Habituation and first-person authority

Webber, Jonathan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0529-5349 2016. Habituation and first-person authority. Altshuler, Roman and Sigrist, Michael J., eds. Time and the Philosophy of Action, Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 189-204.

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Abstract

Richard Moran’s theory of first-person authority as the agential authority to make up one’s own mind rests on a form of mind-body dualism that does not allow for habituation as part of normal psychological functioning. We have good intuitive and empirical reason to accept that habituation is central to the normal functioning of desire. There is some empirical support for the idea that habituation plays a parallel role in belief. In particular, at least one form of implicit bias seems better understood as a case of habituated belief than as a mere association or an example of what Tamar Gendler calls ‘alief’. If there is to be genuine first-person epistemic authority over persisting mental states, therefore, an alternative account to Moran’s is required in the case of desire and perhaps in the case of belief. More generally, the neglect of habituation in recent philosophy of mind is a symptom of the need for philosophers to take the temporal structure of rational agency more seriously.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Philosophy, Epistemology, Ethics Philosophy, Logic - Philosophy Metaphysics, Phenomenology, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Psychology
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9780415735247
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 April 2016
Last Modified:	01 Nov 2022 09:31
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/88285

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