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In this chapter, I contend that there is no practical attitude that stands to intending to do X and intending not to do X as agnosticism towards P stands to believing P and disbelieving P. In short, there is no practical analogue to agnosticism. Call this the non-existence thesis. I defend the non-existence thesis against potential objections and highlight some of its implications for the norms governing belief and intention.
In this chapter, I advocate for a bipartite act-attitude account of doxastic neutrality, according to which the mental act of withholding judgement stands to the attitude of agnosticism as the mental act of judging stands to the attitude of belief. My proposed account stands in contrast with that of Matthew McGrath, who argues that there are at least three distinct ways of being neutral – namely agnosticism, refraining from judgement, and suspension of judgement. I argue that suspension of judgement, as conceived of by McGrath, is not a distinct way of being neutral. This leaves only the mental act of refraining from judgement (or what I call ‘withholding judgement’) and the mental state of agnosticism as the two genuine ways of being doxastically neutral.
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