William
Clifford and “The Ethics of Belief”
William James
and the Forced Wager[1]
Note that we have seen that theists and atheists alike
have suggested that evidence should guide our decision as to whether
or not to believe. But what
should we do if evidence does not (or cannot) decide the matter? Can any beliefs be considered “rational” or
justified without evidence?
• W.K.
Clifford says “No.”
• William
James says “Yes.”
William K.
Clifford (4 May 1845 – 3 March 1879)
In “The Ethics of Belief” William Clifford argues for an evidentialist point of view (i.e. that it is irrational to believe without sufficient
evidence).
EVIDENTIALISM-
Claims that it is irrational to believe anything without evidence;
the only good reason to believe anything is sufficient evidence.
However, Clifford goes beyond this claim. He claims that it is not only irrational to
believe without sufficient evidence; it is immoral to believe without
sufficient evidence. He claims that “it
is a sin against mankind.” He argues his
case in his essay.
He starts by telling the story of a ship owner whose ship
was to make journey from Europe to U.S.. The ship owner sold tickets to make journey,
that is he believed (acted as if) the ship would make the journey. Specifically, he acted as if he knew
the ship would make the journey. He did
this despite the fact that he had some doubts about
whether the ship was really sea-worthy or not.
However, he chooses not to act on those doubts (i.e. not investigate the truth of the matter), but to act on
his belief that it would. The ship sank
and everybody aboard died.
Clifford says that the ship owner was guilty. But guilty of what? Guilty of believing without sufficient
evidence. Since beliefs are powers to act, they are not merely
private matters, but always public and subject to moral evaluation. They are subject to moral evaluation not
merely in terms of the content of the belief, but also as to whether
or not they were "justly
acquired.” To act on a belief one is not entitled to is a sin, a stolen power, Clifford
claims. And the only thing that entitles
one to a belief, entitles one to that “power,” is sufficient evidence. Thus, the only moral way to acquire a belief is
to believe on the basis of sufficient evidence alone.
He points out that even if the ship had not sunk, the
ship owner still would be guilty of the same “crime.”
A second example he gives concerns rumors about a group
of people who lived on an island. They were accused of mistreating children
among other things. After the charges were
filed and their reputations were destroyed, a careful examination was made and it was found that there was no basis for these
rumors in the first place. Further,
Clifford points out that
“(n)ot only had
they been accused on insufficient evidence, but the evidence of their innocence
was such as the agitators might easily have obtained, if they had attempted a
fair inquiry.”
Again, claims Clifford, because people believed without
sufficient evidence and acted on these illegitimate beliefs, other were
needlessly harmed. Afterwards, these
false accusers were rightly regarded as dishonorable men according to Clifford,
not because they did not believe their own accusations, but because they had no
right to believe their own accusations.
As Clifford says,
“Their sincere convictions, instead of being
honestly earned by patient inquiring, were stolen by listening to the voice of
prejudice and passion.”
So again, it is necessary to evaluate the morality of a belief,
both in content and as to whether or not it was justly
acquired. To believe without sufficient
evidence is to steal something to which one is not entitled. The only thing that entitles you to the power
of your beliefs is sufficient evidence.
Clifford says that to believe without sufficient evidence is immoral
and wrong not only when it has immediate bad consequences, but also because:
a. it perpetuates an attitude of superstition and an intellectual
laziness with regard to investigation in the
individual. This, in an of itself, is a
character flaw, and thus a moral failing.
Further, even if it does not harm people immediately, it will doubtless
harms others down the line.
b. in the larger scope it breeds a
culture of superstition, and what I tolerate
in myself I tacitly endorse for all of society.
(See above.)
c. beliefs are always a basis of action and
thus they always have social consequences; how one acquires beliefs is morally
relevant since morality is concerned with behavior and we ought to behave/
believe responsibly.
d. it robs society of the “engine of
inquiry.” That is, our main motivation
for finding the answers is realizing we don’t have them. Simply appropriating whatever beliefs we want to have halts the progress of science and
consequently, humankind. Hence it is a
sin. (Clifford would point to the comparably little progress that was made in
science, medicine, technology, etc. during the middle ages
because of people’s gullibility and satisfaction with unjustified beliefs.)
Thus Clifford concludes:
(Belief) is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned
statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer.... Whoso would
deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief
with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an
unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be
wiped away....
If [a] belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence [even
though the belief be true, as Clifford on the same page explains] the pleasure
is a stolen one.... It is sinful because it is stolen in defiance of our duty
to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such beliefs as from a
pestilence which may shortly master our own body and then spread to the rest of
the town....
Clifford
concludes his essay with:
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every
one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
1. What, precisely, is sufficient evidence? (big problem for evidentialists)
2. When do we know that we have sufficient evidence?
3. Is evidence an objective relation (between states of
affairs) or is it a subjective relation (relies on subjectively ordered belief
systems and interpretation)?
4. Doesn’t this lead to either an infinite regress or
ultimately unjustified “evidence?” That
is. if for belief A to be rational and justified I need to have some evidence
belief B, and in order for belief B to be rational and
justified I need to have some evidence belief C, and so on and so on, I have a vicious infinite
regress.[2]
Clifford offers no number/percentage that gives basis of
how much is sufficient evidence.
William James
and the Forced Wager (do
not mix up with Pascal);
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910)
American Pragmatists and Philosopher[3] responds the Clifford in
his own essay, “The Will to Believe.”
The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular
Philosophy
James actually agrees with some
of what Clifford has to say, but he says that there are certain situations, in
which it is proper, rational to believe without sufficient evidence.
These situations we may term “Forced Wagers”
There are 4 features to a genuine forced wager:
1.
They are “forced.” It must be a situation which one is forced to
choose; compelled to believe/ make a choice to act as if.
2. They are (genuine) “wagers.” It must be a
situation where there is not enough evidence one way or another.
These
two features explain why it is called a Forced Wager.
3.
Options must be live options; choice
must be among or between live options; what are live options for you depends on
what you actually/practically could choose, could live with.
4.
It must be a momentous choice; a
choice that is going to make a lot of difference in your life; it must make a
difference on how you live your life.
The choice is unlikely to occur again so this will likely be the only
chance you have to make it. (Sort of now or never.)
Consider: Is there life beyond death or not?
I must today either believe in the reality of
life beyond death (act as if) or NOT believe in the reality of life. (Disbelieving and simply remaining
agnostic is functionally/ pragmatically equivalent.)
There seems to be some evidence for
life-after-death (say near death experiences) and evidence against it (nearly everything
we know about the biology of consciousness and personal identity).
That is, let’s say that I will be much
happier, much less anxious, if I believe in life beyond death than I would be if I disbelieve in life
beyond death (act as if not).
So, in this scenario
Then, according to James, I am justified in believing
that there is life beyond death.
And note that, while remaining in doubt will not make me
quite as unhappy as I would be if I positively disbelieved in life beyond
death, remaining in doubt will not make me as happy as I would be if I were to
believe in trans-mortal survival. This certainly does not provide evidence that my belief
is true. But it does, he thinks, show that
my belief is rational.[4]
“He who refuses to embrace a unique
opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried and failed. Per contra, the option is trivial when
the opportunity is not unique, when the stake is insignificant, or when the
decision is reversible if it later prove unwise. Such trivial options abound in
the scientific life. A chemist finds an hypothesis
live enough to spend a year in its verification: he believes in it to that
extent. But if his experiments prove inconclusive either way, he is quit for
his loss of time, no vital harm being done.
Thus, in science we seldom if ever have forced wagers and
so in science we should not form beliefs without sufficient evidence. But belief in God is another matter, James
suggests.
For many, though not for everyone, belief in God is a
forced wager:
Given such situations it is reasonable (practical) to consider pragmatic reasons to believe. Ask which of the live options will be most
useful in living one’s life and then believe (act as if) that. Both James and Clifford are working with
similar notion of belief; belief is a basis of an action. The belief is more or less
identical to the practical behavior it engenders. To believe something is the same thing as
being willing to act in accord with it.
Both Clifford and James are interested in the practical differences
belief makes.
James says if both options are undetermined by evidence,
choose that belief (theory) which will help you get on with your life; for most
people religious belief is of superior practical value than atheism; answers
more of our questions, James suggests.
For these individuals at least, believing in God without sufficient
evidence is both rational and moral. Indeed,
wouldn’t it be irrational/ crazy NOT to believe in God? After all, you could be wrong no
matter what you do, so you might as well pick the option that makes you
happier.
James is a member of an American School of thought known
as Pragmatism.
Pragmatism: An American
philosophical school of thought that assesses the truth or meaning of theories
or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application.
Pragmatists go beyond the normal claim that whether a
theory is useful in organizing and predicting experiences is a good test of
truth, to the more extreme claim that all we mean by claiming a theory is true
is that it is useful in organizing and predicting experiences. This implies that theories can be true for a
while and then stop being true, though not all pragmatists wanted to take their
theory that far. They did all agree that
what counts most in a good theory, be it scientific, educational, psychological,
moral or religious, is whether or not it was useful in
solving relevant problems.
Scientists evaluate theories in virtue of their explanatory power. James is suggesting that this amounts to the
ability the theory demonstrates to solve the problems we are trying to solve
and unify our experiences (into a coherent narrative). He therefore claims that we should apply the
same standard of evaluation to religious beliefs to see if they merit our
rational assent.
He believes belief in God does merit assent, at least
for many people, because for many religious belief
assists in solving the practical problems we have in life. He acknowledges that believing in God might
not have pragmatic value (may be burdensome) for some people. Also, for some it
may not be a live option. In either of
these cases, religious belief without sufficient evidence would NOT be rational,
according to James.
However, contra Clifford, James claims that it is not
immoral or irrational to believe without sufficient evidence when it is a
forced wager and the pragmatic value for belief outweighs the pragmatic value
of non-belief.
So, in these situations one must decide what one will believe and this cannot be an intellectual decision. This is itself what James calls a “passional”
decision meaning that whichever option you chose, neither is intellectually required
to remain consistent with what is already known, nor is either
inconsistent with what is already known. (i.e. It
is a wager.) If it is indeed a wager,
then both belief and nonbelief is empirically adequate and thus the choice
between them cannot be intellectually compelled.
It is similar to deciding between
one or the other of two equally empirically adequate hypotheses. Imagine a
physician with a patient who presents symptoms for two different diseases. In
either case treatment is urgently called for, but the treatment for the one is
inconsistent with the treatment for the other possibility. The physician must act. A decision to merely remain in paralyzing doubt
and do nothing on the issue runs the risk of losing the patient MORE than does
the choice to act on one or the other of the two hypotheses. Remaining in doubt in forced wagers runs the same
risk of “losing the truth” as James puts it.
James argues that in wager situations where the option between
gaining and losing the truth is not genuine (i.e., not living, not forced, not
momentous), we ought to follow the “avoid error” strategy. Withhold believe and refrain from
acting. But in wager situations where the
option between gaining and losing the truth is genuine (i.e., living, forced,
and momentous), we should then pursue the truth even at the risk of falling
into error.[5] James’ thesis is that we should allow our
passional/ willing nature to determine our beliefs if and
when we find ourselves in a Forced Wager. If it is not a forced wager however, James
will agree with Clifford
James
distinguishes two positions: Absolutism and Empiricism[7]
For the absolutist, we can know the truth, and we can
know that we know it. We can be absolutely certain that we know the truth on the basis of
the “objective evidence” for it.
For the empiricist, by contrast, our beliefs can be
true, but we can never know with certainty that they are true. The empiricist believes that we can get
closer and closer to the truth through scientific inquiry into the facts of experience
and through logical thinking. However,
the empiricist doubts that we can ever be certain that our beliefs are true
even if they are, as a matter of fact, true.
The empiricist does not accept the absolutist requirement
of certainty based on “objective evidence.”
This sets the bar too high for empirical (observational) beliefs. It would seem that James
denies that there is “objective, absolutely reliable, evidence” for our
beliefs. He mentions many examples of
conflicting certainties, i.e., claims put forward by one person as certainly
true that are then held to be certainly false by someone else. This suggests that a “feeling of certainty” is
more a subjective state than an objective fact.
In sum:
Consider beliefs based on observation of & thinking
about evidence.
Can we be certain that the evidence before us is all the
relevant evidence there is? No, we can’t.
Can we be certain that some future experience will not undermine an
empirical belief we now hold? No, we can’t.
Can we be certain that our observational methods and our ways of
thinking are infallible? No, we can’t.
Thus, we can’t be certain that our beliefs based on observation of and
thinking about evidence are true.
One Final
Note about the Connection Between Belief and Action
With respect to Clifford’s Evidentialism, James says…
-“...I have also a
horror of being duped; but I can believe that worse
things than being duped may
happen to a man in this world; so Clifford’s
exhortation has to my ears a thoroughly fantastic sound....Our errors are
surely not such awfully solemn things. In
a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of
all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this
excessive nervousness on their behalf. At
any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the empiricist philosopher.”
James ends his essay with a quote from James Fitzjames
Stephen[8]
"What do you think {31} of
yourself? What do you think of the world?... These are questions with which all
must deal as it seems good to them. They are riddles of the Sphinx, and in some
way or other we must deal with them.... In all important transactions of life we have to take a leap in the dark.... If we decide to
leave the riddles unanswered, that is a choice; if we waver in our answer,
that, too, is a choice: but whatever choice we make, we make it at our peril.
If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can
prevent him; no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a
man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he
thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a
mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and
blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be
deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to
death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not
certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and
of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what
comes.... If death ends all, we cannot meet death better."
1. Does not prove existence of god.
2. Depends on evidence being unconvincing in EITHER
case.
3. Suggests that, at least to some extent, belief is
voluntary.
4. Focuses on the practical benefits of belief.
Dissimilar
to Pascal
1. Does not talk about “other-worldly” benefits.
(Note: Even if it turns out that God doesn’t exist, on
James’ view, the believer still “wins” the wager since he has lived a lifetime
rich in the pragmatic rewards of belief.
He won’t get Pascal’s heaven, but he has won anyway.)
2. James is making a bigger claim about the nature of
belief and justification generally which has wider application than just
Religion.
[1] William James is responding to William Klingdon Clifford’s 1877 essay “The Ethics of Belief”
[2] Alvin Plantinga makes this and other
criticisms of Evidentialism, but also of any form of Foundationalism or
Coherence Theory.
Either:
–
the principle of
belief justification justifies itself (and would therefore be viciously
circular)
or
–
it does not
justify itself (and therefore be unjustified and incoherent).
[3] Actually, he was a psychologist too and his brother was the novelist Henry James.
[4] Of course one might take issue with each of the presuppositions of this thought experiment, For instance, many would argue that this is not a matter of a forced wager at all, since there is so little evidence for life after death and so much evidence against it.
[5] There is a neat scene in the episode “Bliss” of the Star Trek Voyager series. Most of the crew have fallen prey to a deceptive entity, which perpetuates itself by luring travelers to their own destruction and feeding on their starships. Seven, immune to the deception, contacts the captain of another vessel which is now trapped inside the entity. Seven proposes that he join her aboard Voyager and work with her to find a way for Voyager to escape. She tells him to drop his shields so that she could beam him aboard. He is reluctant to do this, since his ship's hull, like Voyager's, is losing its integrity and his shields are the only thing holding it together. He concludes that Seven herself may be a further hallucination produced by the entity, but Seven impatiently tells him that her scans predict the failure of his shields in 15 minutes; he can join her or die, confident in the knowledge that he was not deceived.
[6] Cf., William James, “Preface” to his The Will to Believe and Other Essays In Popular Philosophy and Human Immortality (bound as one), p. x.
[7] Note, James is using these terms differently than how we have defined them elsewhere in this course.
[8] Stephen, Jasmes Fitzjames, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 353, 2d edition. London, 1874.