Epistemic Obligations: Truth, Individualism, and the Limits of Belief

Notes

243 Notes Chapter 1 1 One notable exception to this concerns what are termed hate crimes. The same act may be punished differently and more or less severely depending on the beliefs held by the agent and that allegedly informed or motivated the crime. 2 “Trials Loom for Parents Who Embraced Faith over Medicine,” New York Times, January 21, 2009, A18. 3 David Eells, “Unleavened Bread Ministries,” Press Release, March 27, 2008, http://www.wsaw.com/news/misc/17059726.html. 4 Jeff Starck, “Leilani Neumann Testifies, Petition Targets Judge,” Live Blog, July 28, 2009, http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/apps/ pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090728/WDH0101/90728076. 5 Jeff Starck, “Dale Neumann Trial Testimony Begins,” Live Blog, July 27, 2009, http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/20090730/WDH0101/90730033. 6 Starck, “Leilani Neumann Testifies.” 7 Starck, “Dale Neumann Trial Testimony Begins.” 8 One has to be careful about delineating precisely what they believed. Their belief that God can heal could still be true without Kara actually being healed. God’s action would have been sufficient for healing had God chosen to act in this fashion. 9 William Bradford Huie, “The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi,” Look, January 24, 1956. 10 Technically, Williamson’s making remarks about the Holocaust 244 Notes to pp. 12–30 would indicate that he took actions on his beliefs. I treat this as a case of not taking action in that his action of asserting his beliefs did not stem from the content of his beliefs, but from his having the beliefs. That is, the action of asserting his belief would follow from any belief regardless of the content; that it was about the Holocaust did not affect the asserting per se, only what was asserted. 11 Following the pope’s orders, Williamson actually did say that he “regretted having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them. . . . To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologize.” However, this is not a retraction of a belief about the Holocaust, but an apology for making his beliefs public. “Bishop Offers Apology for Holocaust Remarks,” New York Times, February 27, 2009, A6. 12 See the historical novel by Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (New york: Carroll & Graf, 1934). 13 Mike Degenhardt, “The Ethics of Belief and the Ethics of Teaching,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 32 (1998): 333. 14 Degenhardt, “The Ethics of Belief,” 342. This echoes Socrates in Meno 86, b–c. “I do not insist that my argument is right in all other respects, but I would contend at all costs both in word and deed as far as I can that we will be better persons, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it.” 15 “True” here is understood in a nonpragmatic sense. If truth is equivalent to workability or promoting growth, then what accomplishes these tasks is thereby true, and what does not is thereby false. 16 Sharon Ryan hints at this but does not develop it. “Doxastic Compatibilism and the Ethics of Belief,” Philosophical Studies 114 (2003): 62. Chapter 2 1 Roderick Chisholm, “Firth and the Ethics of Belief,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1 (1991): 123–24. 2 This is not to say that we don’t sometimes encourage others to hold false beliefs. Criminals mislead police; chess players deceive their opponents; teenagers at times might want their parents to believe something other than the facts; businesspersons do not want their competitors to know the details of their business ventures. But the beliefs of the former in each case are directed at knowing the truth for themselves—and believing the truth is a prerequisite for the deception. We will return to self-deception later. 3 Bernard Williams, “Deciding to Believe,” in Williams, Problems of Notes to pp. 30–35 245 the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1973), 137; John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding 4.17.24. 4 William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The...