A Problem for Epistemic Agency – Can We Believe at Will?

Agency is the phenomenon whereby we can control our actions by will and initiate actions that causally and intentionally bring about certain effects as the goals of those actions. Some philosophers would hold the notion of epistemic agency to the same criteria; if there is something such as epistemic agency, we should have to be capable of intentionally coming to believe a proposition in the same way we can decide, for example, to raise an arm. This, it is claimed, cannot be done because believing at will is not possible, and if believing at will is not possible, then there cannot be real epistemic agency. This analysis attempts to cast doubt on the general claim that believing at will is involuntary by dissecting two prominent arguments in favour of belief involuntarism. It claims there are methodological discrepancies present in the arguments which cast doubt on the general belief involuntarist thesis.