mric wrote:
Here's a good reason to believe in Krishna for half an hour - it would demonstrate the voluntariness of beliefs, thus helping to undermine an otherwise potent and corrosive argument against the Christian God.

mric wrote:
If you don't believe that is a good enough reason, perhaps you could choose to believe that it is a good enough reason for a short period

mric wrote:
If I make a willed choice to eat cake, and the will itself is voluntary, I would need to make a willed choice to make the willed choice to eat cake. Oh dear, we seem to have an infinite regress, and I don't have time or capacity to make any actual decisions.

aletheist wrote:
I am not sure about this, but may be getting out of my depth in any case. It seems to me that a free agent, by definition, is an entity that makes (or can make) willed choices; there is no need for a prior willed choice to make willed choices. To me, it is an involuntary will that leads to an infinite regress, which is why determinism then becomes inescapable.

Nietsche, 'Beyond Good and Evil' wrote:
The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far, it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic. But the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with just this nonsense. The
desire for ‘freedom of the will’ in the superlative metaphysical sense, which still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated; the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one’s actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui and, with more than Baron Münchhausen’s audacity, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness...

mric wrote:
The infinite regress problem is, in fact, faced only by the non-determinist.

mric wrote:
A compatibilist determinist sees the regression problem end at the non-willed causes of the free will decision.

mric wrote:
For a good overview of the infinite regress problem, Galen Strawson positions one well here

mric wrote:
Put in rather flowery language:

Fenchurch wrote:
I think you are confusing yourself by framing the issue incorrectly. We don't choose what we will accept as evidence, evidence simply presents itself as compelling. But the matter isn't involuntary, either, as it requires acts of the will such as deliberation. In short, I don't think that the "voluntary/involuntary" distinction properly applies to beliefs.

Incision wrote:
I don't believe anyone directly chooses what to believe, but I do believe they indirectly choose what to believe.

Amazon.com wrote:
How do we form and modify our beliefs about the world? While accepting that what we believe is determined by evidence, and therefore is not directly under our control, Professor Helm argues that no theory of knowledge is complete without standards for accepting and rejecting evidence as belief-worthy. These standards, or belief-policies, are not themselves determined by evidence, but determine what counts as credible evidence. Unlike single beliefs, Helm argues, belief-policies are directly subject to the will, and consequently to weakness of will and self-deception. Helm reveals the importance of the idea of belief-policies in several areas of philosophy, in particular the philosophy of religion.

John M. Frame wrote:
Since belief is subject to "standards," to evaluation, there is something like an "ethics of belief." Many writers have commented on the subject of what we are obligated or permitted to believe ... Helm gives to such principles the name "belief-policies" ... A belief-policy governs our use of evidence in developing our beliefs. In Helm's view, belief-policies are the most important area in which the will influences our beliefs ... Helm argues, therefore, that belief is to a large extent governed by the will, so that people are responsible for their beliefs.

mway wrote:
If all beliefs are involuntary then you can't seek justification, and you can't weigh evidence.