Abstract

It sometimes seems to us that our judgments about what we ought to believe diverge from what we in fact believe. I may be perfectly aware that I am not particularly risking my life by flying, for instance, and yet, as I tighten my seatbelt in preparation for takeoff, I may nevertheless embrace the seemingly paradoxical thought that I am likely to die in a matter of mere seconds. In moments like this, it can feel to us like we are experiencing a failure of rationality, as we seem to embrace a belief that we ourselves judge to be unreasonable. That is why philosophers have characterized these kinds of cases as akratic believing. Certainly, they leave us with that same funny feeling, that familiar dread that...