fassler. bjr final paper
TRANSCRIPT
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Molly Fassler
Professor Locke
Phil 136
9 May 2013
Compensatory Control as a Source of True Belief
Recent psychological studies have shown that there is significant evidence
that as people lose a sense of control, they are more inclined to show religious belief.
Such studies imply that people (at least some) form religious conviction because it
increas es an individuals sense of control. One can argue that this implication
undermines the truth value attributed to religious beliefs as the belief seems to be
formed using a method that is unreliable in forming true beliefs. In the following
paper, I explore what constitutes an acceptable method of forming true beliefs and
whether or not the method that one can imply forms at least some peoples religious
beliefs is an acceptable method. I conclude that the method present in forming
these religious beliefs is ultimately prone to avoidable errors, and therefore is an
unacceptable method in forming justified beliefs.
I. Acceptable Methods of Forming Justified Beliefs
It would be impossible for me to truly address all possibilities and solve what
constitute s an acceptable method of forming true beliefs, and true in itself is a
highly controversial term, for it is controversial to claim whether anything can
actually be known to be true. However, for the purposes of this paper, I will make
the less controversial assumption that a belief can be justified or unjustified. With
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this distinction made, I can go on to explore what constitutes an acceptable method
of forming justified beliefs.
Alvin Goldmans theory of Reliabilism initially seems to properly des cribe
what we intuitively believe to be a method that creates justified beliefs. Richard
Feldman, in his book Epistemology, summarizes Alvin Goldmans theory of
Reliabilism as such:
i. If Ss belief in p at t results from a belief-independent process tha t is reliable, then Ssbelief in p at t is justified.
ii. If Ss belief in p at t results from a belief -dependent process that is conditionally reliable,and the beliefs the process operates on are themselves justified, then Ss belief in p at t is
justified.
iii. The only way beliefs can be justified is by satisfying the conditions in (i) and (ii).(Feldman 93).
This theory seems to address our intuitions that some methods of forming beliefs
are at least more reliable in forming beliefs about our world. However, Feldman
goes on to describe significant and forceful objections to Goldmans theory. Possibly
the most forceful objection is exemplified in what Feldman deems The Brain in a
Vat example. Feldman uses the example of two brains, one of whic h resides in a
normal person with accurate and well- justified beliefs about the world around him
and is living a normal human life (94). The other, however, is a brain in a vat. The
brain in the vat believes it is living a normal human life, but all the stimuli coming
to the brain are the result of computer- generated impulses (94). Both brains seem
to be using the same processes to form their beliefs, namely perception. The
difference is that in one brain this process forms true beliefs, and in the other the
process forms false beliefs. However, under the theory of Reliabilism, both brains
beliefs are justified. The objection points out that there is a problem with
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Reliabilism in that we do not have any way to distinguish what are truly reliable
processes of forming beliefs.
The theory of phenomenological conservatism proposes a solution to this
problem. This theory states that a person, S, is justified in holding a proposition, P, if
and only if:
i. P seems true to S,
ii. S has no reason to think P is false, and
iii. S has no reason to think that the psychological process causing p to seem
true does not reliably produce true beliefs. (Locke 4/30/13)
For the purposes of this paper, I will assume this theory is an acceptable solution.
II. Examining the Method That Forms Religious Belief
In psychological studies performed by Aaron Kay and others, it seems that
people are more inclined to form religious beliefs when it serves as a compensatory
source of control. People seem to have a funda mental motivation to view the world
as composed of understandable cause and effect relations and because of this, we
find it stressful and generally psychologically. Even if things are not under our
own control, we wish to believe that there is at least some external source of control
present as a way to console our anxiety (Kay 38). This is supported by the results of
experiments like one in which participants were primed via a scrambled sentence
task that contained words semantically associated wit h uncontrollability (Kay 39).
Participants in this experiment who were primed with these words, as opposed to
words that had negative semantic associations but not those of uncontrollability,
produced increased beliefs in God (Kay 39). There are many other experiments
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that support this hypothesis, but this is not the concentration of this paper. The
question at hand is whether or not the belief-forming process that these participants
exhibit is reliable.
The belief-forming process implied by these experiments herein referred to
as the Compensatory Control Method (CCM) can be described as such: A person, P, is
justified in believing a proposition P, if and only if that proposition supports Ps
feeling as if everything is somehow controlled.
III. My Argument
I argue that this process is in no way a reliable method for forming justified
beliefs. I wish to concentrate on whether or not CCM fulfills the third condition of
phenomenological conservatism, for it seems one has no reason to believe CCM does
provide true belief in any occurrence, and many reasons to believe that it does not.
In an experiment referenced by Kay et al., participants clearly displayed the
CCM does not produce true belief. In this experiment, participants were asked to
est imate the extent to which they were able to learn how to control the onset of a
green circle appearing on a computer screen by either pressing the space bar or not
(Kay 41). The levels of actual control remained the same for all participants, but
some participants were made to feel a loss of external control. These participants
consistently reported having more control over the green dot than the others (Kay
41). All participants were subject to the same sensory perception of the green dot.
The only difference is that the subjects who came to a false conclusion (that they
had more control over the green dot than they actually did) used CCM. Obviously
this experiment alone gives us reason to say that CCM does not satisfy the third
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condition of phenomenological conservatism, and so, it is not an acceptable method
of forming justified beliefs.
An objection could be made that there are instances that provide reason to
believe that sensory perception does not produce true beliefs. Take, for example
when someone that is colorblind, but does not know it, and so believes that things
are colors that they actually are not. This objection certainly has merit, however,
when someone uses CCM they are ultimately making a claim about what is causing
the effects that they perceive. CCM uses sensory perception, but adds extraneous
meaning to those perceptions. If the participants of the green dot experiment only
used sensory perception they would not make the false conclusion that they had
control over the dot, they would simply observe the dot appearing or not appearing
on the screen. Someone who uses CCM rather than simply sensory perception is
therefore not only subject to the possible errors created by sensory perception, but
additionally the possible errors created by CCM. And so, it seems if we are to prefer
the method that minimizes error, we should limit ourselves to sensory perception
rather than CCM.
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Works Cited
Feldman, Richard. Epistemology . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. Print.
Kay, A. C., D. Gaucher, I. McGregor, and K. Nash. "Religious Belief as Compensatory
Control." Personality and Social Psychology Review 14.1 (2010): 37-48. Print.
Locke, Dustin. United States, Claremont, CA. 30 Apr. 2013. Lecture.
Russell, Bertrand. The History of Western Philosophy . New York, NY: Simon and
Schuster, 1972. Print.