Deliberation and the First Person
Following Descartes, philosophers like Shoemaker and Burge argue that only self-conscious creatures can exercise rational control over their mental lives. In particular, they urge that reflective rationality requires possession of the I-concept, the first-person concept. These philosophers maintain that rational creatures like ourselves can exercise reflective control over belief as well as action. This chapter agrees that we have this reflective control over our own actions and that this form of practical freedom presupposes self-consciousness, but denies that anything like this is true of belief. The chapter endorses Williams’ claims that the first-person concept is indispensible only to practical reasoning.