William Clifford The Ethics Of Belief Analysis

Erik Larson’s argument is correct since he has so much evidence in the novel that explains the forces and reasons of the ship’s sinking and strongly analyzes his claims and directs quotes to support them. For example, “Perfectly safe; safer than the trolley cars in New York City..” “We just laughed it off, and said they would never get us, we were too quick, too speedy.”

Although you may think Thomas Andrews the designer of the Titanic Is responsible for the sinking, I believe Captain Smith is responsible. I believe this because he ignored the seven iceberg warnings. On a result of ignoring these seven warnings while the ocean was very calm, no one spotted the iceberg, they hit but Smith didn’t take caution. So it’s Captain Smith’s fault!

William James (1897), on the other hand, attempts to define the permissible cases in which it is intellectually respectable to believe without sufficient evidence. James (1897) begins by providing three criterion for judging beliefs: either beliefs are 1) living or dead; 2) forced or avoidable; or 3) momentous or trivial.

In the argumentative essay, “Is Survival Selfish?” , Lane Wallace briefly explains part of the story of the Titanic; primarily when they started to put people in the very limited supply of lifeboats. Ismay, the owner of the Titanic, decided to save himself other than the other people who were left to die on the ship, claiming that there were “no other women or children in the area and the boat was ready to be released”. But it didn’t matter, his reputation was ruined.” First of all, it is impossible that there were no women or children left on the boat due to the fact

In the film Monsters are Due on Maple Street the theme is you should never make accusations at people when you truly have no real evidence for your claim.

In W.K Clifford’s Essay he states that “It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” This argument is not totally wrong but does have some problems to it. In Clifford’s essay he explains a scenario with a ship owner and someone who he will be sending out to the sea. The ship owner does no believe the ship to be good enough, ready enough or in other words sea worthy to be sent out to the sea. Instead of checking the ship to see if it is ready to be sent out to the sea because it Is time consuming, he decides to send the ship out anyway. In the end, the ship ends up sinking in which case, Clifford considers to owner to be guilty of the ship sinking because he should have believed that ship

Innocent until proven guilty is a phrase that applies to our judicial system in modern times; however, when the play Doubt by John Patrick Stanley was written this phrase did not always apply. The play is a parable that makes you think about how gossip and rumors can cause havoc and potentially ruin someone’s career. In the play the rumors that are flying are rumors about whether or not Father Flynn is innocent or guilty to the crime of molesting a young boy named Donald Muller. Critics still argue whether he was innocent or guilty to the crime today, and no answer is known. However, based on the evidence in Patrick Shanley’s play Doubt: A Parable, one could conclude that Father Flynn is innocent due to the fact that he had reasonable evidence

In The Will to Believe by W.K Clifford, he presents the argument that it is always wrong to believe something without sufficient evidence. Most people would agree with this claim but I believe that this is not completely true. Clifford's argument is based on lack of evidence which is completely understandable, the argument is solely reliant on facts and statistics. It doesn't show the other side of the argument, which is personal belief and trust. My two cents on this matter is that you can believe something based on the past outcomes or history.

So he begins to sincerely believe that the ship is perfectly fine. Although, there is evidence that the ship is clearly not safe, the owner still lets passengers on and lets the ship set sail. This has to do with Pascal’s argument because even though you might believe in the existence of something that might be good in the future, it is not genuine belief. Also, Pascal says that upon the belief in god you are also granted entrance to heaven while if you do not believe in the existence of god then you are going to hell. If this were true, Clifford would argue that there is no sufficient evidence that proves the existence of these places therefore it is

As you can see in many situation people will mistake their beliefs and assumptions for something that is true and backed up with facts. In order to be able to distinguish what is true and what

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

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.

In this paper, I discuss the continued debate of whether or not it is ever right to believe in anything without sufficient evidence.This topic is philosophically important, because everything we believe contributes and aids in the development of our own personal belief system, thereby determining our actions. From a very general perspective, this topic relates to a far larger philosophical issue and according to Andrew Chignell, a professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, “The central question is it ever or always morally wrong or epistemically irrational, or practically prudent to hold a belief on insufficient evidence?’1

in conjunction with numerous social and cultural influences, and lead them to certain beliefs. It is not the case that any one sit down and study bunch of facts and weigh the pros and cons, and choose the most logical and rational one. Rather, they gather the facts of the world that come to them through the colored filters the ideologies, hunches, hearsays, religious declaration, and prejudices that have accumulated throughout their life time. Then they sort out the information and select those that confirm what they already believe, and ignore those that disconfirm. Most of us do this . Many other psychologists have similar views. For example, Gary Marcus said that we always seek to confirm what we believe, and we make up reasons to believe them even by disconfirming evidence . Social psychologist Carol Tavris said; “Most people, when directly confronted with proof that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously” . But there people who are better

“Making assumptions, without all of the facts, leads you to draw conclusions, create stories about the person 's background, judge his or her motives, and focus on what you think is truer rather than what is really the truth” Wiley & Sons, 2013).