinozist would be forced to admit that you can, since you yourself are part of the causal chain that will determine what your beliefs are. For a Kantian/Schopenhaurian it's even easier - freedom is of the noumenal, not of the phenomenal, hence the choice remains free sub specie aeternitatis. And ... nothing is certain - certainty is incoherent. I don't even understand what it would mean for something to be certain other than perceiving everything all at once - which is impossible - the view from everywhere :p .
Not having complete control is different from having no control. If you want to argue that you have no control, you dig yourself too deep to ever get out. If you have no control over any of your beliefs, then there is not point to study philosophy. Just stop. You have no control over what you believe anyway. If you have no control over what you believe there is no point in talking about it. Just be silent.
Sure, determinism (including doxastic) is true, pace Spinoza, but it doesn't follow that you have no control over what you believe. You do have control, but it's a limited kind of control. You're only one of the factors that determines what your beliefs will be - there are many others external of you which also come in to make the determination happen. The fact that you have never been able to take all factors into account - because probably you don't know them - does not mean that you haven't also been a factor. You don't know the cause, because knowing the cause of your beliefs changing involves knowing all the factors which merge into what is the cause. But you certainly know part of the cause.
As for why arguments, of any kind, convince you - there can be many causes coming into play. It can be due to your past experience, it can be due to your thought pattern, it can be due to what you want to be true, it can be due to reason, etc. An argument doesn't have to be true to convince you. It will convince you if it's not true so long as it agrees with your passions. If it is true, the argument may convince you because it agrees with your passions (in which case you are accidentally convinced, and you may become unconvinced) or because it agrees with your reason (in which case you remain convinced - your conviction is stable).
Hasty generalisation - just because the false convinces you many times does not mean that the true never convinces you.
Yes, sure, let's assume it to be true, but it doesn't help you in anyway. The position you really want to put forward to help you in your argument is doxastic FATALISM. Our beliefs may all be determined, but, surely, we also play a causal role in that determination - therefore there is a degree of freedom that we have by merely being causal agents. Doxastic fatalism on the other hand - that digs the hole too deep, and you can't climb out. If that is true, then you can consider none of your beliefs to be true, not even the belief in doxastic fatalism, because that too, you have been determined to believe in by factors entirely outside of your control and/or influence.
Just like any argument of reason, appeal to values/emotions, or empirical demonstration, the quotes wish to persuade. No, you don't have a choice exactly about whether or not they will be persuasive to you, but that doesn't mean that they won't be persuasive. In fact, it sounded like they were somewhat persuasive, given how jarring you found them to be, and worthy of contemplation. Clearly not jarring enough though!
I take this to be the crux of your reply to me, which I appreciate, by the way. What is the direction of the causality in this case? It cannot be that I self-cause the beliefs that I have, for this would mean they sprang from nothing and have no reason for their existence. In fact, this would constitute a restatement of doxastic voluntarism. But I have the beliefs I do for many reasons, as you have pointed out; therefore, they cannot be self-caused. If you say that these various reasons cause me to have the beliefs I do, then I fail to see where the freedom to choose them can be sneaked in. Hence doxastic determinism remains true. On the other hand, you apparently cede its truth and now want to distinguish it from doxastic fatalism. Could you expand on what you mean by that? And what, precisely, is our role in the determination of our beliefs?
James writes: "….. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error…."
It seems they are speaking about the loss of an opportunity at an objective truth. That would certainly raise the stakes. But the discussion is dealing with belief or premise. Our premise is not truth since it’s not constant nor the same for everybody. And yes we make it up, and so we love it, and so we defend it. This would seem to be an operational necessity. Whatever the causal role we take, whatever endless loop of cost / benefit analysis are we not just taking the path of least resistance?
Well it depends Thorongil. Just like Hume/Kant/Schopenhauer, you have emptied the "I" of all possible constituents in the world. Why? Because for you, the I is the sustainer of the world. Sure, I don't disagree transcendentally, but that's not the "I" that I was referring to. What I'm referring to as "I" includes your body, your set of beliefs, your desires, etc. This "I", which is the entire framework of all of that, plays a causal role. For example, your desire to transcend the world, that certainly plays a causal role in whatever you do or believe. When your internal resources play a greater role in determining your behaviour than external forces, we say that you are "self-determined". Therein lies your freedom.
But you are not born with such a self. Men are not born free (one of Spinoza's many great insights). Such a self is built, in time. Your self is made and created to a large degree by society, and the environment you grew in. Here is what Hume didn't see. This is where you get an ought from an is. Because your "self" is generated and sustained by your community, you owe much to that community, simply because it is somehow more "you" than you are. It is the cause that is responsible ultimately for your freedom.
Only after you have developed a self can it become independent - and it does so, when your behavior becomes governed by your internal resources much more than by circumstance. Freedom is as difficult as it is rare.
Quoting Thorongil
To the first question. It is one thing to be determined to do something by causes (some of which are internal), and it is another thing to be destined to do something. When you are destined to do something you don't play a causal role - causes of any kind cannot alter the outcome, because it is your destiny. What is our role in the determination of our beliefs? The current beliefs, our desires, our physical body, etc. guide our perception and navigation through the world, and we interpret whatever happens to us through them. New beliefs, changes of belief, etc. all happen within this framework that we call "I". This framework, via top-down causality, determines (in some of us to a large degree) what we believe, how our beliefs change, etc. Imagine a street full of people going along in two different lanes, in two opposing directions. If you want to go say right, then you join the lane where people are all heading right, because otherwise you'd not be able to go right - you'd crash in others. That's how a system can play a top-down causal role on its parts. That is what you do as well in your life.
It seems harder to identify cases in which I chose to believe or disbelieve something. Perhaps there are none. I can choose to, say, read a certain article, and that article might convince me of something, but the choice to read the article is not the choice to become convinced: the two are separate.
I'm not sure I'd say that because "my" desires (at least partially) determined my belief, that I (at least partially) determined my belief. In what sense are these desires even mine? Our disagreement might just be semantic, but I'm not sure about the relationship between desire, self, and causality (or determination).
Is this not analogous to what I said about reading an article in one of my prior comments?
My beliefs can indeed be altered, and might be altered by methods such as CBT, but I question the role that I play - if any - in altering my beliefs.
Let's say I chose to practice CBT, and my beliefs were altered as a result. But I didn't choose to alter my beliefs, did I? I merely chose to try out a certain method in the hope that my beliefs would be altered. I acknowledge that I can do certain things which might, or might not, consequently alter my beliefs; but I don't accept that I can choose my beliefs.
Suppose your beliefs are altered. Do you accept and own those beliefs as yours or do you pass the responsibility to CBT? Aren't we just looking down the road and reevaluating what is really going to push us to the left or to the right? Your "choice" is your path of least resistance.
That looks like a false dilemma. The beliefs are mine, and they were caused, and caused most directly by something other than my decision to practice CBT. But it still doesn't follow that I chose to believe them, does it?
I chose only to attempt to alter my beliefs, regardless of whether the attempt had succeeded or failed.
Quoting Monitor
Not sure I follow. Can you spell it out?
Woh, hold your horses. I merely questioned the relationship between desire, self, and causality. So you're attacking a straw man.
Of course I can cause things. I can cause my arm to move, for example. But I can't choose what to believe.
Quoting Sapientia
Precisely my point. You ask in what way they are even yours. I say that it is no question of being yours. They are you.
If I get drunk and say something inappropriate, Is that me or the liquor talking?
Quoting Sapientia
The discussion is about what is choosing / determining our beliefs. I guess I see correctly diagnosing the cause as irrelevant.
Our premise / belief is not objective truth. It is Fallibilism at best. But if our rational mind is to survive and stay in charge is has to index it's choices from something. Believing something is true and "making it true for the time being" (for necessary operational purposes) are the same thing. We may be able to change to what extent things in our path are going to effect us but we still follow the path that is least resistant to what (we choose to believe) is beneficial.
A Navy Seal undergoing agonizing, perhaps abusive, training can apparently quit any time he wants. He is encouraged to do so. It's only because, at the time, he considers quitting as worse, that he endures. What he accepts as "what quitting would mean" is a private truth whose origin cannot be assigned to a cause. He is following the path of least resistance. And that I believe, is testable and empirical.
You did more than merely claim that I'm using a different definition. You claimed that I "merely define my "self" as something above and beyond my body, my thoughts, my desires, etc.", and that is an assumption on your part. You then proceeded to criticise this definition.
Quoting Agustino
Ok, well I say that they're not me, but are perhaps part of me. Surely I can differentiate between my self and my desires; my self and my body; my self and my thoughts. I'm not sure how to best define "self", but your way seems problematic.
So if they are part of you, and they cause some single belief of yours to change, does it not follow that you have caused part of your belief to change through that desire that is part of you?
Yes, I suppose so, in a sense, but that'd be just one factor of many, and a more remote one at that, at least in the example we discussed. But where does choice fit in here? It seems it's been overlooked. I no more choose my desires than I choose my beliefs. I can choose to attempt to change my beliefs, but whether or not they actually change seems outside of my control. I can largely control my actions, but I seem to have very little control - if any - over my beliefs.
@Sapientia Choice of whom? What is this "self" which you say is doing the choosing? It's not really a question of choice, since you are the framework formed by your current desires/beliefs, etc. As such, these things are not separate from you. But this framework, your self, exerts a top-down causality on individual beliefs and desires, similarly to the way a crowd of people exerts a top-down causality on an individual within the crowd. In this way, you have power over individual beliefs and can change them by making use of other beliefs/desires/thoughts that are already part of you. In this way, you are effectively changing and determining yourself.
Good question. A bit of both, perhaps. It's you talking under the influence of alcohol.
Quoting Monitor
For me at least, the discussion is primarily about whether or not one can choose to believe something; not about what it is that makes choices. The latter is easily answered: I make choices. As for what determines our beliefs, that question isn't so easily answered, but again, seems besides the point.
Quoting Monitor
Whether we can "choose to believe" is precisely what's being questioned. You might think that unimportant, but it's the topic of discussion, and it's what I'm interested in pursuing, and you haven't dissuaded me from this pursuit.
Ironically, if I could simply choose to believe otherwise, this wouldn't be a problem.
Quoting Monitor
What do you think this demonstrates? That we can and do choose to believe certain things? If so, I don't see how that supposedly follows. If not, it seems beside the point.
Interesting... so one may have faith even if they don't believe so long as they step on the bridge and cross?
I'm not sure how to best describe my "self", but I understand my "self" as identity, in terms of ability and location, in relation to other, and probably in other ways. I am a subject, an agent, a human, a person, I am Sapientia. I am here, in England, at this point in time. I think, feel, act, etc.
You say that it's not really a question of choice, but that's where the controversy lies, so it's all about choice.
But then, perhaps we could phrase it in terms of will. I can will to believe something, but again, there's the issue of whether it's my will which determines my belief or other factors, or, if it's both - which does so to a greater extent.
See the question of "having" choice is the wrong way to put it no? If the self is the framework of your beliefs, tendencies, desires, thoughts, physical body, etc. then it follows that this "self" determines, via parts of it, other parts of it, and therefore plays an active role in whatever will become of it. There is no "free will", but there most certainly is freedom - and freedom is being self-determined, meaning that your actions end up depending much more on internal determinations than external ones.
Ok, but actions weren't the issue, were they? Beliefs were.
I agree that beliefs can - and at times do - influence other beliefs, but I don't draw the same conclusions that you do, or define "self" in the way that you do.
I don't have a definition; only a set of things that I can point out in regard to my self. I haven't yet arrived at a definition.
And besides, I gave examples of what I meant right after I said those things: I am a subject, an agent, a human, a person, I am Sapientia (identity). I am here, in England, at this point in time (location). I think, feel, act, etc., (ability). And most of those are relations to other, since I'm not thought, and I'm not England, and so on.
Although, perhaps that was a rhetorical question.
For example, I might not quite believe that someone is on the level, but 'give them the benefit of the doubt', and treat them as though they are. I don't have to believe that Christ is alive in every man to act as if he is, though I dare say belief would make it a tad easier. To put it very starkly, faith is how one lives, and belief is what one thinks, and there is not a necessary connection.
I'm saying that whether it's will, other factors, or both which determines your belief, you actively decide the legitimacy of accepting it so you can make choices and move on. You sign off on it no matter where it comes from. I think this dwarfs the origin or extent of the influences.
Can you make a decision with one without the presence of the other? I see this all conflated or subsumed into premise, which is not objective truth, so it's only power / meaning comes from your activation of it.
But "actively deciding the legitimacy of accepting a belief" or "signing off on a belief" that we've already obtained (since it has already been determined) seems redundant in most cases. Why would I need to actively decide the legitimacy of accepting something of which I'm already convinced? Why would I sign off on something which needs no signing off?
Nor would it be practical in many situations, e.g. where we need to think fast or act urgently.
So, I suspect that the importance you assign is misplaced.
We make choices and move on regardless.
Well consider the first time bungee jumper. Reason believes it is safe; the viscera 'believe' it is certain death, and he jumps, or else does not jump. Neither he nor we can determine his decision in advance. He might jump thinking 'I'm going to die', or he might refuse, thinking 'it's perfectly safe'.
But this is where the rubber meets the road. We cannot determine his decision in advance so whatever he is going to draw from (to make the decision) is not present. So all this "belief" and "faith" he has are only demonstrated, activated, supervene upon, when he put it to use. I'm not trying to get Zen on you. It's only when he acts (based, at that moment, on his premise) that any of this belief, faith, determinism free will, gets any weight or substance at all. We only sign off on it when we actively demonstrate our premise.
I think that's what they are taking issue with. How can the action someone takes be or not be? It's a contradiction.
To me "faith," at least here, seems more like an expression of trust towards some way of acting opposed to the action itself- I will and think and/or act like this no matter what. It's an expression also given independently of action.
The first time bungee jumper might insist, up until the point of the jump, that they were going to jump no matter what, that they had "faith" the would be safe (even if someone cut the cord), only to be overcome with fear and refuse the jump when the time came.
I'm not sure I understand. One chooses to jump or not to jump. One's choice determines the act. Once one has chosen, one has acted and there is no choice any more. There is indeed only one act; one cannot jump and not jump. One has faith, or one does not.
You don't need to. You do it automatically. How else would what you're convinced of be demonstrated? That's who you are.
Did you give a ball park definition of "faith" so I can orient myself?
Or for the religious:
Beliefs are what you recite in a creed, faith is what extra you need to recite it amongst the infidel.
Coming late to this...just to point out, as I'm late to this party, that the supposed relationship between belief and action is not straightforward. I'm deeply into Aristotle at the moment and he thinks they are altogether different: that we choose actions based on deliberation, founded in our characters; that our beliefs are quite another thing, mere 'opinion', though they will of course contribute to deliberation. We choose what we think is 'good', as action, whatever our 'opinion'. A person has a certain character, on a common-sense basis, otherwise we wouldn't talk of people acting 'out of character', or 'characteristically'. Their subsequent rationalisation may sound like a an action-impelling belief, but...?
I thought you meant a conscious, willful acceptance. Words like "actively", " decide", and "acceptance" seem to imply that.
My point is that such an argument makes faith empty as an account of action. You didn't live your life because of faith, you just lived it. You acted. That's it.
You've seemingly indicated that faith is about something more than just what action you take, but here you are treating it as equivalent: merely calling your lived life, your actions, "faith."
[quote=unenlightened]I have in the back of my mind a situation I was in recently that you may have heard about, where I remained faithful without much belief for some time. In that case my faith kept me from jumping (metaphorically) until the (metaphorical) rope was well and truly cut. [/quote]
When I talk about trust, this is what I mean. You remained "faithful," you trusted that things would turn out successfully, even though you believed otherwise. This was so, right up until the moment that a particular action was taken, at which point your faith had finally ebbed away.
Rather than being an account of the action in question - which is actually independent of whether or not you had faith (you could have taken the action you did, but still thought things would turn out successfully. You could have lost all trust but decided otherwise to what you did), faith is actually an expression that, for the moment, you have trust in something.
Yes I see. Perhaps I should say rather that faith is expressed in action, and belief in words. 'Belief', 'faith', and 'trust' are related and the distinctions are blurred in common parlance. I think you are teasing them apart slightly differently here. I would put trust closer to belief: I trust you if I believe you are honest, and not otherwise, but I can be faithful to you without trusting you. Although, thinking about it, perhaps I am being faithful, not to you so much as to an idea of what you ought to be.
But your way of talking works as well. The significance of all this for the thread, however we express it, is that while action can be guided by belief, it is not necessarily determined by belief. So a lack of free will concerning beliefs does not defeat my freedom to act.
I'm not sure. It seems more like faith is its own action. To be faithful to an idea of what someone ought to be is something a person does. Yet, it is seemly, it may still be present when someone acts which would indicate they don't believe something will happen- I might decide not to drive a car because I believe its breaks aren't working, but I might also say: "I still have faith the car's breaks are working" Though, it does seem to become questionable when my "faith" seems me unwilling to risk myself on the idea the car will work as it ought to. But then people still profess "faith" in a deity when they have thoughts it isn't there. Still, this does make me a little uncomfortable. In situation where someone locks another person-up and takes away capacity to take certain designs in the world, it seem rather dishonest to say, for example, that someone has "faith" another will behave as they ought to.
Perhaps the trick is that, sometimes, faith is independent of other actions, while other times it is not. Since it is a measure of what ought to be, maybe it's uniquely tied a specific stance someone is talking about, such that sometimes it is its own action (e.g. the presence of faith in God, even though belief is lacking) and other times it is not (e.g. whether you have faith in me to drive your car safely ).
My very first post at PF was about this, although I didn't know the term "doxastic." It was actually this question that caused me to search for a philosophy forum so that I could post it. I posted on several sites only to either be ignored or to get some pretty worthless responses. The old PF members responded, I stuck around, and the rest is history.
My thoughts were a bit different though. I had long questioned the existence of free will generally, and it was the relationship between free will and knowledge that finally led me to accept the existence of libertarian free will as a necessary given, even if it is problematic (to say the least: the uncaused cause). To deny free will is to deny knowledge and to deny knowledge is to deny reason, and to deny reason is to deny any basis for understanding anything.
If we accept reason, then when we drop a ball, we accept that it will fall based upon our prior observations of it dropping. That is, we are presented with a variety of reasons that might explain our observation, and we exercise judgment based upon those observations, and that judgment leads us to conclusions. A judge who has formed a pre-determined course of action is no judge at all.
On the other hand. if we accept that there is an unbreakable causal chain, then the reason we believe that the ball falls when we drop it may or may not be related to what we have previously seen. That is, we're going to believe the ball falls when we drop it regardless, as that is what the cosmos of causes has caused us to believe. In a deterministic system, we cannot hold that our beliefs are the result of what is observed as true, but we must accept that our beliefs are just things in our heads that could have come about by any prior event. The fact that we believe our beliefs are the products of reason hardly makes it so.
The concept of "persuasion" therefore makes no sense to a determinist. One does not persuade a judge. A judge is forced into making his decision by all the applicable worldly causes, regardless of whether the decision bears any relationship to reality. What you think is persuasion is simply you barking your pre-determined noises toward a judge and the judge then barking his pre-determined response.
Since our beliefs (and therefore our knowlege, K=JTB) to the determinist are not based upon justifications nor truth, but just on whatever happens to bounce into the brain of the decision maker, we have no knowledge at all. That being the case, we can know nothing at all if determinism is true.
Such was my theory years ago, and it remains so. It was at that point that I stopped arguing about free will, as I considered the matter solved. To deny free will is to deny the abilty to speak intelligently about anything at all. If you disagree and claim that determinism and knowlege are compatible, then I'd submit that you're just saying that because you had to.
Even if we accept that K=JTB (which is debatable), it isn't necessarily the case that determinism entails that beliefs are not based on justification or truth. If S believes X because of Y, then Y could be the justification for X. Y is what caused the belief, and Y could be, e.g. empirical evidence or a line of reasoning.
As for truth, beliefs aren't based upon truth in any case, are they? They're based on what we take to be true.
Quoting Hanover
I'm not convinced of your first sentence. Were you being serious with regard to that last part? If so, that's in no way a refutation. On the other hand, I could similarly say that you're just choosing to go with that position, rather than believe it to be the case be-cause of anything. You weren't compelled to go with whichever position happened to convince you. That strikes me as intuitively wrong - disingenuous, perhaps.
Quoting Hanover
But it's true that the reason we believe that [i]the ball falls when we drop it[/I] may or may not be related to what we have previously seen. I can easily think of examples in which that belief isn't based on what we've previously seen. We believe all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons, not all of which are sensible.
In a deterministic system, we can hold that, in some cases, under certain circumstances, our beliefs are the result of what is observed as true. Why is that problematic? On the contrary, without those added qualifications, the statement would be false.
Quoting Hanover
Yes it does, and one [i]can[/I] persuade a judge. One would do so if whatever it is that one did in trying to persuade the judge actually caused the judge to become convinced.
[Quote="Hanover;1871"]A judge is forced into making his decision by all the applicable worldly causes, regardless of whether the decision bears any relationship to reality. What you think is persuasion is simply you barking your pre-determined noises toward a judge and the judge then barking his pre-determined response.[/quote]
So what if that is indeed true? It just so happens that in the vast majority of cases, the decision does bear a relationship to reality.
It's not like the judge's response is necessarily not effected by what I presented to him or her. It may be determined by what I presented or by something else or by both to an extent.
The judge can freely make a choice as to what verdict he gives, but he can't freely make a choice as to how what he has been presented with effects him and determines his beliefs.
I just realised that that doesn't follow at all, and seems to commit the fallacy of composition.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about beliefs, not actions, but regardless, if I play a causal role in determining either of them, then they are determined! You have it precisely backwards it seems to me: the empirical self is clearly not free; only the transcendental self, which is a misleading way of referring to the thing-in-itself, is free. The subject of knowing is always and forever determined by the forms of knowing, whereas the subject of willing is not determined by anything, as it lies outside of all such forms of knowing.
Quoting Agustino
Again, "being governed by internal resources" is not freedom, it's just another way of saying one is determined. And I think I now know what you mean by doxastic fatalism, but that is not what I am arguing for, nor something I would argue for, seeing as I think it would have to presuppose a rationalistic teleology.
I find this to be a non-sequitur. To speak of knowledge being "true" or not is a category mistake. Truth is a function of propositions, which can be justified or unjustified according to logical analysis. Beliefs by definition are propositions, therefore, they can be justified or unjustified.
I think to answer that would be to reinsert it back into the causal chain, and deprive it of freedom. If i take a modern analogy, a computer world is determined, as in programmed, but it takes input from 'a player'. If you look as it were from inside the game, there is no magic, and thus no freedom; the player's input appears to be part of the character's program. If there is freedom, then from the inside of the world, one can only say that it happens in the moment, and comes from - nowhere? elsewhere?
In short, do not attempt to tie down freedom, or catch running water in a bucket.
You point out a common, yet imprecise, manner of speaking, and draw a conclusion of questionable accuracy from it.
That we distinguish ourselves from our parts is evidence that we don't in fact identify ourselves with our parts. I am [i]not[/I] my hand. I hit the glass [i]with[/I] my hand. It's both true that I hit the glass and that my hand hit the glass.
Of course we distinguish ourselves from our individual parts - you know why? Because we are more than any single individual part. We are all our individual parts. If I were to ask you - do you distinguish yourself from your tendencies, desires, beliefs, body, thoughts, perceptions, etc.? - would you tell me that you do distinguish yourself from all those things? If so, then who are you? Because in that list, I think we have eliminated every thing that you could be. But the fact that we distinguish ourselves from our parts individually does NOT mean that we don't identify ourselves with our parts. It just means that we don't identify with any one part in particular.
So, we should both also agree, contrary to your previous suggestion, that if your desires are part of you, and they cause some single belief of yours to change, then it does not follow that [i]you[/I] have caused part of your belief to change through that desire that is part of you.
Although, perhaps my reply in which I simply stated that it doesn't follow, and your absence of explicit disagreement, meant that you'd already accepted this to be the case. (It might not commit the fallacy of composition, but it's a non sequitur nonetheless).