The Ethics of Beliefs, Essay Example

Clifford’s essay, “The Ethics of Belief” is an examination of the nature of belief and evidence, and of what our responsibilities are in regards to both. Clifford comes to the ultimate conclusion that belief without sufficient evidence is, in and of itself, morally wrong, regardless of what the consequences of those beliefs happen to be.  This paper closely examines the arguments from his essay.

Section One

The ship owner and the Commission. In using the examples of the ship owner and the commission on the island, Clifford is exploring people who come by their beliefs either through suppressing  doubts (the example of the ship owner) or by listening to other people’s prejudices (the agitators on the island).  Clifford maintains that coming to a belief should only be done through investigation of the evidence and that the ship owner and the agitators on the island were both morally guilty, not because of the results of their actions but because of their faulty belief system.

What Constitutes “Sufficient Evidence”? What Clifford means by sufficient evidence is evidence which can be sought out with “patient investigation”, facts that people can find for themselves and can show empirically to other people. The shipbuilder, for instance, could have easily investigated his ship to look for weaknesses in it before sending her out to sea. People who believe in something through ignoring reality (the shipbuilder) or by listening to the groundless opinions of others (the agitators) have no right to believe what they do, according to Clifford’s contention.

What is Sufficient? Evidence that is empirical, that you can see for yourself and show to others so that they may see it, too — or at least be able to investigate for themselves — is certainly one legitimate form of evidence.  However, Clifford does not seem to account for what could be termed emotional evidence based on highly subjective experiences: for instance, if a person of faith believes that, when they pray, they are genuinely communicating with the Divine because of their emotional experience when they do this, is that still belief without sufficient evidence? If one used Clifford’s argument, then all religious faith would be considered morally wrong, since it is based on what Clifford would consider “insufficient” evidence.

Section Two

Using the Standardization Method to Outline the Argument.  Next, the standardization method will be used to outline Clifford’s arguments, as follows.

1. [Society is an institution developed for good of everyone in it; it is communal is natureand is the sum of all our interactions with one another].
2. [Ultimately, our society is based upon the law, which in turn in based upon the truth].
3. [Our actions do not just affect ourselves, but others in our society and we are responsible for the effects our actions have]
4. If I believe in something without sufficient evidence and am not careful about the truth that I tell to others, this will cause them to not be careful with the truth they tell to me.
5. Law, and therefore Society will be damaged if I do not respect the truth by failing to examine my beliefs;this will turn me and others around me into liars and cheats.
6. [Respect for – and compliance with – all aspects of the law is necessary to uphold the law and, by extension, morality and the truth].
7. If I do not uphold all of the law, I am guilty of upholding none of it.
8. Therefore, it is wrong, always, everywhere, for anyone to believe something that is based upon insufficient evidence.

Section Three

The argument that Clifford presents is ultimately a weak one, because it is based on several premises that are weak. These are examined in the paragraphs below.

One premise which is particularly weak is the one that people who believe in things without sufficient evidence are or will become liars or cheats.  The fact is, most people have something that they believe in for which they do not have sufficient evidence, and yet that belief does not actually hurt society.  For instance, a friend of mine is a fundamentalist Christian who believes that the Earth is only about 4,000 years old. There is certainly no empirical evidence to back this up (and quite a bit to refute it) but in all other ways, she is an active contributor to society: she works hard at her job, pays her taxes, takes care of her elderly parents and generally helps to make her community stronger.

Another weak premise is that, if someone does not uphold all of the law, then they are guilty of upholding none of it.  This all-or-nothing, absolutist approach seems to have little bearing on real-life human society. There are many people who are very law-abiding in most aspects of their life, but not in all of them. An excellent example of this from American history would be Henry David Thoreau’s “Essay on Civil Disobedience”, where Thoreau winds up in jail because he does not pay his taxes to protest American foreign policy, and specifically the colonial wars America is embroiled in.  Thoreau wrote plainly that he has a deep respect for the law and society, and genuinely believed that America actions abroad were wrong; he therefore felt that it was his moral duty as a citizen to protest the one aspect of societal law (i.e., tax-funded wars) that he disagreed with. It is possible to argue, in fact, that Clifford’s argument of the necessity of upholding all of the law is in fact, dangerously fascist in nature and could lead to the kind of unquestioning belief that he claims he is trying to avoid.

Section Four

The Duty to Question Beliefs.  Perhaps one of the most stimulating sentences in Clifford’s parables is this: “He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it with patient investigation but by stifling his doubts”. Some people could read Clifford and interpret “questioning” to mean “failing to believe in”, but this is not necessarily the case.  For example, a religious faith which is the product of a person genuinely investigating the world and coming to certain conclusions about the nature of God is much different than someone who believes blindly or will not consider any evidence that contradicts his opinions.  Therefore, far from weakening one’s faith, questioning or investigating the reasons for one’s beliefs can actually cause that faith to be stronger.  This is a legitimate observation about the nature of evidence and belief. It is when Clifford comes to the conclusion that beliefs based on insufficient evidence are immoral that his argument begins to fall apart, for reasons stated above. The nature of belief and evidence, and of their relation to morality, have been debated all throughout Western civilization and Clifford’s essay is, therefore, part of a very long-running debate.