William Clifford Belief

“The sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation”- William Kingdon Clifford. William Clifford a mathematician and philosopher occasionally was in the opposition of William James due to his antireligious conclusions. He always claimed that nothing is worthy of belief unless all the possible evidence points to the truth of the statement. William Clifford argued that faith can never be morally justified as he which he published in “The Ethics of Belief.” A ship-owner was about to send a ship out to sea filled with emigrants, but the ship was old and not built very well at first. The ship had sailed out multiple times before but

Clifford argued that taking up on a belief with little to no evidence is unjustifiable. If the ship would have made it could William Clifford possibly have a different opinion? The answer is no because simply the man just got lucky. Clifford believed that in the instances of right and wrong it has to do with the origin of his belief not with the matter of it. If someone decides to drive home after they have been drinking, but does not cause any incidents or harm anyone it is still wrong because the lack of consequence does not lessen the moral wrong. The point William Clifford is trying to make is the belief is not judged to be wrong or right it is the action that follows. When you’re basing a decision of possibly putting others peoples life in danger solely on belief which has scarce proof that is morally never defensible. Clifford proclaims that the ship-owner is morally accountable for the deaths because he let his beliefs be channeled by everything but evidence. When an act is completed, it is either correct or incorrect for ever. You might ask what is wrong with having beliefs or what is wrong with stepping out on

And also if an individual has no evidence for a belief and no evidence against a belief; it is wrong for him to accept or reject the belief; it is his duty to suspend judgment on the matter and wait for the evidence. (Rowe, p.97) Basically it’s wrong for anyone, anywhere at any time to believe in anything without any evidence, which is called Epistemic Duty. It’s like going to court, if you are on a jury of a murder case and the prosecutors present no evidence that someone is guilty of the murder then most likely you’re not going to believe that the defendant committed the crime. If Clifford is correct then believing in God without sufficient evidence is wrong, well exactly how much is sufficient evidence? If you do not have time to study and collect evidence of your belief then you really don’t have time to believe. Clifford believes that no one can be unbiased if he or she wants to strongly hold on to a belief one side of a disagreement, he also believes that everything can be eventually figured out with patience. Remember when they once thought that the earth was flat? They were patient and investigated but when science caught up to mankind it was eventually proven to be round.