Scripture seems to say that belief can be blameworthy. For example, one text states:
Whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18)
Theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) have interpreted Scripture as teaching that there can be sins relating to belief. He said:
…the sin of unbelief is greater than any [other] sin… (Summa Theologiae 2-2, Q.10, a.3)
If unbelief (like atheism or heresy) can be a matter of sin, then that suggests that people must be morally responsible for their beliefs. As people are only guilty of sin when they can choose to act otherwise, it also implies that belief must be subject to human choice and control.
The idea that people can control their beliefs is known as volitionism (or Epistemic Voluntarism or Doxastic Voluntarism). So, the question of whether people are morally responsible for their beliefs is a question about whether, or to what extent, volitionism is true.
To explore this question, we will assume that people have libertarian free will (i.e., that people’s choices are not determined). We should also clarify that we are focusing on belief, not religious faith. Belief is just an element of faith, as faith involves more, such as divine grace and formation by charity.
1. Belief as a Commitment
Broadly speaking, philosophers view belief as a mental state or attitude (or propositional attitude) towards a proposition or a sentence which describes reality. This typically manifests as people committing themselves to a “belief that” a particular claim is true.
Beliefs do not have to be consciously present (or occurrent) in a person’s mind, otherwise people would lose their beliefs every time they were distracted, or snoozed. On the contrary, beliefs are dispositional as they express an inclination to commit to a claim, when circumstances are appropriate to do so.
As beliefs are commitments, then they involve a “kind of” logic. Whether it is logical inference or psychological association, or social implicature remains a matter of philosophical debate. What is important is that belief commitments do indeed have implications. For example, believing that a dog is barking implies and excludes other beliefs about the dog, such as that it is asleep.
Beliefs also have implications for actions. If all things are equal (e.g., if there is no reason to hide a belief), then a belief that a bottle contains a refreshing drink will lead to a thirsty person drinking what is in the bottle. It is because beliefs have implications that people sometimes say, “actions speak louder than words.”
We can see a scriptural example of implications in the following text:
You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble. (James 2:19)
The reason why the demons tremble is because of the implication of their belief.
As beliefs have implications, this means that they typically exist in networks of associations and links, which are sometimes called “worldviews” (or noetic structures). People cannot (randomly) reverse an already existing belief, and they cannot choose to insert a new belief which would conflict with their already existing worldview. This is because doing so would cause an intellectual discomfort which is known as cognitive dissonance. When people experience cognitive dissonance, they typically try to eradicate the discomfort by rejecting the belief which seems to have caused it.
The existence of cognitive dissonance is a kind of intellectual immune system. But it does not automatically make everyone’s worldview healthy and coherent. People can become intellectually muddled, or overwhelmed. They may be able to “catch” biases and fashionable errors in social situations. They can also fall victim to self-deception, wishful thinking or illnesses which undermine the operation of their minds, such as “brain fog.” Over time, people may also become somewhat “set in their intellectual ways” (due to myelinization) and so they become less flexible in their believing.
What this all means is that the question of moral responsibility for belief is partially asking people about the extent to which they take responsibility for keeping their minds healthy, and their worldviews accurate. Otherwise, they are potentially facilitating the distortions and deformations which can undermine subsequent beliefs and commitments.
2. Belief as an Impression
One significant way of thinking about belief views it as impressions. Thus, when people look at a dog running in a park, an impression can pop into their minds as a belief-impression that there is a dog running in the park. Impressions are like reflexes and people typically have no direct control over them. Once the stimulus occurs (i.e., the running dog), then (all things being equal) the belief-impression just automatically follows.
The automatic nature of impressions is reflected in the aphorism that “seeing is believing.” It can be seen in the biblical story of how the apostle Thomas believed in Jesus’ Resurrection, when he saw matters for himself. (See John 20:24–29.) It is also a factor in Moore’s Paradox, which notes the psychological impossibility of someone seeing something and (all things being equal) insisting that they do not believe what they see.
Although belief-impressions are automatic, people can exercise some indirect control over them. People can decide to avoid situations where an impression will form (i.e., willful ignorance or fleeing temptation). For example, if people close their eyes, then they will not see a running dog that suddenly appears. That means they can make choices which prevent the formation of belief-impressions. Even after seeing a running dog, people can still exercise indirect control over their belief-impression by choosing to investigate matters (or not).
Some philosophers have suggested that people should be responsible by proportioning their beliefs to the available evidence (Ethics of Belief). That may be a useful heuristic (rule of thumb) for dealing with many belief-impressions, but it can hardly be a requirement for all belief. Two thousand years of argument has shown just how difficult it is to find any relevant evidence which can prove or disprove the beliefs which people typically have about metaphysical issues such as Skepticism.
What this all means is that people probably have little, if any, direct control over belief-impression. But they can potentially have some indirect control over beliefs, to the extent that they investigate matters to confirm or disconfirm their beliefs (when the beliefs are such that they can actually be confirmed or disconfirmed by evidence).
3. Belief as Interpretation
One of the issues raised by impressions is the extent to which a belief-impression in our minds is an exact representation of objective reality (i.e., the myth of the given). Or, are those belief-impressions wholly or mainly interpretations of reality (i.e., are they theory-laden)?
Modern philosophers generally recognize that the mind has a considerable role in interpreting what it interacts with. This means that when people have an impression of a running dog, there may well be (multiple) hidden interpretations embedded in what they think is just a raw impression. Thus, people may not just see a dog, they may see a friendly dog or a dangerous dog (etc.), where the friendliness or dangerousness is interpreted and added to the impression, without people being aware of that interpretative addition occurring.
It is difficult for individuals to be aware of the extent to which their impressions are actually interpretations. This is because people struggle to see their own biases, preferences and contextual idiosyncrasies. Issues are compounded when individuals are subject to cultural biases and thought patterns (like culture-bound syndromes) and when they suffer illnesses which may distort their impressions or jumble their interpretations. This may even apply to deeply personal beliefs about their own identity.
Within the scientific community, people try to mitigate against the risks of mistaken belief-interpretations by appealing to Peer Review. The Church sometimes appeals to the Sensus Fidelium as a way of avoiding bias from a particular culture. It may even appeal to Tradition as a way of trying to avoid universal biases which may exist globally at specific points in time. The need to mitigate against the risks of mistaken belief-interpretations is also why the Church rejects the role of private interpretation in understanding Revelation. (See Catechism 100.)
What this all means is that if there are well known ways in which belief-interpretation can err, then the question of moral responsibility for beliefs may potentially raise the question of whether people are taking appropriate steps to mitigate the risks of erroneous interpretation?
4. Belief as Understanding
Some human beliefs involve conceptual understandings, rather than belief-impressions or belief-interpretations. Political and religious beliefs often take this form. Whether they rest on an understanding of thinkers (like Marx or Jesus) or on an understanding of texts (like a constitution or a Scripture), they often manifest as belief-understandings which are expressed as political principles and religious doctrines.
Whether people have direct, or indirect control of their belief-understandings, depends upon the extent to which an understanding occurs automatically, like belief-impressions. (See section 2.) It may also depend upon whether, and to what extent, people are prepared to mitigate any potential risks of error by allowing outside sources to modify their belief. (See section 3.)
Some of these issues can be seen in how historical events have unfolded.
Within politics, for example, both Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia and Hitler’s 1941 invasion of Russia involved leaders unable or unwilling to hear the misgivings of their advisers. The leaders’ overconfidence in their belief-understanding of matters, meant that they lost the ability to mitigate against potential errors in their beliefs, and that led ultimately to the failure of their plans.
Similar issues have occurred in religion. For example, in the second century Montanus launched the Montanist heresy and Marcion launched the Marcionite heresy. Both individuals were unable or unwilling to hear the correction of the wider Church. Thus, their overconfidence in their own belief-understanding of matters meant that they lost the ability to mitigate against errors in their thinking, and that led them to the failure that is heresy.
One of the tragedies of the Reformation is that it follows an all too similar pattern. The Church proposed the Magisterium as an institutional check, to mitigate against erroneous thinking within individuals. But when Martin Luther was challenged at the 1521 Diet of Worms, he refused to accept the Magisterium. He said, instead:
Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen. (“Here I stand, I can do no other”)
Whatever else those words signify, they illustrate a mind which has lost access to a check which can mitigate against the risks of its own errors. Whether that was a voluntary loss, or an involuntary result of a psychological illness, is a matter which has been debated.
What this all means is that people are probably subject to involuntariness in the belief-understandings which arise in their minds. However, there may well be an element of voluntary choice involved in whether individuals are willing to accept the views of others, as a way of mitigating their own risks of error.
5. Belief as Feeling
An important aspect of belief is that it can present with feelings (or affect). This typically involves feeling sure or convinced (or having conviction or certitude) about what is believed. When it occurs, people may not merely believe that something is true (or false), they may believe it passionately with a belief-feeling.
An example of that kind of heartfelt belief can be seen in the New Testament when a crowd responds to Peter’s preaching:
When they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked… “What are we to do…?” (Acts 2:37)
The crowd do not just believe that what Peter has said is true. They have a belief-feeling which “cuts to the heart” motivating them not just to believe, but to also want to act on the belief.
People disagree about whether the feelings involved in beliefs are emotive feelings, or aesthetic feelings, or a unique type of epistemic feelings.
Whatever the nature of the feelings, they have become increasingly significant in analyzing matters of belief, especially where people seem to be believing something irrational. This includes phobias (or aliefs). It may also include psychological conditions like Capgras delusion, where people believe mistakenly that a family member has been replaced by an impostor, because that is how it feels to them.
Belief-feeling may even be a factor in explaining the reaction of many students to the problem of Skepticism. Sometimes students can intellectually accept that they have no reason to believe that the External World exists, or they may even accept that they themselves might not exist (Simulation Hypothesis). Yet they (usually) seem remarkably untroubled by that existential discovery… perhaps because they do not feel (or believe-feel) it to be so.
If belief-feelings are like belief-impressions (section 2), then that would suggest that they cannot be directly controlled by choices or decisions. However, people may be able to indirectly influence their belief-feelings by investigating their beliefs. Doing so may change not only what is believed, but it may also affect the degree of assurance (or feeling) which is linked to the belief.
6. Belief as Acceptance
Some philosophers distinguish between a belief which involves feelings (see section 5) and a belief which involves no feelings, which we can think of as a belief-acceptance. (For details, see “Belief, Acceptance, and Religious Faith.”)
Abstract beliefs (like believing in the existence of dark matter) may well be examples of belief-acceptance. This is because those kinds of beliefs do not typically elicit significant feelings, and so they are relatively easily changed, as and when new research is announced.
The issue of belief-acceptance arises in religious contexts with Pascal’s Wager. That is an argument for God’s existence which essentially claims that people should believe because it is advantageous to do so (i.e., it is instrumentally rational). One of the problems with that conclusion is that it raises the question of how people can just suddenly decide to believe something, even if they do not feel that it is true.
Pascal responded as follows:
You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you… Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. (Pensées, 3 #233)
Some critics have accused Pascal of dishonesty, and of attempting to deceive God by urging that people should pretend “as if” they believe.
However, it is possible to read Pascal as making a deeper psychological point. He may be urging that if people believe-accept that God exists, and consequently act “as if” God exists, then that can lead to the growth of the deeper kind of belief-feelings which involve assurance that God exists. Or, he may be arguing that because belief-commitments have implications for actions (see section 1), then it is possible for a backfire effect to occur, so that a person’s actions can potentially bring about beliefs.
Approaching the issues from a very different perspective, mystics have sometimes cited the importance of belief-acceptance, especially when it comes to mystical states like the “dark night of the soul.” The “dark night” occurs precisely because believers are clinging to belief (i.e., belief-acceptance) in the absence of feelings which would give assurance or reassurance. Perhaps sometimes they are even clinging to belief in the presence of contrary feelings and contrary thoughts against their belief? (See “Mother Teresa: A Saint Who Conquered Darkness.”)
What this all means is that if belief-acceptance is indeed a genuine form of belief, then it would seem to be an aspect of belief that may be within the direct control of human choice.
7. Belief as Trust
Another way of thinking about belief is viewing it as trust. This is typically a matter of “believing in” (belief-trusting) someone or something, instead of “believing that” something is true.
Philosophers argue about whether, and to what extent, belief-trust is reducible to a list of “belief thats.” After all, perhaps you cannot believe-trust someone, if you do not also “believe that” the person is trustworthy?
Some philosophers have cited belief-trust as a dangerous confusion, because it can all too easily slip into “believing in belief” (or wishful thinking) rather than actually believing in something specific. (See “The Folly of Pretence.”)
If belief-trust is indeed a genuine type of belief, then it may be somewhat like belief-impression (section 2), so that a person’s experiences are involuntarily linked to whether belief-trust occurs, or not.
However, even if that is so, then it may still be possible to indirectly control belief-trust, by choosing to investigate (or not) the object of potential trust. Thus, for example, a reporter may begin by trusting a source of information, but the more that the reporter investigates matters, then the more that the initial belief-trust may wither away.
8. Conclusion
Can people control their beliefs, and thereby be morally responsible for their beliefs? The answer is probably partially yes and partially no, depending on what counts as belief and depending on what degree of control is relevant to exercising moral responsibility. Assessing the complexities involved in those factors mean that people can and do reach very different conclusions on this matter.
If there is a genuine sense in which people can (sometimes) be morally responsible for (some of) their beliefs, then that doesn’t mean that any specific person can be automatically accused (by other humans) of a moral failure, purely because of holding (or not holding) a particular belief. This is because belief is an enormously complex subject, which we have barely scratched the surface of. And there are a wide range of additional psychological and cultural issues which can exert subtle degrees of influence upon how and why specific beliefs arise in particular contexts.
