Clifford asks us to look at the big picture about our beliefs before then addressing the issue of religious belief. Specifically, Clifford argues that we have an "ethics" of belief, or in other words, that we should believe some things and should not believe other things. Why? Because beliefs matter. What we do with our beliefs have significant and potentially disastrous consequences.
To see this, Clifford offers two different stories, each with two variations (the shipowner and the 'persecution' story). The general moral Clifford develops is what he calls the Evidentialist Principle- never believe on insufficient evidence. Notice, what Clifford is getting at here is that "believing' requires "reasons". In other words, our default position is nonbelief (or being neutral). To believe anything, we have to have some reason or motivation to believe that, and the reason must be something involve "sufficient evidence."
If we apply this to religious belief, Clifford thinks that we have to radically rethink our religious commitments. This is because he thinks that we never have sufficient evidence for religious belief and thus we have a duty not to believe.
Clifford offers some powerful examples, but his evidentialist principle and his claim to "ethics" of belief raises a number of question/issues.
First, is he right that we should never believe on insufficient evidence? We will see that a future reading (the James piece) questions this claim for a number of reasons. But secondly, how many of our beliefs in general are based on sufficient evidence? I believe that India has a billion people (or more). But I have never counted them, nor have I even been to India. To be precise, I cannot even guarantee that India exists, let alone has 1 or 1 billion people. A lot of our everyday 'knowledge' comes from the testimony of others. Does this make it "unusable".
Another issue with Clifford's position is in figuring out what type of 'duty' we have in terms of our beliefs? Is it a moral duty? Do we have a moral duty always to believe what is true and only what is true? Why? Some people might claim that sometimes the truth gets in the way of doing the 'right' thing? Or, what about when our 'duty' to know the truth gets in the way of doing other morally required things? Do I take a trip to India to prove it exists and has a billion people or do I use that money to donate to the poor?
If Clifford is not thinking of a moral duty, maybe he is thinking of an epistemic duty. Maybe, one of our 'roles' or aspects as knowledge seeking beings is that, in the sphere of knowing, we should always be cautious to avoid falsehood. But here, we might question whether this is the best way to go about seeking new knowledge.
Nevertheless, Clifford seems to be right about a few things. (1) Beliefs matter. Beliefs can affect action and conduct. So if we have bad beliefs, they can lead to horrible things. Think about the Crusades, the Witch Trials, maybe even the Patriot Act. (2) It seems like we need some criteria for good/bad beliefs. If a friend believes that the world is flat....we generally question their sanity, let alone their judgment. I once had a friend who was utterly convinced that all leather came from crocodiles. Despite 7 of us at dinner arguing otherwise, he would not believe us. What do we do in these situations? (3) How do we figure out the quality of religious beliefs?
Finally, one easy way to counter Clifford's whole argument is simply to 'pony up' and give the evidence. We will explore this route in a few weeks.
For those of you who are curious. This post is 618 words. So if you are aiming for 500 words, it will be a bit shorter than this. You are free to do a 'brief summary' at the beginning to get the author's main point, but I want a commentary and creative engagement, not just a summmary.
ReplyDeletein regards to the idea of Bad Beliefs; just because we as an individual or society we see something as "bad" does this mean it truly is. In regards to "quality of religious beliefs" have we gotten to a point in society where theses religious beliefs that have held true for thousands of years are being out grown by an evolving world population. Or in other words have we out grown the context of the bible based on our increasing knowledge base. I feel as though people pick and choose what part of the bible to follow and quote today, that furthers their personal beliefs; instead of just living by the intention of the bible and becoming a better person. For example, same sex marriage is a huge topic and people want to quote the bible and say a marriage is between a man and a woman; but how many of these people would stone a bride if she wasnt a virgin, because the bible also states that a woman shall be a virgin on her wedding day or she will be stoned to death.
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