Philosophy and God


Udaay Sikder

03/07/2018

Reflection Paper One



"he got his insurance money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no
tales."(Clifford, William.) Even if the ship went through well into the ocean, should we
not mention the shipowner as a wrongdoer? Or if someone believes unethical but the
results of his action are okay so he will end up clear? William K. Clifford was trying to
find the answer to all these questions on the basis of moral ground and reasons. In his
"Ethics of Belief" article he stated, “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to
believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”(Ethics of Belief, page:05.) Clifford wants
to force in the fact that if you believe something that always motivates your action and
that is why it is not good and unethical to believe in something without any such strong
evidence. Clifford wanted to emphasize that all beliefs are always important to other
people it's because what people believe is related to there action.

The examples that Clifford used in his article is well known. The first example was about
the shipowner and his ship. A shipowner allowed to vessel one of his ship which was
badly in need of repair. Shipowner knew that there is a very short chance that his ship
will finish the journey without any problem still that owner believed in Providence
without any strong evidence he let that ship to go. Now the matter of fact is if the ship
sinks in the mid-ocean who will be the responsible for this? Well in general everyone will
point the shipowner for his decision. But Clifford wants a plot twist he wanted to
examine what if the ship does well and end up to her destination with all her passengers.
Will you still not blame the shipowner for his decision? Clifford wants to blame the
shipowner for his decision that he made with his belief without any evidence even if the
ship reaches her destination. This is how a belief is related to other people.



Even if the ship had not sunk the shipowner is still guilty of this wrong, of believing on
insufficient evidence. Clifford tried to point out that it is not necessarily a belief which
turns into an action but a belief always has an influence on what action people take, so it
always has some kind of relation. He notes that every belief somehow affects our actions
in some way, It may happen on time or future but somehow it always affects. In fact what
we believe it shapes our character of thoughts which also related to our behaves that we
put in our social life. He also emphasizes that people should investigate their belief and
without such a strong evidence it is sin to invest their belief in action.



William James wanted to prove that there are situations we can believe in insufficient
evidence. James indicates that there are certain criteria for those situations. He
emphasizes that they must be situations that- cannot be decided on the intellectual
ground, has two live options, Are momentous. James thinks that under this circumstances
we all can follow our passional nature and whatever we want to believe. People
encounter a phase in some aspects of life when he cannot ignore his own natural and
passional thoughts and knowledge that is why it is impossible to restrict someones
believes only because of lack of evidence. If we go through the criteria of situations first
of let's encounter the living option. If there are two living options and we have to choose
among them what will we do? In that case, believing matters. I'm writing this essay in my
room and if I want to believe that there is a tiger in my room, even if I want to feel that
and want to believe this, I'm so sure that it is false and I can't believe this. That
hypothesis will be dead for me and it happened because my intellectual nature is
powerless to affect my belief. To make it clearer For someone it might be a live option to
believe in the flat earth but not a live option for him to believe in global warming. Next,
if we go for another option force, people often encounter some situations when we cannot
just choose anything that we want or just leave anything by our choice. There comes the
certain time where we are forced to do or not to do and it also affects our belief. we all
encountered this situation in our life that we felt forced to choose no matter what we
think about the options. James also puts other criteria which is momentous. In this case,
he put a momentous vs trivial debate. Momentous choices are unique and significant
when trivials are insignificant and not unique. If I get an offer for a date from the girl
whom I secretly wanted always would be a momentous choice because that was
unexpected and unique form me. So, James thinks that we often encounter situations
where we have to make these forced, live, and momentous decisions even without strong
evidence. 



The basic and core clash between Clifford and James was belief without evidence is
immoral vs belief without evidence is ok sometimes. For example, are made when two
conflicting values present themselves and a choice has to be made between them.
Clifford’s scientific and skeptical suspension of belief is not helpful in such cases.(The
Ethics of Belief: William Clifford versus William James by Dr. Peter Krey, December 29,
2013) From my position, i believe James has the stronger arguments and I will put some
of my own thoughts that how is James's arguments can win over Clifford. First of all
when Clifford wants to prove that you always have to have some strong evidence before
you believe something he forgets that there is always some unique and special situations
people face in the certain time of their life. Some issues in life are not always same for
everyone. To me, a issue can be live and to some other person that can be a dead one. In
our social life, I believe we often encounter some issues when we cannot even avoid an
option and forced to choose or we are forced to avoid something and cannot choose.
Also, we have to remember that some of our choices make us take a decision which is
momentous. Clifford came up with a good idea that we always need to have sufficient
evidence to believe something, but at the same time, he is denying the fact that we have a
natural or passional intense to choose something when we cannot overcome that with
evidence. Also, Clifford misjudge that when we have no options and forced to choose or
leave something we cannot just wait for a evidence to prove our belief. Lets go back to
the shipowner story, If that ship was needed in a emergency situation where we have to
send people in some other places because their native country in a war, In that case what
supposed to do by the shipowner wait for the perfect evidence of whether ship is good or
just choose the only option to send as much as people as early possible to a safe place
even if he is not sure the ship can do this or not. So, in this kind of situations, people don't
really get to choose upon the evidence and they just can't wait for that besides they are
forced to choose and they choose the possible best one. It is always hard for a normal
people to stay between concern of truth and avoiding the error. 











Bibliography



1. Krey, Peter. “The Ethics of Belief: William Clifford versus William James”. http://
www.scholardarity.com/. 29 December. 2003.Web. 03 March. 2018.



2. Jones, Mark. “Clifford and Faith”. http://goodgrieflinus.blogspot.com/. Saturday, 31
December. 2011. Web. 03 March. 2018.



3. “The will to believe.” //www.princeton.edu/. Princeton University, Web. 03 March.
2018