Blameworthy Belief

Believing the wrong thing may sometimes have drastic consequences. The question as to when a person is not only ill-guided, but genuinely at fault for holding a particular belief is an important one: It touches upon the roots of our understanding of such notions as criminal negligence and moral responsibility.

The answer to this question may influence the extent to which we are willing to submit each other to punishments ranging from mild resentment to harsh prison terms.

This book presents an extensive effort to shed light on the conditions under which we may appropriately deem someone blameworthy for holding a particular belief. It regiments and unifies several debates within contemporary epistemology, ethics and legal scholarship. Finally, the book brings a new philosophical look on issues like our power to control beliefs and the extent and nature of foresight.

Provides the first extensive treatment of the notion of epistemic blameworthiness, a notion central to many philosophical concerns Brings together for the first time important legal case material, meta-ethical theory and state-of-the-art epistemology Presents a wide array of topics in contemporary philosophy, on which much interesting work is sure to be done in the near future Provides the reader with an up-to-date breath of outlook over the complex debates concerning the issues of criminal negligence, culpable ignorance, epistemic responsibility, foresight and doxastic control

Contenu
Belief and Acceptance.- Approaching a Conception of Epistemic Blameworthiness.- Blameworthy Belief as Inexcusably Undesirable Belief.- Epistemic Undesirability.- Bruce Russell's Basic Analysis of the Notion of Epistemic Blameworthiness.- Doxastic Control.- Direct Content-Directed Doxastic Control or Doxastic Voluntarism.- Direct Property-Directed Doxastic Control or Property Voluntarism.- Indirect Content-Directed Doxastic Control or Doxastic Pascalianism.- Indirect Property-Directed Doxastic Control or Property Pascalianism.- Intellectual Obligations.- Foresight and Blameworthy Inadvertence to Risk.- Epistemic Blameworthiness Analysed.- Epistemic Autonomy.