Acting contrary to our professed beliefs, or the gulf between occurrent judgment and dispositional belief

We often act contrary to our professed beliefs. For example, someone might sincerely avow the intellectual equality of the races and yet nonetheless frequently act and react in ways that appear inconsistent with that belief. I argue that it is best to think of such cases as cases in which occurrent judgment diverges from dispositional belief, and in which the individual’s belief state is “in-between”, so that it’s neither quite right to describe her as believing that the races are intellectually equal nor quite right to describe her as failing to believe that. Belief does not always flow passively from sincere judgment. In fact, many of our most morally important beliefs change only transiently, gradually, and with effort. Along the way, I suggest that there is no such thing as occurrent belief and that knowledge does not require belief