Becoming Brave: Character Trait Attribution, (Self-Directed) Mindshaping, and Substantial Self-Knowledge

This chapter treats substantial self-knowledge – that is knowledge about our values, character, and dispositions – in relation to self-directed mindshaping mechanisms. In particular, I consider character trait self-attributions and how their mindshaping effects can be accounted for in terms of virtual social models proposed by Zawidzki and the agentialist framework defended by McGeer. I focus on cases of norm change and affective conflict to show how, in these cases, our mindshaping activities include self-ascriptions that have inferentialist and interpretative uses – that is, that are based on inferences from our behavior and other evidence – as well as prescriptive functions.