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. — Sapientia

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.

To put it very starkly, faith is how one lives, and belief is what one thinks, and there is not a necessary connection. — unenlightened

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.

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. — Monitor

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.

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. — Monitor

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'.

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'. — unenlightened

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.

@Monitor You seem to be agreeing with me despite yourself. Faith is the act of putting your money where your mouth might or might not be.

And I'm saying that it's all an act of putting your money where your mouth might or might not be. And reason and viscera 'believe' are standing in the same shoes.

@unenlightened

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.

Yes, exactly.

I think that's what they are taking issue with. How can the action someone takes be or not be? It's a contradiction. — TheWillowOfDarkness

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.

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. ;)

Why would I need to actively decide the legitimacy of accepting something of which I'm already convinced? — Sapientia

You don't need to. You do it automatically. How else would what you're convinced of be demonstrated? That's who you are.

There is indeed only one act; one cannot jump and not jump. One has faith, or one does not. — unenlightened

Did you give a ball park definition of "faith" so I can orient myself?

@Monitor Ball park - faith is putting your balls on the line.

Or for the religious:

Beliefs are what you recite in a creed, faith is what extra you need to recite it amongst the infidel.

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. — Thorongil

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...?

You don't need to. You do it automatically. — Monitor

I thought you meant a conscious, willful acceptance. Words like "actively", " decide", and "acceptance" seem to imply that.

From a behaviorist point of view, we act based on our premise at the time. We may be aware, unaware, right, wrong, about what belief, truth, faith, we are relying on or where it originated. But all these words only get reified in the act, if they are even analyzed. Our premise however (whatever is present and accountable of it), gets full faith and credit at once. I see that I'm splitting hairs here. Probably more psychology than philosophy.

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. — unenlightened

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."

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. — unenlightened

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.

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. — TheWillowOfDarkness

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.

Perhaps I should say rather that faith is expressed in action — unenlightened

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 ).

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. — Thorongil

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.

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. — Hanover

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.

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. — 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.

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. — Hanover

But it's true that the reason we believe that the ball falls when we drop it 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.

The concept of "persuasion" therefore makes no sense to a determinist. One does not persuade a judge. — Hanover

Yes it does, and one can 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.

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. — Hanover

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.

So if [your desires] 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? — Agustino

I just realised that that doesn't follow at all, and seems to commit the fallacy of composition.

It doesn't necessarily follow that it is a fallacy of composition. For example, a brick wall, with no rendering, etc. just the bricks is made of red bricks. Therefore the wall is red. Have I committed a fallacy of composition there? No, because it is true that if the bricks are red, then the wall is also red. You have to prove that my attribution of causal powers to myself because a part of me (a belief) caused a change on another part of me is mistaken; only then will you have proved a fallacy of composition. And I don't think you can - just like if by a sudden jerk my hand hits a glass and makes it fall from the table, I say that "I'm sorry, I accidentally I hit the glass", not that "Oh, I'm really sorry, my hand hit the glass". The fact that one identifies oneself with one's parts seems to be true, at least to me.

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. — Agustino

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.

and it does so, when your behavior becomes governed by your internal resources much more than by circumstance. — 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.

Very interesting. Do you think you could rack your brain as to where this does indeed come from? I would be very interested to know.

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. — Hanover

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.

Very interesting. Do you think you could rack your brain as to where this does indeed come from? I would be very interested to know. — Thorongil

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.

[...]just like if by a sudden jerk my hand hits a glass and makes it fall from the table, I say that "I'm sorry, I accidentally I hit the glass", not that "Oh, I'm really sorry, my hand hit the glass". The fact that one identifies oneself with one's parts seems to be true, at least to me. — Agustino

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 not my hand. I hit the glass with my hand. It's both true that I hit the glass and that my hand hit the glass.

Questionable accuracy doesn't mean no accuracy. My argument is at least plausible - I didn't claim it to be undeniable proof - just reasonable.

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.