On the possibility Of Doxastic Wronging

On the possibility Of Doxastic Wronging Raymond Navarro In both “Doxastic Wronging” and “How can Beliefs Wrong?” their respective authors attempt to make a case for the possibility of Doxastic Wronging—wronging or harming another simply by what we believe. In seeking to answer that in an affirmative, I would like to borrow the idea of using the Strawsonian concept of participant reactive attitudes (Marusic and White:2018) to help in establishing the possibility of doxastic wronging. While Marusic and White do discuss using these attitudinal concepts, their superficial discussion of reactive attitudes, is in need of further development and unpacking. Whereas Marusic and White focus on the distinction between the participant and objective stances in the development of their case for doxastic wronging, I would like to instead, develop a case for the possibility of doxastic wronging within the participant stance itself. This becomes a possibility by bringing in the additional Strawsonian idea of a self-reactive attitude, and only with that addition, can we then begin to secure the possibility of a doxastic wrong. What is a Doxastic Wrong? A Doxastic wrong is the idea that not only can we wrong others by our actions, we can wrong others by what we believe about them. According to Marusic and White, It is obvious enough that others’ conduct can manifest a failure to show us the regard we expect and demand. Might it not also be the case that the beliefs others harbor can likewise manifest a failure of regard for us?1 1 Marusic and White, “How can Beliefs Wrong? A Strawsonian Epistemology”, p. 101 1 Understanding doxastic wronging in terms of a Strawsonian epistemology, Marusic and White continue, On its face, it is not much of a leap to extend Strawson’s account from the regard others show us, to how they regard us—from action to belief. If so, it would seem to provide a sense in which beliefs can, like actions, constitute wronging: one wrongs another person when one’s beliefs and judgements fall short of the regard the other is entitled to expect from one.2 In other words, a Strawsonian account of doxastic wronging could be understood as an expectation that others regard us in certain ways—which includes believing certain things about us—these expectations are the ground of the reactive attitudes (which will be discussed shortly). With this definition in hand, we are now ready to begin our journey into how possibly such a wrong could occur in the context of our inter-personal relationships with one another. Let’s begin with what I believe to be a precursor to the kind of expressivist account later developed by Strawson. Strawsonian Expressivism Let’s begin with a quote from J.S. Mill, We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. 3 Notice the underlined part of the quote, “if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.”, is quite telling. Because “a reproach of one’s own conscience” should be understood as an internal, private not public, feel of shame or guilt. This seemingly suggests 2 3 Ibid., p.101 Mill, Utilitarianism, chapter 5, paragraph 14 2 that certain reactions can track certain moral failings (attitudes) committed by others or even by ourselves. This could be seen as a precursor to what Strawson calls the participant reactive attitudes. In “Freedom and Resentment” Strawson talks about the great importance or value that we place on the Intentions or attitudes of others towards us. The central commonplace that I want to insist on is the very great importance that we attach to the attitudes and intentions towards us of other human beings, and the great extent to which our personal feelings and reactions depend upon, or involve, our beliefs about these attitudes and intentions…how much it matters to us, whether the actions of other people—and particularly of some other people—reflect attitudes towards us of goodwill, affection or esteem, on the one hand or contempt, indifference, or malevolence on the other.4 … of the kind of importance we attach to the attitudes and intentions towards us of those who stand in these relationships to us, and of the kinds of reactive attitudes and feelings to which we ourselves are prone. In general, we demand some degree of goodwill or regard on the part of those who stand in these relationships to us…5 According to Strawson, there is an expectation, a demand being made upon others for some degree of good will or regard towards us. And it is this expectation or demand that is the ground for our feelings and reactive attitudes. In other words, our feelings and reactive attitudes are nothing more than expressions of the interpersonal demands made on others for ourselves. Let’s begin our discussion of the manifestations of these demands in the various types of reactive attitudes. Participant Reactive attitudes (PRA) What I have called the participant reactive attitudes are essentially natural human reactions to the good or ill will or indifference of others towards us, as displayed in their attitudes and actions.6 Strawson, P.F., “Freedom and Resentment”, p. 22, In Mckenna and Russell (ed.), Free Will and the Reactive Attitudes (Ashgate 2008) 5 Ibid., p.23 6 Ibid., p.25 4 3 In other words, the reactive attitudes of resentment or gratitude, blame or praise, are ingrained reactions to the attitudes or intentions of another—it is one’s attitude to an attitude. To put it another way, it is an attitude that tracks an attitude or action. The wronged person not only feels 1st order anger, but 2nd order feelings of resentment, blame, indignation towards another— for the perceived intention behind the action. In short, when triggered, these reactive attitudes let us know that the expectation for good-will from others towards ourselves has somehow been flouted or disregarded. The personal reactive attitudes rest on, and reflect, and expectation of, and demand for, the manifestation of a certain degree of goodwill or regard on the part of other human beings towards ourselves.7 With this idea in hand, we can now make a first pass attempt at applying this to lend credence to the possibility of doxastic wronging. However, when we attempt to ground doxastic wrongs in mere personal reactive attitudes, we seem to run into a problem. The Problem with Personal Reactive Attitudes (PRA) The problem with using PRAs to demonstrate the possibility of doxastic wrongs is as follows. Recall that reactive attitudes are 2nd order attitudes to someone else’s attitudes or actions. But the only way we can discern another’s attitude is by their outward action. In other words, in order to have a reactive attitude, there must by necessity be an outward or externalized action of another. But if this is the case, a problem arises—if in order to have a 2nd order reactive attitude to someone’s 1st order intention, that other person’s internal attitude (or intention) must be accompanied by an external action— then how are we to prove that it is the belief itself 7 Ibid. p. 29 4 that wrongs, and not the accompanying action. To put it more simply, in order for me to react to your attitude, I have to react to your action first, that seems to question the legitimacy of doxastic wronging. Why? Because, from the perspective of the other party (wronged or offended party), the attitude always comes accompanied with outward action—the attitude and the action are coextensive. If this is indeed the case, what this means is that the opponent of doxastic wronging could always suggest that the ground of any reaction (1st order or 2nd order), is the harmful action, not the harmful attitude. In other words, merely personal reactive attitudes can’t by themselves prove doxastic wronging (even if possible). The problem arises because we don’t have access to the internal states of others (we can’t simply read their minds or know their thoughts), so in order for personal reactive attitudes to do their job and react—the attitudes of another need to be accompanied by externalized actions, utterances, or some sort of externalized performance. It is these externalizations that allow us ‘access’ or a window into the internal attitudes of others. Simply put, without the performance of some externalized action on the part of another, there will be no reactive attitude on our part— their attitude must be accompanied by an action, in order for us to react to that attitude. So, mere reactive attitudes cannot establish the possibility of doxastic wronging all by themselves. For doxastic wronging to be conclusively demonstrated- the wronged party needs the ability to react directly(immediately) to another’s beliefs (without any externalized action). In order to show a case of genuine doxastic wronging, we as humans would need access to another’s mental states, but since we don’t have access to others internal states, we cannot 5 react directly to another’s beliefs (unless mediated thru an outward action). The coextensiveness of the harmful action with its corresponding harmful belief muddies the waters for a conclusive case to be made in favor of the possibility of doxastic wronging. Luckily for us, Strawson doesn’t stop with merely personal reactive attitudes but includes their vicarious analogues, and more importantly for our case the self-reactive attitudes. Self-Reactive Attitudes (SRA)-Moral Sense According to Strawson, there are not only personal reactive attitudes—the reactions of the wills of others towards ourselves, there are also vicarious reactive attitudes— those reactions on the behalf of others, such as “resentment on the behalf of another, where our own interest and dignity are not involved”8, and lastly but most importantly, our self-reactive attitudes associated with the demands on oneself for others. Thus I have spoken of personal reactive attitudes in the first connection and of their vicarious analogues in the second. But the picture is not complete unless we consider also the correlates of these attitudes on the part of those on whom the demands are made, on the part of the agents. Just as there are personal and vicarious reactive attitudes associated with demands on others for oneself and demands on others for others, so there are self-reactive attitudes associated with demands on oneself for others. And here we have to mention such phenomena as feeling bound or obliged (the ‘sense of obligation’); feeling compunction; feeling guilty or remorseful or at least responsible; and the more complicated phenomenon of shame.9 What is interesting about this idea of self-reactive attitudes is that it would seem that you can have a reaction to your own 1st order attitude or intentions towards others. Essentially you encounter reactive attitudes issuing from yourself against yourself—having attitudes towards 8 9 Ibid., p. 28 Ibid., p.29 6 your own attitudes—attitudes of remorse, regret, and shame. It’s this idea of self-reactive attitudes that truly opens the door for a Strawsonian account of Doxastic wronging. In addition, Strawson also heads off a possible route that the opponent of doxastic wronging might exploit, by addressing a question that might arise concerning the existence of selfreactive attitudes. All these three types of attitude are humanly connected. One who manifested the personal reactive attitudes in a high degree but showed no inclination at all to their vicarious analogues would appear as an abnormal case of moral egocentricity, as a kind of moral solipsist…Can we imagine, besides that of the moral solipsist, any other case of one or two of these three types of attitude being fully developed, but quite unaccompanied by any trace, however slight, of the remaining two or one? If we can, then we can imagine something far below or far above our level of humanity—a moral idiot or a saint. For all these types of attitude alike have common roots in our human nature and our membership of human communities.10 In other words, Strawson is committed to the idea that the participant reactive attitudes are an all or none type of affair. Anyone committed to the idea of personal reactive attitudes must also be committed to their various analogues. With both the ideas of personal reactive and selfreactive attitudes, we can now establish a viable route to the possibility of doxastic wronging. The Solution—Self-reactive Attitudes In order to truly establish that it is the belief itself that wrongs, we11, need the ability to react to another person’s beliefs directly and immediately, without the clouding effect produced by outward action. Unlike PRA’s, where we don’t have access to another’s mental states, with SRA’s, we do have access to a person’s internal mental states—our own. I know what I believe, 10 Ibid., What I mean by “we” is both the injured party and the moral community. The idea is in either case, to know whether a case of doxastic wronging can be shown to be the case. Any person would need the ability to react directly (unmediated) to another’s attitudes or intentions(beliefs). 11 7 think and intend towards others—good will, ill-will, etc. It is because I know I have certain thoughts/beliefs, that I can now know that encountering 2nd order reactions to those thoughts (especially those thoughts/beliefs unaccompanied by any outward action) indicates that I have morally wronged or righted another. In short, SRA’s evaluate the appropriateness/inappropriateness of my 1st order beliefs, and in the case of doxastic wronging— condemns those beliefs. For doxastic wronging to be established, it seems that there must be cases where everything is internal to the cognizer. If I can harm someone by simply thinking or believing something about them, the paradigmatic case would be one unmediated thru external action—and this is what SRA’s allow. So, by beginning with an intrapersonal case, with only one agent, absent any outward action, we can see how the agents own self-reactive attitudes show doxastic wronging. Story Time: For example, I could learn (and come to have the belief) that John is spreading bad rumors about me and a co-worker. I might begin with a 1st order emotion of anger, then a 2nd order reactionary attitude of resentment towards John. And because I now believe he is a horrible person— I wish, hope, and pray terrible things to befall John. Nevertheless, I take no external actions towards John (all my thoughts and feelings are internal). Later, I learn that it wasn’t John at all, but Sam that was spreading those awful rumors. It turns out, that John was actually defending my character. Now I feel immensely remorseful and shameful for believing what I did about John. It is those 2nd order reactionary attitudes to my 1st order attitude that indicates that I did something wrong. I could even go so far as to apologize to John for my thinking towards him. 8 Unpacking the situation: Within the context of the work-environment I have certain expectations or make demands upon my co-workers for good-will or at least the absence of malevolent will towards myself— this includes John. John concocting and then spreading the rumor itself constitutes both a prima facie appearance of this demand being disregarded and a manifestation of ill will towards myself. This appearance of ill-will (rumor) then triggers the corresponding personal reactive attitudes towards John of anger and resentment. I then infer what I believe to be further facts about John’s character, and I come to have the belief that John is a horrible person in need of retribution (however I take no action). After further evidence shows John was not the culprit, but my defender, I come to have a 2nd order selfreactive attitude of guilt and shame to my 1st order belief that John is a horrible person in need of punishment. It is because the self-reactive attitude condemns my belief about John, that I know I have wronged John. So, assuming that reactive attitudes do indeed track attitudinal harm (or good), then it would be safe to assume that self-reactive attitudes track attitudinal harm (or good) committed by us thru our own internalized beliefs and thoughts about others. This seems more decisive proof that Doxastic wronging is a valid thesis. However, before we get too excited about the possibility of doxastic wronging there seems to be questions/concerns about the reactive attitudes in general. Before closing I would like to discuss some of these concerns. 9 Concerns about the Reactive Attitudes (1) What reasons does Strawson give for the link between the reactive attitudes and the appropriateness of them? Strawson gives two reasons for the appropriateness of the reactive attitudes—the naturalistic response and what might be called the rationalistic response 12. Naturalistic Response According to the naturalistic response, recall that the reactive attitudes are natural human reactions—these are automatic and ineliminable reactions that are part of our nature as humans committed to being in interpersonal relationships. Because of the expectation and demand on others (in these interpersonal relationships) for interpersonal regard for ourselves, we are essentially prone to such reactive attitudes. The making of the demand is the proneness to such attitudes.13 For Strawson the reactive attitudes, as natural human reactions, are in need of no external justification for their applicability in our moral assessment of others.14 The existence of the general framework of attitudes itself is something we are given with the fact of human society. As a whole, it neither calls for, nor permits, an external rational justification.15 Use of these terms was taken from. Russell, Paul, “Strawson’s Way of Naturalizing Responsibility”, p .143, In Mckenna and Russell (ed.), Free Will and the Reactive Attitudes (Ashgate 2008) 13 Strawson, P.F., “Freedom and Resentment”, p. 34, In Mckenna and Russell (ed.), Free Will and the Reactive Attitudes (Ashgate 2008) 14 While specifically addressing the question of whether or not the truth of the thesis of determinism would affect our usage or justification of the reactive attitudes, I believe his response concerns the much larger issue of the appropriateness of the reactive attitudes in general. 15 Ibid., p.35 12 10 Ultimately, because the reactive attitudes are inescapable reactions to the attitudes of others, it is simply absurd to ask us to do something (forever suspend use of personal reactive attitudes) that is not in our nature to do.16 Rationalistic Response According to the rationalistic response, while the reactive attitudes are automatic and ineliminable parts of human nature, they are still modifiable with respect to evidence. Evidence concerning the circumstances of the injury or evidence concerning the disposition of the agent can modify or mollify the reactive attitudes. These two broad categories of exculpatory conditions help to determine the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the reactive attitudes. The first category of excusing conditions are those that modify a particular reactive attitude towards the injury, not the agent. This class of excuses includes injuries whose agents couldn’t help but to perform the action due to accident or ignorance. Due to the circumstances in which the injury occurred, the agent’s actions are compatible with the demand and expectation for due regard for others. Excusatory pleas such as “he couldn’t help it” or “he didn’t know” are paradigmatic examples of such a class. The second category of excusing conditions are those in which the reactive attitudes are wholly suspended not towards the injury but towards the agent. The agent is entirely removed from interpersonal relations (participant stance), and seen merely as an object for treatment or 16 Ibid., p31 11 training (objective stance). Prime candidates for such a stance are children and those suffering from various psychological pathologies (schizophrenics, sociopaths, etc.) In short, what both the naturalistic and rationalistic strategies seem to suggest is that, the reactive attitudes are appropriate in their applicability due to being intrinsic parts of our fabric as humans (in interpersonal relationships). And secondly, while automatic these reactive attitudes are sensitive to the evidence of both the circumstance of the injury or the disposition or nature of the agent. And it is this sensitivity to evidence that allows them to track the attitudes or intentions of another- either excusing or holding morally responsible. However, this leads us to a second and more specific question. (2) Why believe that a specific reactive attitude is the one we ought to feel? Since the reactive attitudes are simply a certain species of emotion17, then like other emotions there must be a cognitive component to such attitudes18. Jinhee Choi, discussing the cognitive theory of emotions, states the following, In order to have an emotion, one must subsume the object in question under the appropriate category or criterion, and each emotion is mapped onto a different category or criterion. For example, my anger is caused by my awareness that harm has been done to me and is directed toward the object or person causing the harm.19 Extending this theory beyond merely objects, to also include both actions and beliefs, and then combining this theory of emotion with the idea that these particular emotions (reactive 17 Both Strawson himself and Paul Russell both suggest that this is the case. This cognitive component distinguishes emotions from things such as a startle response which seem to have no cognitive component. 19 Choi, Jinhee, “Introduction to Part V- Film and Emotion”, p. 213, Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures 18 12 attitudes) are grounded in certain expectations, we can arrive at what Wallace calls the attitudinal stance of “holding someone to an expectation”. To hold someone to an expectation is essentially to be susceptible to a certain range of emotions (reactive attitudes) in the case that the expectation is not fulfilled, or to believe that the violation of the expectation would make it appropriate for one to be subject to those emotions.20 Since certain reactive attitudes(emotions) are linked to certain expectations, when those expectations are disregarded, certain attitudes will be triggered. So, when confronted with a certain injury (seemingly manifesting ill-will or disregard) one is prone to subsume that injury under a certain category (failure to meet expectations), which then elicits a certain range of emotions (reactive attitudes like resentment). In the case of my doxastic wronging of John— after learning that my original belief was mistaken, that original belief is then placed under the category of my failing to meet the expectations of others, which then corresponds to such reactive attitudes as guilt and shame. Therefore, it would appear that not only are these reactive attitudes appropriate in general, but more specifically, particular reactive attitudes like resentment and guilt, are what you ought to feel because they are mapped onto specific categories, in this case—the category of failing to meet expectations. (3) What about cases of self-deception— cases of misplaced guilt or misplaced shame? What is interesting is that Strawson, anticipates this concern and states the following, Wallace, R. Jay, “Emotions, Expectations and Responsibility”, p. 159, In Mckenna and Russell (ed.), Free Will and the Reactive Attitudes (Ashgate 2008) 20 13 A quite different factor of greater importance is that psychological studies have made us rightly mistrustful of many particular manifestations of the attitudes I have spoken of. They are a prime realm of self-deception, of the ambiguous and the shady, of guilt-transference, unconscious sadism and the rest. But it is an exaggerated horror, itself suspect, which would make us unable to acknowledge the facts because of the seamy side of the facts.21 What Strawson seems to be suggesting is that just because things sometimes break or fail to work properly, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t use them at all. Just because planes sometimes crash, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fly. Just because marriages sometimes end in divorce, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t marry. And just because reactive attitudes are fallible, and go wrong, doesn’t mean we should suspend using them entirely (which according to Strawson is an impossibility). For this objection to have real bite, self-deception (e.g., misplaced guilt), would have to be either the case all or most of the time. To say that every-time or most of the time that we have a self-reactive attitude, it is some form of self-deception —seems implausible. We only need the self-reactive attitudes to be right some of the time, in order to prove the possibility of doxastic wronging. Conclusion Hopefully, what we seem to have learned by our inquiry is that even though our mere personal reactive attitudes do seem to track the attitudes of others (good or bad), they can only be conclusively shown to track those attitudes that are accompanied by externalized actions, which gets us half the way. To complete our journey, we need the concept of a self-reactive attitude. With the knowledge of our own thoughts and beliefs, and with the knowledge that our mere reactive attitudes track the attitudes (good or bad) of others, then when encountering our own self-reactive attitudes (those unaccompanied by any outward action), we can know 21 Ibid., p.36 14 that it is the belief itself and not the action that does the harming— thereby giving credibility to the idea of a doxastic wrong. In short, we seem to have circumvented a common objection to the idea of doxastic wronging— the idea that it is the accompanying action rather than the belief that does the wronging. However, using the Strawsonian concept of self-reactive attitudes we have shown that there can be cases of doxastic wronging that involve no action. It also appears that we have discovered something else in our inquiry into the reactive attitudes. It seems that we cannot use the question “Can others harm us by what they think about us?” as our starting point. We must begin the other way around and start from the question “Can we harm others by what we think about them?” Only by starting from the perspective of our own cognition, can we then begin to answer the former question concerning other’s cognitive ability to harm us. Assuming that the processes and functions of our minds reflect the processes and functions of other minds, it then becomes reasonable to suggest that if I can harm others by what I think, then reciprocally, they can harm me by what they think. And assuming the truth of both mere reactive attitudes and self-reactive attitudes, then I see no issue with understanding and including doxastic wrongs within the context of a Strawsonian epistemology or any epistemology at all. 15 16