Lepei Liu
Sun Yat-Sen University
The standard understanding of Doxastic Wronging—the Belief-First view—holds that one can wrong another person by what they believe about that person. However, recent criticisms provide appealing counterexamples to this view, aiming to show that doxastic wrongs lie elsewhere, while the belief itself is neutral. I aim to present and defend a new version of the Belief-First view, on which it’s the belief’s role as a commitment-constituted attitude that explains why you are wronged—one is wronged because of the believer’s commitment reflected by their holding that belief. By holding a belief that p, one would, explicitly or implicitly, commit themselves to the all-things-considered permissibility of the belief, which then reflects their system of beliefs and values toward the target of the belief, explaining why one is wronged by a belief. The proposed account can not only accommodate the intuition behind the counterexamples but also have an appealing answer to the problem of control: we can have direct control over doxastic wronging, even if we lack the ability to believe at will.
Chair: Triston Hanna
Time: September 13th, 15:20-15:50
Location: SR 1.007, online
SOPhiA 2026 