belief
Foreword:
If you are too busy to read the article’s full length, then I highly recommend reading at least the position and concepts sections. The article is not intended to be considered as the absolute truth, but a series of thoughts which have lead up to a position which may be true. Any and all constructive comments are welcome, but include reasoning and thought with a response if at all possible. If all the response consists of is an opinion, meaning a position without any support, then I’ll just have to respond in an equally boring manner amounting to no intellectual gain. So please give support.
Position on Ethics and Principles of Beliefs
My Position:
Beliefs based upon facts of the mind are to be accepted when sufficient evidence is available or when the belief is useful and no currently better known alternative is available. Beliefs based upon facts of the mind can be accepted unless the beliefs contradict one or more facts of the mind. Both types of beliefs should be restraint by moral objections when in application.
Concepts Used:
Facts of the Mind - Facts based upon evidence and reasoning
Facts of the Heart - Facts based upon personal inclincations
Wrong – A concept occurring at the existence of two or more distinct and separate beings that hold desires. An act which breaks the customs or rules set by the majority of these beings. Justified by the common good.
THE GOOD – The highest universal and unchanging form of goodness
Moral – An act which is in accord with THE GOOD
Immoral – An act which opposes THE GOOD
Belief – Personal conviction in a statement or thought
Argument – A series of statements leading to a position
Dispute – Two opposing arguments
Support:
Beliefs are everywhere and held by everyone. They range from small to large, good to bad, evil to righteous, sound to unsound, and so forth. Beliefs are also the fundamental level at which an argument begins and where disputes arise. So it is important to have some guiding principles by which one acquires and changes one’s beliefs.
First let’s consider a position held by William Clifford, a philosopher from the middle to late 1800’s, from his work, “The Ethics of Belief.” Clifford starts off with a situation where a ship-owner must make a decision. The decision is to either allow his ship to sail across the sea with many immigrant passengers or prevent this from happening based on the condition of his ship. The ship-owner realizes that the evidence available shows that the ship is not sea-worthy, however the ship-owner convinces himself that the ship is sea-worthy by simply reasoning that the ship has made many a journey beforehand and can make another now. Sound in mind with his choice of belief, the ship-owner collected his insurance money after the ship went down at sea, killing all the passengers.
This man was certainly responsible for the deaths of all the passengers. For although the ship-owner held the belief that his ship was sea-worthy, he “Had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him,” as Clifford states it. In other words, the ship-owner based his decision on insufficient evidence. Clifford even goes on to affirm the ship-owner would have still been in the wrong even if the ship had made its journey safely, only the ship-owner’s wrong-doing would not be found out. If this doesn’t make sense, then consider the following more clear-cut case. If someone steals from a local store and is caught, then surely this act is wrong. Well, it would still be wrong even if the thief was not captured. The same principle applies here, except with regard to the method by which one acquires and changes one’s beliefs. In fact Clifford is unsatisfied by simply labeling beliefs based on insufficient evidence as wrong. Clifford feels such beliefs are immoral. Therefore, such an act would be considered a violation of the highest unchanging good, which Plato called THE GOOD.
So is Clifford right? Are all beliefs based on insufficient evidence truly immoral? Well, I certainly feel Clifford is on the right track; however his position needs some adjustments. First of all, even the sciences which society generally holds as the factual truth regarding the state and function of the universe is not based on sufficient evidence. Yet, science has allowed humanity to produce many useful gadgets. Shall humanity now abandon the sciences simply on the grounds that we do not have the sufficient evidence to rightfully conclude for certain that the truth has been discovered? I think not. Even though we may not have the entire truth, humanity is most certainly in the right direction of the truth or else our gadgets would not function at all or extremely poorly. So it would seem a step of wrongfulness to simply throw away all the progress in science. Therefore, in order to allow the belief and application of science as moral, Clifford’s view must allow beliefs which are based upon insufficient evidence when they are useful and when such beliefs have no better currently known alternative. There is of course one other adjustment to be made even to this adjustment, which is the next idea to be discussed.
It is important to know beliefs find their origins in two separate kinds of facts. The first being facts of the mind and the other being facts of the heart, which is sometimes called faith. Facts of the mind are facts which are based upon evidence, whereas facts of the heart are based upon one’s internal inclinations. Yet, that doesn’t mean facts of the heart may contradict facts of the mind. In fact, any fact of the heart which contradicts one or more facts of mind is in fact an immoral belief, because facts of the heart are based on insufficient evidence in the first place; so if one was to go as far as to reject the available evidence this would violate Clifford’s basic principle.
Knowing the two kinds of facts, we can now prescription two different treatments to the two origins of beliefs. If a belief originates from facts of the mind, then they must be based on sufficient evidence, this is unless of course the belief based on insufficient evidence is useful to humanity and has no currently known better alternative. When it comes to beliefs which originate from facts of the heart another approach must be prescribed. Since such an origin in its very essence has no evidence, then only a conflicting fact of the mind could make such a belief immoral. Otherwise any beliefs based on facts of the heart are perfectly fine.
This of course doesn’t warrant acting upon such beliefs based upon insufficient evidence. Any belief based upon sufficient evidence to the highest extent can always be acted upon. However, no such useful beliefs exist. To my current knowledge, all such beliefs are individual oriented. For example, if someone said, “I believe I am hungry,” then they have the absolute right to act upon this belief, since they have the sufficient evidence to conclude it. This idea can be extended to many other sorts of sensory input.
So what about beliefs based on facts of the mind which have insufficient evidence? Shall they be acted upon? Certainly they should, but not without bounds. Science in its essence is the very practice of doing so. So long as no moral objection contends otherwise, beliefs based on facts of the mind which have insufficient evidence are permissible to be acted upon. Yet, such beliefs should be always be held as temporary, and the belief holder should invest effort, if reasonably possible, towards discovering a belief closer to the truth of the situation or towards gaining sufficient evidence.
Finally when it comes to beliefs based upon facts of the heart which have insufficient evidence, one is again allowed to act, but again with the restraint of moral objections.
