Rights and Wrongs of Belief Clifford, James

W.K. Clifford This short essay remains quite famous today. Clifford is worried about cases it’s wrong to hold a certain belief. Sometimes a belief is irresponsible.

The Ship-Owner What’s wrong with the ship-owner’s belief? W.K.C. talks here in terms of what we have (and haven’t) got a right to believe. Does it make a difference, to Clifford, whether the belief turns out to be correct or not? A second example: What happens in the ‘agitating society’ case?

One reading of the problem Is it the actions, rather than the beliefs, that are wrong here? Would an absolute freedom of belief, limited by constraints on how we may act in response to different beliefs, do the job? What does Clifford think? Can we really separate beliefs from what they lead us to do?

Other worries about ill-founded beliefs Having such beliefs leads to confirmation bias (see p. 103): we are more apt to accept further beliefs that reinforce what we already believe, and less apt to respond fairly to evidence against our beliefs. No belief is truly private: they are contagious, spread by means of word and deed. ( )

The upshot for Clifford The duty to question our beliefs. Beliefs based on insufficient evidence risk not just a personal mistake, but a spreading ‘plague’ of error. The danger of credulity: losing the habit of testing and inquiry. ( ) Summing up (105): (I)t is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

William James’ “Will to Believe” An even more famous essay. Defends a conditional freedom to believe without what WKC would call sufficient evidence. But watch the conditions carefully!

Live and Dead Hypotheses What makes a hypothesis live for James? The distinction is (what philosophers call) pragmatic: what is live (or dead) for you, in this sense, depends on who you are, how you were raised, etc. That is, it turns on a relation between an individual and a hypothesis, not on the hypothesis alone.

On Options Live or dead: Here we have things that we are both able to do or not to do. Forced (vs. avoidable): Here we must either do one or the other. What’s the key example here? Momentous (vs. trivial): Some options matter to us, while others are relatively trivial.

Intellect vs. Passion and Volition Some opinions are driven by intellectual issues: No choice is really open to us, here. (Can I really choose to believe that Stephen Harper doesn’t exist?) Another case: Pascal’s wager. Can it have any effect on someone for whom Christianity is not a live option? Here talk of volitional belief seems empty!

Our Willing Nature James holds that the limits on our beliefs are rooted in our ‘willing nature’ (= our non-intellectual nature?) Not just deliberate choices are involved. All other factors contributing to belief: fear and hope, prejudice and passion… “We find ourselves believing, we hardly know how or why.”

The main thesis P. 109: “Our passional nature not only may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds…” Two goals: know the truth, avoid error. These are distinct, and even in tension! James sees Clifford as worrying more about avoiding error: what do you think?

Where does this demand come in? Not generally in science. (why?) But yes, in the courts. Even in science, it’s often OK to have a leaning, which guides how we investigate (without some hypothesis to guide our work, our observations are pointless, as Darwin said). Balance between eager interest and an equally eager desire to avoid being deceived. But can we always be this patient in waiting for evidence?

Morals and Attitudes Can we just wait to decide what is or isn’t morally acceptable? What about options where what we believe has an influence on what comes to be true? When ‘faith in a fact can help create the fact’, then it seems belief could be legitimate prior to our knowing the fact to be true…

Religion A. The ‘best’ things are the most eternal ones. B. We are better off, now, if we believe this. We must accept or refuse this, so religion is a momentous and forced option. C. Further, most religions make this personal: The demand for a generous response to the religious impulse is very strong, a matter, if you like, of politeness.

A Big Claim “(A) rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truths if those kinds of truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.” Says this applies “no matter what the kinds of truth might materially be”. James expresses great confidence in this view, and suggests resistance is due to a focus on religious beliefs we find unacceptable.