William Clifford The Ethics Of Belief Analysis

Faith, defined as a strong belief in something which cannot be proven, has been argued over countless generations. Still, even without proof, individuals worldwide hold true to their faith each day. After studying faith and religion in texts written by scholars with varying backgrounds, it is easy to see faith is something which is widely disputed. Comparison of Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an Illusion and Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, fully displays the discrepancies in points of view on the function of faith, as well as the necessity of faith, in society; while the comparison of Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and Karl Marx’s “on the Future of Religion,” demonstrate both similarities and differences

Pascal acknowledges that a belief in God's existence cannot be supported by argument or evidence, but claims that religious belief is a rational necessity. This essay will address how Pascal presents his argument, and how it is in our interest to believe in god. I will argue that Pascal’s Wager has weaknesses due to its reliance on an overly-simplistic judgement, and will contemplate how Pascal may reply to such criticisms. I will conclude with an evaluation that questions why a believer is superior to a disbeliever, and whether one can truly coerce themselves to believe in god’s existence. Pascal’s Wager is the attempt to justify belief in the Christian God not with an appeal to evidence for his existence but rather with an appeal to self-interest.

In this paper, I hope to effectively summarize W.K Clifford’s (1879) argument on the ethics of belief, followed by a summary of William James’ (1897) argument on the right to believe, and finally, provide an argument for why W.K Clifford’s (1879) argument is stronger by highlighting its strengths while simultaneously arguing against William James’ (1897) argument.

The argument presented by William James in “The Will to Believe” covers theistic beliefs and also includes various philosophical issues as well as matters of practical life. James's primary concern is to argue that Clifford's Rule is irrational. According to Clifford's Rule, one should avoid error at all costs and ultimately risk the loss of certain truths. James claims that Clifford's Rule is just one intellectual strategy and then makes an argument to seek truth by any means available, even at the risk of error or being completely false. James is not arguing against conforming one's belief to the evidence. Nor is he arguing against the importance of evidence. His argument is against withholding beliefs whenever there is little evidence,

In the readings from Clifford and Clark it covers the vague issue of whether or not we can believe something based on if the person has enough information or proof to validate their belief. Clifford starts off with the fact that Not having enough evidence, but forming a belief anyway. Suppressing doubts that the belief is false, or avoiding evidence to the contrary. He states that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” This illustrates how he believes that just Clifford believes that is something is something then something must happen. He declares that believing is not a private matter. Believing for unworthy reasons not only weakens a person's powers of self-control, it also adversely

Since the 19th century, William Clifford and William James have been the foremost religious theorist and have attempted to answer significant creation and theological mysteries. However, Clifford and James have varying views on the belief debate, each formulating a rational argument of what the basis for belief should be. Clifford’s, Ethics of Belief and James’ The Will to Believe outline their respective arguments which are vastly similar and but have marked differences. Both articles will be examined for these similarities and difference and stated within this paper.

James taught at several universities including both Brown and Yale where he often had arguments and lengthy discussions with his students about religion. In his introductory comments, he clearly states that a lot of his freethinking students did not believe one should believe in religion if it cannot be rationally proven. This was contradictory to his thoughts and consequently wrote the paper in order to try sway his students view.

Since the dawn of mankind religion has been one of the most significant elements of a society’s social and cultural beliefs and actions. However, this trend has declined due to the general increase in knowledge regarding our the natural sciences. Where we had previously attributed something that we didn’t understand to the working of a higher power, is now replaced by a simple explanation offered by natural sciences. While advocates of Religion may question Natural Sciences by stating that they are based on assumptions, it is important to note the Natural Sciences are based on theories and principles which can be proven using mathematical equations and formulas. Faith however contrasts from the easily visible feasibility of data

Clifford is stating that our beliefs are not only our responsibility or molded by ourselves, because we are affected by our surroundings. Our culture and society has created the important beliefs for people to follow. Clifford believes that our beliefs and values are passed down from our parent to our kids. These beliefs that are passed down to our children, and many times they are unchanged so they could be false beliefs. In other words many of the kids learn all their parents’ traits, the good and the bad, and unless they learn to question these beliefs, they will pass those same beliefs to the next generations. This can be seen as a good burden and a bad one, in our children’s future. Clifford believed that we needed to question everything,

This section provides us with two selections from the essays of William K. Clifford (1845-1879) and William James (1842-1910). Clifford's essay, The Ethics of Belief, is based on the concept of evidentialism. This concept 'holds that we should not accept any statement as true unless we have good evidence to support its truth'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). James wrote his essay, The Will to Believe, as a response to Clifford's essay where he endorsed a philosophy called pragmatism.

To gain knowledge about a belief within moral objectivity is a difficult task to accomplish according to author Russ Shafer-Landau. Because skepticism refers to the doubts about the possibility of moral knowledge, arguments have been presented to disband the hopes of gaining moral knowledge and truth. Shafer-Landau discussed the Argument from Inadequate Evidence and the reasoning behind it. There are concerns around the evidence that support moral judgment, and any claim to moral knowledge contains a shaky basis. The author states, “moral evidence is inferior to the evidence relied upon in recognized objective disciplines, because moral evidence is intangible and not quantifiable.

Again, he does not disprove or prove any certain religion, but only makes a statement. By stating that the belief of a God or any god is proved through one’s own experience, we get to see his thoughts. William James allows people to believe what they want in this statement since religious experience is person to person. Another quote where this is shown is in his book “The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy”. Here he states ,” It does , indeed, depend on you the Liver.” This was in response to whether life was worth living or not, and this quote can prove his thoughts. LIke previously stated, he believed that religion is based on personal experience and correlates to this. This is because it also shows that in his belief, life will only be worth living if you think it is.

In Kelly James Clark’s Article “Without Evidence or Argument”, Clark argues that belief in God, does not require the support of evidence or argument in order for it to be rational. Clark’s argument is against W.K. Clifford’s article “The Ethics of Belief”, in which Clifford claims that everything must be believed only on the basis of sufficient evidence (139). Throughout Kelly Clark’s article he states many things that support his conclusion of belief without evidence or argument, however, my paper will only discuss what Clark says on p.139 starting with the paragraph “The first problem with Clifford’s…” and the following paragraph, ending with the words “...to see why.”

In life, there is a constant battle ensuing over faith and reason. Those two things are constantly feeding off of each other in someone’s mind when making a decision. Over time in which some say is a great conversation about history this battle is changing. The Great Conversation of history spans over many eras where the questions of faith and reason are always things battling for a spot in our minds, but they shouldn’t be in battle because they are very much dependent on the other. Among the time periods from Ancient Greece, the Enlightenment, and the 19th century, writers such as Socrates, Kant, and Martin Luther King Jr have looked at the issue of faith and reason.

The production of knowledge is a process that occurs through a sequence of related actions, these series of actions allows for the Ways of Knowing to interact in a way that works to develop the knowledge that is being produced. From the prescribed title we can claim that while the Ways of Knowing may appear to be acting in isolation when forming knowledge, they are actually working in a variety of different ways in the construction and formation. In some cases, the Ways of Knowing are interacting so closely together that it is often hard to differentiate between them, for example emotion and reason, or imagination and memory. Given the right circumstances faith can be isolated to a point where it can be acting by itself to produce knowledge. However, this knowledge is often deemed as unreliable, due to faith being seen as one of the more “subjective” ways of knowing. This inability to differentiate the ways of knowing from each other during the production of knowledge, raises the questions “Can any knowledge in any Area of Knowledge be produced by a single Way of Knowing?” and “Is it possible to distinguish between Ways of Knowing if they are working together?”. While reason is used in almost all production of knowledge, it is the other Ways of Knowing used that can determine whether the knowledge is reliable or not, as some Ways of Knowing are more subjective than others. This essay will attempt to