PHI2KIS Knowledge Essay

Introduction 

There has been a long debate on the belief formation and its impact on actions of individuals, indicating that rightful formation of belief is an important aspect of ethical consideration. One of the significant question in the field of ‘ethics of belief’ is focused on the notion that whether one should always have an evidence to form the belief or is it permissible to belief on something for which there is lack of sufficient evidence to believe. The discussion of this issue mainly stems from the debate between Clifford and James, whereby Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” and James’s “The Will to Believe” provide considerable evidence to witness two different views on the issue. The underlying essay has carried out careful analysis of these evidences to discuss belief formation in the absence of sufficient evidence. 

The Ethics of Belief

The work of Clifford lays emphasis on the notion that formation of belief in the right way hold substantial ethical importance, as belief of an individual is most likely to define his/her actions. There are two important aspects of his work; story and principle (Clifford, 1877). The story of ship-owner who knew that his ship might not be sea worthy, but instead of having its checked and repairing, he chose to believe that his ship is in good condition and it has returned safely many times. He believed that ship is worthy of sending to voyage and thus become guilty of many lives who were lost during the voyage (Clifford, 1877). In this story ship-owner has let other factors guided his belief and by letting his belief guided his action was the wrongful and unethical thing at his end. From the Clifford it is also important to note that even if ship had never sunk, even then it was completely wrong for ship-owner to form belief without sufficient evidence. Based on this story, Clifford has presented the principle that “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence (Clifford, 1877).” 

Clifford was supporter of evidentialism, which holds the view that one should make an effort to gather sufficient evidence, prior to forming any specific belief. The evidences offered by others should be considered and careful investigation into the fact should be conducted, prior to belief formation (Meiland, 1980). Moreover, if an individual has strict belief of something which might not be easily changeable based on any evidence, even then consideration is needed with respect to actions of an individual (Madigan, 2008; Meiland, 1980). Therefore, the investigation is key significant factor to explore the strength of one’s convictions, such that any wrongful actions are guided by the belief which is not based on sufficient evidence. However, in spite of substantial investigation it might not be easy to change one’s belief, as it needs greater self-control to doubt one’s believes and to weigh evidence in fair and unbiased manner (Marušić, 2011; Madigan, 2008). There could be many situations where people made an effort to maintain false believes, which then lead to wrongful actions (Caspa et al., 2017). Clifford mentioned that a greater evil emerges when false believes are supported, as believing for unworthy reasons could become habit of a person and might become permanent. It is extracted from the views of Clifford that inclination to make irrational choices and believing without evidences is severely harmful for greater good of individuals and of societies. 

The Will to Believe

The James possesses more permissive and non-evidential view of the belief which states that in some situations it is permissible for us to form a belief, even when we do not have sufficient evidence to believe (James, 1896). He states that even after knowing that our belief is not backed by sufficient evidence, we are obliged to form belief and our failure to do so will make us morally wrong (Caspar et al., 2017). However, he had not emphasized on believing all propositions which cannot be decided on intellectual grounds. Rather, he mentioned strict and clear conditions in which any proposition can be chosen as genuine and it is permissive to believe without sufficient evidence. For instance, as mentioned in The Will to Believe, the option which is permissible to choose without evidence should be live. It means that the proposition must be among the possibilities of mind and one can sincerely believe on it (Koopman, 2017; Kondratowicz-Nowak and Zawadzka, 2018). Moreover, the second condition is that the proposition must be intellectually un-decidable and there is no compelling evidence to deny the proposition. The third condition states that choice of options must be forced and one is required to choose either option from two available choices. Finally, the choice of option must be linked with a momentous issue, indicating that it should have huge importance for the chooser. When these conditions are satisfied, then according to pragmatism, it is permissible to form a belief without any sufficient evidence (Koopman, 2017). 

Moreover, in the view of pragmatism, the lack of sufficient evidence does not mean that one should just blindly follow any phenomenon based on his/her urge to believe on it (Kondratowicz-Nowak and Zawadzka, 2018). The key observation according to Marušić (2011) is about the presence of practical and non-evidential reasons, whereby question states that one should believe on the notion when there exist practical reasons to believe.  So, one might choose to look for additional evidences in the presence of practical reasons to form a belief about something. 

Criticism on Ethics of belief and Will to believe

The critics of evidentialism hold the view that belief is the private matter of an individual and if an individual chooses to believe something without evidence, then it is personal matter of the individual (Reisner, 2008; Cowie, 2014). This criticism has been dealt well by Clifford by stating that our lives are being guided by general conceptions which regulate the societies and affect lives of every individual. According to him, our beliefs are inherited to generations, which are purified overtime and it can only been done when believes are being guided by evidences, rather than mere convictions of an individual (Ziska, 2015). It is considerable that being embedded into social institutions, it cannot be stated that belief is the private matter of any one individual, as it has lasting effects on society in long run. 

Additionally, the views of pragmatism to believe on the options under specified conditions have also been challenged by evidentialists by stating that there is a natural duty of an individual to question the believes which are being transmitted by him/her. The notion of rationality holds significant placing in belief formation and being rational means that evidences are necessary to reach at any point (Marušić, 2011). However, by looking at the pragmatic view of The Will to believe, it is noted that notion of live hypothesis lays emphasis on use of rationality for belief formation and it does not support any irrational and non-practical belief formation. 

Another important point highlighted in the Clifford’ study states that when individuals believe that they know everything about a specific phenomenon, then they feel more power on their lives. The sense of knowledge has thus associated sense of power with it, which instills desire of believing and makes people afraid of doubting (Reisner, 2008). This notion shows that people become uncomfortable when their beliefs are being challenged or questioned and thus outdated believes might lead to their actions which are not fit to the contemporary contexts (Kim, 2017). This aspect helps in recognizing that believes should be refined and purified over the period of time and thus exploration of evidences is important in this regard. It signifies that when evidences are not considered to form a belief, then wrongful formation of believes is expected which could affect lives of many individuals and of whole society. By making comparison to new pragmatism, it is noted that they do not restrict search of evidence or refinement of believes. For instance, Marušić (2011) has mentioned a case, where two persons Jermy and Matt are going to two different locations by train. In case of Jermy, only local trains stop at the destination he is heading to, while for Matt both the express and local trains can help him reach the destination. In the sense of epistemic position, the chances that the trains are local are same for both Jermy and Matt. In this case, Matt can believe that train is local without considering further investigations, while Jermy needs evidence to make sure that whether train is local or not. As, for Jermy’s situation, the express train cannot lead him to his destination. Therefore, according to new pragmatism, the situational stakes of an individual hold substantial importance in further need of knowledge seeking and exploration (Nottelmann and De Bruin, 2019; Kim, 2017). It can be said that in contrast to classic pragmatism, new pragmatism considers epistemic situation into account and it is has slight difference with evidentialism. 

Concluding Remarks 

Although, there has been a huge discussion on both The Ethics of Belief and The Will to Believe over years, and many additions has been made by succeeding scholars, yet it is still questionable that whether it is permissible to believe when one lacks sufficient evidence to believe. Based on the discussion of both authors, it can be extracted that in some cases, the evidence might not be sufficient and still one has to choose between two options. As an instance of this, the religious believes can be used as an example, whereby an individual might have to choose that whether there exists life after death? For such belief to be investigated there is no sufficient evidence to prove either of the questions (Wieland, 2017). So, there are only two options available that are live hypotheses. For most of the people, they are being faced with forced choice in such case, and they must have to choose between these two hypotheses (Kondratowicz-Nowak and Zawadzka, 2018). The choice of any of these beliefs is likely to have significant effect on the way of living of an individual and thus decision cannot be postponed (Wieland, 2017). Finally, let’s suppose that choice of any of these options is momentous for the person, as he might be more satisfied by choosing to believe or not believing, rather than remaining indifferent. As being indifferent is same of non-believe in this instance. Given this case, there is no evidence to investigate the truthfulness of proposition and thus in views of Clifford, person is not permissible to believe (Kondratowicz-Nowak and Zawadzka, 2018). However, according to James if an individual finds it most satisfying to believe that there is life after death, then he can follow his hopes and believe this proposition, which will be completely rational in this situation (Peels, 2016; Reisner, 2008). At the end of this long discussion, it can be mentioned that apart from religious believes, there are many situations where sufficient evidences might not be available, and one has to make decision to choose the hypothesis where truth is not denied and errors are avoided. So, the rigidity of Clifford’s views to consider such actions as immoral can be questioned. If believes are presumed as truthful, favor situational stakes of people and do not lead to wrongful actions, then it should be permissible to belief without sufficient evidence.