Room for responsibility: Kant on direct doxastic voluntarism

Abstract

Kant's theory of assent seems to combine two incompatible claims that (i) we are responsible for our assent and (ii) we have no direct voluntary control over our assent. But how can we be responsible for something over which we have no direct voluntary control? Scholars have tried to resolve this tension by arguing that, according to Kant, assent is under our indirect voluntary or intellectual control. This paper defends a different solution. It is argued that contrary to first impressions, Kant is actually committed to the view that most assent is under our direct voluntary control, which, in turn, accounts for our doxastic responsibility. From this emerges the outline of a unified Kantian theory of doxastic agency.