Among philosophers studying belief, normativism is an increasingly popular position. According to normativism, beliefs are necessarily, as part of their essential nature, subject to certain evaluative standards. In particular, beliefs are necessarily defective in a certain way if they are false or unresponsive to counterevidence.
In this way, believing is unlike supposing or imagining. If I merely suppose that P is true, nothing need have gone wrong if P is false. The supposition is in no way defective. Similarly, if I imagine Q and then learn that evidence supports not-Q, nothing need have gone wrong if I continue imagining Q. In contrast, if I believe P, the belief is in a certain way defective ("incorrect") if it is false and I have failed as a believer (I've been irrational) if I don't reduce my confidence in P in the face of compelling counterevidence.
But what is a normative essence? Several different things could be meant, some plausible but tepid, others bold but less plausible.
Let's start at the tepid end. Swimming hole is, I think, also an essentially normative concept. If I decide to call a body of water a swimming hole, I'm committed to evaluating it in certain ways -- specifically, as a locale for swimming. If the water is dirty or pollution-tainted, or if it has slime or alligators, it's a worse swimming hole. If it's clean, beautiful, safe, sufficiently deep, and easy on your bare feet, it's a better swimming hole.
But of course bodies of water are what they are independently of their labeling as swimming holes. The better-or-worse normativity is entirely a function of externally applied human concepts and human uses. Once I think of a spot as a swimming hole, I am committed to evaluating it in a certain way, but the body of water is not inherently excellent or defective in virtue of its safety or danger. The normativity derives from the application of the concept or from the practices of swimming-hole users. Nonetheless, there's a sense in which it really is part of the essence of being a swimming hole that being unsafe is a defect.
If belief-normativity is like swimming-hole-normativity, then the following is true: Once we label a mental state as a belief, we commit to evaluating it in certain ways -- for example as "incorrect" if untrue and "irrational" if held in the teeth of counterevidence. But if this is all there is to the normativity of belief, then the mental state in question might not be in any way intrinsically defective. Rather, we belief-ascribers are treating the state as if it should play a certain role; and we set ourselves up for disappointment if it doesn't play that role.
Suppose a member of a perennially losing sports team says, on day one of the new season, "This year, we're going to make the playoffs!" Swimming-hole normativity suggests that we interpreters have a choice. We could treat this exclamation as the expression of a belief, in which case it is defective because unjustified by the evidence and (as future defeats will confirm) false. Or we could treat the exclamation as an expression of optimism and team spirit, in which case it might not be in any way defective. There need be no fact of the matter, independent of our labeling, concerning its defectiveness or not.
Advocates of normativism about belief typically want to make a bolder claim than that. So let's move toward a bolder view of normativity.
Consider hearts. Hearts are defective if they don't pump blood, in a less concept-dependent way than swimming holes are defective if they are unsafe. That thing really is a heart, independent of any human labeling, and as such it has a function, independent of any human labeling, which it can satisfy or fail to satisfy.
Might beliefs be inherently normative in that way, the heart-like way, rather than just the swimming-hole way? If I believe this year we'll make the playoffs, is this a state of mind with an essential function in the same way that the heart is an organ with an essential function?
I am a dispositionalist about belief. To believe some proposition P is, on my view, just to be disposed to act and react in ways that are characteristic of a P-believer. To believe this year we'll make the playoffs, for example, is to be disposed to say so, with a feeling of sincerity, to be willing to wager on it, to feel surprise and disappointment with each mounting loss, to refuse to make other plans during playoff season, and so on. It's not clear that a cluster of dispositions is a thing with a function in the same way that a heart is a thing with a function.
Now maybe (though I suspect this is simplistic) some mechanism in us functions to create dispositional belief states in the face of evidence: It takes evidence that P as an input and then produces in us dispositional tendencies to act and react as if P is true. Maybe this mechanism malfunctions if it generates belief states contrary to the evidence, and maybe this mechanism has been evolutionarily selected because it produces states that cause us to act in ways that track the truth. But it doesn't follow from this, I think, that the states that are produced are inherently defective if they arise contrary to the evidence or don't track the truth.
Compare anger: Maybe there's a system in us that functions to create anger when there's wrongdoing against us or those close to us, and maybe this mechanism has been selected because it produces states that prepare us to fight. It doesn't seem to follow that the state is inherently defective if produced in some other way (e.g., by reading a book) or if one isn't prepared to fight (maybe one is a pacifist).
I conjecture that we can get all the normativity we want from belief by a combination of swimming-hole type normativity (once we conceptualize an attitude as a belief, we're committed to saying it's incorrect if false) and normativity of function in our belief-producing mechanisms, without treating belief states themselves as having normative essences.
10 comments:
Can I apply normativism to today's headlines, in particular:
...America's Judicial systems use of eyewitness testimony as evidence for law enforcement to act, in the prevention of sedition, incitement, insurrection...
Everything I saw on 1/6 now appears to be a belief for our courts to believe or not believe...
...but didn't they see the same thing I saw; well between those two beliefs lies the normaltiveness of voting...
Thanks for the timely opinion...
It can seem reasonable to assume that bodies of water and hearts are what they are independently of the way we "label" (consider) them. But is it the case of beliefs? It seems to me that a mental state is what it is only in virtue of being entertained by a subject, which already implies a dependence on how it is considered or "labelled", and in this context, the contrast between the two cases (swim hole and heart) becomes unclear.
Davidson counted belief among his array of propositional attitudes. I think there are individual beliefs and beliefs which entail group participation and support. In either category (and probably gradations in between) belief maybe false, on its'face, such as the moon is made of green cheese, or, the Earth is flat. We are reasonable certain both those propositions are false, because we now have sufficient evidence---have had such evidence for a long stretch. When theoretical physics posits notions about other universes and how things might be therein, based on what we think we know about quanta, they are levelling quasi-informed speculation. Still, we can't conclusively prove they are right---or wrong. I might believe a man, who was born of God, died on across for my sins. But, I can't prove all that is true. I only know crucifixion is a means of execution, cruel but effective. Is that dispositional, normative of just true?
Thanks for the comments, folks!
Arnold: you're welcome.
Quentin: Yes, to the extent we think of ourselves as believing some particular proposition. But there are lots of propositions we arguably believe but never attribute to ourselves, right?
Paul: That sounds right. "God died for my sins" is another interesting case. Seen one way, it is a belief evaluable for truth. Seen in another way, it is an expression of religiosity, to which truth/falsity doesn't really apply. Neil Van Leeuwen is interesting on this. Some would say the same for theoretical scientific models (e.g. Van Fraassen).
Well, God died for my sins was not my words. It was your paraphrase. It does get complicated. My blog personality butted heads with Mr. Van Leeuwen when he was at Stanford. Last I knew, he was at Georgia. There was something around *credence*, about which I know little, and have not criticised. So, I wish him well. The piranha pond of modern philosophy is just waiting for newly-minted professionals to dangle their toes. Older, wiser heads have gotten theirs chewed. It builds character in those who already have passion, separating petulant children from responsively conscious adults.
I encountered interesting thinkers @ philosophy talk. Only occasionally do I return.
I hope John Perry is well---Laura Maguire, too...
Perhaps beliefs are more like swimming pools than swimming holes. The thing about swimming pools is that people create them by (at least some of the time) attending to the norms. That's why norms for swimming pools matter more than norms for swimming holes. To put it another way: norms of belief are part of the "belief-producing mechanism" mentioned at the end of the paper -- which is not to say that we self-consciously apply norms every time we form a belief, but sometimes we do, and that's why norms of belief matter as much as they do.
Where does normative functionalism about belief fit in? For swimming holes, it appears to be the fact that something was declared a swimming hold that makes it subject to the normative features. Whereas my thought is that the fact that certain internal states have the normative features it does is what makes those internal states count as beliefs. We tell a Dretske/Millikan-type story about how hearts get their functions, and how certain brain states get their functions, and those functions include accuracy conditions, and it is because those brain states have accuracy conditions that they count as beliefs. (Similarly for various verbal behaviors getting their accuracy conditions, and then coming to count as assertions, and then getting their dispositional connections to beliefs.)
This view seems more like the dispositionalist view than what you are calling representationalist (since there's no concept of structure that is required in order to count as belief or assertion or whatever) but the dispositions are dispositions to bear certain normative features, rather than object level dispositions.
I will follow this megalogue, with great interest, and remark further if when it seems germain. All good, as usual here. Kudos to ES.
...implicit explicit attitudes towards a Oath...
When expressed by Swearing a Oath compel compliance to a Oath...
Witnessing and Swearing a Oath that 1/6 was/is noncompliant to a Oath...
Normative beliefs abound towards 1/6 was/is noncompliant to a Oath...
Happy New Year...
Thanks for the continuing comments, folks!
Michael: A nice comparison case. Do swimming pools have essences in more than the swimming-hole sense? They were built for a purpose according to certain norms, and the builders can certainly go wrong. We can *regard* a swimming pool as defective in the same way we can regard a swimming hole as defective. And we can say that a diving board didn't last as long as it "should have". I find myself torn regarding the boundaries and sources of normativity here.
Kenny: Part of the complication here, in my view, is that unless you accept some sort of robustly realistic functionalism, there might not be an appropriate target of functional selection. For example, if I believe there's beer in the fridge, I might also believe there are three beers in the refrigerator door, and that there are at least two Lucky Lagers either on the lower shelf or in the door, etc., for at least a billion possible belief specifications. (More on this issue in my paper, "Dispositionalism, yay! Representationalism, boo!".) Are there a billion states with learning histories of the right Dretske/Millikan type? Is this a single state? If so, what is its content?
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