"The consequential conception of doxastic responsibility": Reading Workshop with Prof. Dr. Anne Meylan (University of Basel)

In this special session of the SWIP Bern reading group we will read and discuss a paper from and with Prof. Dr. Anne Meylan (University of Basel) on "The consequential conception of doxastic responsibility". Please register at swip.switzerland@gmail.com to receive the text! Abstract: "We are occasionally responsible for our beliefs. But is this doxastic responsibility analogous to any non-attitudinal form of responsibility? What I shall call the consequential conception of doxastic responsibility holds that the kind of responsibility that we have for our beliefs is indeed analogous to the kind of responsibility that we have for the consequences of our actions. This article does two things, both with the aim of defending this somewhat unsophisticated but intuitive view of doxastic responsibility. First, it emphasizes the advantage of preserving, as the consequential conception does, the analogy with the nonattitudinal realm, i.e. with the realm of actions and their consequences. Second, this paper regiments the most important objections to the consequential conception and answers them. The upshot is that there are no serious drawbacks to the consequential conception. There is, therefore, no reason not to favour it over accounts of doxastic responsibility that do not preserve the analogy with the non-attitudinal realm (e.g. Hieronymi 2008, 2009; McHugh 2014, 2015)."