Molly Fassler Professor Locke Phil 136 9 May 2013

Compensatory Control as a Source of True Belief Recent psychological studies have shown that there is significant evidence that as people lose a sense of control, they are more inclined to show religious belief. Such studies imply that people (at least some) form religious conviction because it increases an individuals sense of control. One can argue that this implication undermines the truth value attributed to religious beliefs as the belief seems to be formed using a method that is unreliable in forming true beliefs. In the following paper, I explore what constitutes an acceptable method of forming true beliefs and whether or not the method that one can imply forms at least some peoples religious beliefs is an acceptable method. I conclude that the method present in forming these religious beliefs is ultimately prone to avoidable errors, and therefore is an unacceptable method in forming justified beliefs. I. Acceptable Methods of Forming Justified Beliefs It would be impossible for me to truly address all possibilities and solve what constitutes an acceptable method of forming true beliefs, and true in itself is a highly controversial term, for it is controversial to claim whether anything can actually be known to be true. However, for the purposes of this paper, I will make the less controversial assumption that a belief can be justified or unjustified. With

this distinction made, I can go on to explore what constitutes an acceptable method of forming justified beliefs. Alvin Goldmans theory of Reliabilism initially seems to properly describe what we intuitively believe to be a method that creates justified beliefs. Richard Feldman, in his book Epistemology, summarizes Alvin Goldmans theory of Reliabilism as such:
i. If Ss belief in p at t results from a belief-independent process that is reliable, then Ss belief in p at t is justified. ii. If Ss belief in p at t results from a belief-dependent process that is conditionally reliable, and the beliefs the process operates on are themselves justified, then Ss belief in p at t is justified. iii. The only way beliefs can be justified is by satisfying the conditions in (i) and (ii). (Feldman 93).

This theory seems to address our intuitions that some methods of forming beliefs are at least more reliable in forming beliefs about our world. However, Feldman goes on to describe significant and forceful objections to Goldmans theory. Possibly the most forceful objection is exemplified in what Feldman deems The Brain in a Vat example. Feldman uses the example of two brains, one of which resides in a normal person with accurate and well-justified beliefs about the world around him and is living a normal human life (94). The other, however, is a brain in a vat. The brain in the vat believes it is living a normal human life, but all the stimuli coming to the brain are the result of computer-generated impulses (94). Both brains seem to be using the same processes to form their beliefs, namely perception. The difference is that in one brain this process forms true beliefs, and in the other the process forms false beliefs. However, under the theory of Reliabilism, both brains beliefs are justified. The objection points out that there is a problem with

Reliabilism in that we do not have any way to distinguish what are truly reliable processes of forming beliefs. The theory of phenomenological conservatism proposes a solution to this problem. This theory states that a person, S, is justified in holding a proposition, P, if and only if: i. P seems true to S, ii. S has no reason to think P is false, and iii. S has no reason to think that the psychological process causing p to seem true does not reliably produce true beliefs. (Locke 4/30/13) For the purposes of this paper, I will assume this theory is an acceptable solution. II. Examining the Method That Forms Religious Belief In psychological studies performed by Aaron Kay and others, it seems that people are more inclined to form religious beliefs when it serves as a compensatory source of control. People seem to have a fundamental motivation to view the world as composed of understandable cause and effect relations and because of this, we find it stressful and generally psychologically. Even if things are not under our own control, we wish to believe that there is at least some external source of control present as a way to console our anxiety (Kay 38). This is supported by the results of experiments like one in which participants were primed via a scrambled sentence task that contained words semantically associated with uncontrollability (Kay 39). Participants in this experiment who were primed with these words, as opposed to words that had negative semantic associations but not those of uncontrollability, produced increased beliefs in God (Kay 39). There are many other experiments

that support this hypothesis, but this is not the concentration of this paper. The question at hand is whether or not the belief-forming process that these participants exhibit is reliable. The belief-forming process implied by these experiments herein referred to as the Compensatory Control Method (CCM) can be described as such: A person, P, is justified in believing a proposition P, if and only if that proposition supports Ps feeling as if everything is somehow controlled. III. My Argument I argue that this process is in no way a reliable method for forming justified beliefs. I wish to concentrate on whether or not CCM fulfills the third condition of phenomenological conservatism, for it seems one has no reason to believe CCM does provide true belief in any occurrence, and many reasons to believe that it does not. In an experiment referenced by Kay et al., participants clearly displayed the CCM does not produce true belief. In this experiment, participants were asked to estimate the extent to which they were able to learn how to control the onset of a green circle appearing on a computer screen by either pressing the space bar or not (Kay 41). The levels of actual control remained the same for all participants, but some participants were made to feel a loss of external control. These participants consistently reported having more control over the green dot than the others (Kay 41). All participants were subject to the same sensory perception of the green dot. The only difference is that the subjects who came to a false conclusion (that they had more control over the green dot than they actually did) used CCM. Obviously this experiment alone gives us reason to say that CCM does not satisfy the third

condition of phenomenological conservatism, and so, it is not an acceptable method of forming justified beliefs. An objection could be made that there are instances that provide reason to believe that sensory perception does not produce true beliefs. Take, for example when someone that is colorblind, but does not know it, and so believes that things are colors that they actually are not. This objection certainly has merit, however, when someone uses CCM they are ultimately making a claim about what is causing the effects that they perceive. CCM uses sensory perception, but adds extraneous meaning to those perceptions. If the participants of the green dot experiment only used sensory perception they would not make the false conclusion that they had control over the dot, they would simply observe the dot appearing or not appearing on the screen. Someone who uses CCM rather than simply sensory perception is therefore not only subject to the possible errors created by sensory perception, but additionally the possible errors created by CCM. And so, it seems if we are to prefer the method that minimizes error, we should limit ourselves to sensory perception rather than CCM.

Works Cited

Feldman, Richard. Epistemology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. Print. Kay, A. C., D. Gaucher, I. McGregor, and K. Nash. "Religious Belief as Compensatory Control." Personality and Social Psychology Review 14.1 (2010): 37-48. Print. Locke, Dustin. United States, Claremont, CA. 30 Apr. 2013. Lecture. Russell, Bertrand. The History of Western Philosophy. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Print.