Clifford seems to have assumed that there is no way for us to do anything to prevent the adverse consequences besides avoiding over-believing. Do You Agree With Clifford? Why Or Why Not? - Free Essay These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shipowner.' These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. In view of the assumption and of the potential consequences, both the primary ones connected to a particular over-belief and the secondary ones that result from beliefs permitted by altered standards of evidence, it does appear to be morally negligent or reckless to over-believe. Henry Sidgwick whom the scholarly consensus does for the most part classify as an act utilitarian (Schultz Reference Schultz2020) was the first to point out the paradox, and it seems likely that Clifford learned of it from him and adapted the insight to his own purpose. What point is Clifford making with his shipowner example? Consider someone who lacks evidence for a true belief about what constitutes good evidence. Philosophy- The ethics of belief Flashcards | Quizlet For instance, a physician would have a duty to prescribe the course of treatment that was most likely to result in the patient's recovery, given the evidence. WebCreated by Nomen Terms in this set (11) What does Clifford think the shipowner did wrong? 2C8p WebThe first example that Clifford provides in The Ethics of Belief is one of a certain ship-owner who sold tickets to emigrant families for a transatlantic voyage. Epistemology midterm (Clifford and James) Flashcards | Quizlet It Is Wrong, Always, Everywhere, And For Anyone, To The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. WebThus, he begins with an example where the co nnection between beliefand ethical considerations seems very strong: the ship-owner knows that his ship might need to be overhauled. Some of the examples of the shipowner was uncertainty about the ship's current state and if it, would need to be repaired. The stoic view, according to Aikin, is that people have roles and that they have duties in virtue of having the roles. What does Clifford say about doubting what we believe in? W. K. Clifford's ethics of belief (Reference Clifford1879a) is not merely a Victorian curiosity. 6!A|vkXXh8>G/b(Wm}X-?^lok}oad z79UPCHH|+Xd|LgpIegk^v$mW Y;-V6U^v;[Nd;!f386L[ CjrsqnW(2I2|2w u`d~;| 3-U&oZ5TXp:UM:+}"t1 fJ0 >8w[0mYmP"gp)Id`af88 #"q;NJ Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Clifford used some examples to express people who create their beliefs without providing any evidence. Aikin points out that Clifford's first two examples resemble examples from Cicero (Aikin Reference Aikin2014: 4546), but the context of discovery or inspiration is not the context of justification. What point is Clifford making with his shipowner | Chegg.com Send us feedback about these examples. Since these are moral reasons, his conclusion is that it is morally wrong to believe without sufficient evidence. Clifford's argument for the proposition that it is wrong to believe without sufficient evidence can best be described as a doxastic counterpart to an act utilitarian argument. The remainder of this section shows how it is possible to argue for Cliffordianism on this basis. The two are both forced because there is no third option that enables us to avoid doing one or the other, which is the feature that James regarded as characteristic of forced options. "coreDisableSocialShare": false, It would have been a type of view familiar to Victorians, who attributed duties to people in connection with their stations in life. W.K. To put it another way, since we have a naturally selected ability to acquire beliefs, we also have a naturally selected disposition to prefer truths, and, since we have a naturally selected disposition to prefer truths, we have a naturally selected disposition to seek what we take to be evidence. We also need a proxy for truth and the only plausible proxy is what we take to be sufficient evidence. It only has to work well enough and often enough to be advantageous enough to be selected for. Clifford then tells of a story about and island and it is there where the inhabitants spoke of a religion teaching neither the doctrine of original sin nor that of eternal punishment. BBxZa9~0p3/8{hersCZ93C)eNHf_xgw WebClifford's conclusion is that it is always wrong to believe anything without sufficient evidence. Either sail as scheduled or delay the voyage is parallel to James's own example of a forced option, Either accept this truth or go without it (Reference James1896b: 16). Clifford's meta-ethics was evolutionary. Clifford would have still condemned the shipowner. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Contrary to various commentators, his argument is neither purely nor primarily epistemic, he is not a non-consequentialist, and he does not use stoicism to make his case. He may have been inspired by the paradox of hedonism. Clifford argued that over-believing is wrong because it leads to harm or the risk of harm, which necessitate that we make efforts to prevent them, and to Cliffordian credulity, a propensity to over-believe in other cases that can thereby amplify the harm and risk of harm. WebPsychology. Because the ship-owner still let the ship go without taking the proper precautions regarding the ships safety. The objection fails. Clifford argues that to have reasonable belief you need support from evidence in order to justify your belief. Since Clifford spoke of accidental failures and used the phrase no matter what happens afterwards, Clifford apparently had in mind a world in which outcomes were matters of probability. Web1. Like other biological features, however, the hypothesised arrangement for the acquisition of beliefs does not have to work perfectly. WebYes. Summarizing, what clifford proposed was that it needs to have some proven evidence on the type, of certain beliefs that we hold within ourselves. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. James thesis is When our intellect cannot solve a genuine option, emotionally we must decide. Belief in a state of affairs can help that state of affairs come true. In Clifford's opinion, the requirement of act utilitarianism that we pursue the greatest happiness of the greatest number is an affirmation that our duty is to our community. Philosophy Essay Explanation of Cliffords View, Term Paper Sample Pages: 6 pages/1650 words Sources: No Sources Style: APA Subject: Life Sciences Type: Term Paper Language: English (U.S.) Document: MS Word Date: 2019-11-07 Total cost: $ 28.51 Download Topic: Philosophy Essay Explanation of Cliffords View (Term Paper Or The Ethics of Belief Revisited, Honesty and Inquiry: W. K. Clifford's Ethics of Belief, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Parents are Making their Children Drink Bleach to Cure Them of Autism, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation, W. K. Clifford's Ethics of Belief Revisited, A Critical Review of Models of Group Selection, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/ethics-belief/, https://www.newsweek.comparents-are-making-their-children-drink-bleach-cure-them-autism-793197, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/sidgwick/. Because, says Clifford, he had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts (1877, 70). We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Clifford Phil 100 paper 1 - John Tran PHIL 100 Paper 1 Ana Belan W. K. If we believed without sufficient evidence anything that is relevant at present or that would be relevant in the future, then we would contaminate the evidence we possess at present or would possess in the future. But Clifford did not first argue that we must seek truth and avoid error, and only afterward add that it was morally wrong to do otherwise. But Clifford's conclusion, which is a universal generalisation, is undercut by potential counterexamples. As for onboard amenities, the yacht will be equipped with six guest cabins, a, At the heart of the current complaint is a report that Blinken's State Department sent to Congress last month that added a layer of sanctions to a Russian vessel and the, She remained decommissioned at the port of Patras for the next three years due to the, Another sticking point is that the charterer, not the, This means there's less incentive for the, So does the French oil giant Total, along with many, Post the Definition of shipowner to Facebook, Share the Definition of shipowner on Twitter, Palter, Dissemble, and Other Words for Lying, Skunk, Bayou, and Other Words with Native American Origins, Words For Things You Didn't Know Have Names, Vol. epistemology. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things (Reference James1896b: 26). At the outset of the essay, Clifford defends the stringent principle that we are all always obliged to have sufficient evidence for every one of our beliefs. The Ethics of Belief (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Clifford Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. He But Clifford condemned all over-belief and not just those instances that involve the knowing and willing rationalisation of self-interested expediency. In these circumstances, even though the first course of treatment is objectively best, it is the second that we should choose. Research suggests that people are more likely to engage in health-promoting behaviors like eating well and exercising if they have a greater sense of self-efficacythat is, if they believe that they are capable of effectively performing these behaviors. However, to make utilitarianism fit with his evolutionary views, Clifford denied that happiness is the goal, maintaining instead that we are to serve the community, that the goal of morality is to make us better servants, and that the happiness of others and ourselves is a by-product of our service. hasContentIssue false, This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (, Copyright The Author(s), 2022. When we are born, we enter this world with a clean slate and without preconceived beliefs. Different communities develop different moral codes or traditions: the Mishna in the case of the Jewish people (Clifford Reference Clifford1879b: 132), stoicism in the case of the Romans (Clifford Reference Clifford1879b: 133), and utilitarianism in the case of the British (Clifford Reference Clifford1879b: 173), as will be confirmed below. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. But, at the time we acquire them, it is often unknowable whether beliefs will be advantageous. But the counterexamples do not preclude a rule against going beyond the available evidence and it is worthwhile making a moral case for such a rule. WebClifford Shipowner example the shipowner had suspiscions that his ship was not sea worthy, so instead of having it checked he just pushed away all the negative thoughts. 15 June 2022. In such a world, an act utilitarian could say that we always have a duty to perform the act that is most likely, to the best of our knowledge at the time of its performance, to have the best consequences even if it does not actually produce those consequences. He thought that conscience, which tells us what is right and wrong, is an evolutionary phenomenon that is developed by communities to promote their own welfare. By putting aside his worries about the ship's safety, the shipman comes to believe that it is seaworthy. His argument involves a reference to the epistemic concept of sufficient evidence but it is a moral argument throughout. WebIn one example (pp. Clifford argues that to have reasonable belief you need support from evidence in order to justify your belief. Clifford devoted the two subsequent sections of The Ethics of Belief to arguing that we can accept the testimony of others and that we can go beyond our immediate experience. While it might appear that there are cases in which we can readily establish that there are no relevant adverse effects, it appears that there are none only if we limit ourselves to a consideration of the primary effects of a particular over-belief. Specifically, consider a situation in which someone comes to believe that an informal fallacy is fallacious not by having it explained to them but by having it drilled into them. rV+G.(sga*ym He also claimed that if one did not have the time to fully investigate a matter they wished to believe in, then they had no time to believe in anything at all. Web1 / 12 Flashcards Learn Test Match Created by paigelandryy Terms in this set (12) According to Clifford, what the shipowner did was wrong because he had no right to His responses indicate again that he was concerned with consequences. Those tribes have on the whole survived in which conscience approved such actions as tended to the improvement of men's characters as citizens and therefore to the survival of the tribe (Clifford Reference Clifford1879c: 119). 5 How our beliefs affect our perception examples? He did not laud any other work in ethics in the same manner. There are a number of putative counterexamples in the literature. Clifford maintained that the shipowner and the agitators would have done wrong even if the ship had completed its voyage without incident and even if the accusations had been true. Furthermore, there is a twofold evolutionary explanation for why we cannot do it. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. W.K. Clifford: The Ethics of Belief Flashcards | Quizlet Obviously, satisfying James's criteria would not obviate the risk to passengers or crew. The problem with the counterexamples mentioned in the previous paragraph is that they do not clearly show that there are no adverse effects; and if it is obvious that primary adverse effects are improbable, it is not equally obvious that the same is true of secondary ones. Clifford's conclusion is that it is always wrong to believe anything without sufficient evidence. His belief in group selection does not matter, because his argument is logically independent of evolutionary selective processes. Clifford argues that because the shipowner failed to investigate and make repairs on his ship, her had no right to believe that Clifford believed that act utilitarianism was a good fit with his evolutionary view that the community developed a normative morality for its own benefit, writing that the reason and the ample justification of the success of [act utilitarianism] is that it explicitly sets forth the community as the object of moral allegiance (Reference Clifford1879b: 173). He doubts that the ship is sea worthy, but instead of having it investigated, which would have been expensive and time-consuming, he stifles his doubts and sends the ship out to sea. It is ethically incorrect to believe something without providing any support to the claim. Checking the consequences of believing a proposition would usually require the examination of an indeterminate number of possible futures, each for an indeterminate length of time into the future, and we could not do that even if we wanted to. In his entry on the ethics of belief in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which recapitulates an earlier argument (Chignell and Dole Reference Andrew, Dole, Dole and Chignell2005), Andrew Chignell contends that Clifford claim[s] that the issue of whether we have done our doxastic best is an epistemic one and also (given a few further premises) a moral one (Chignell Reference Chignell2018; italics in original). Insufficient or the lack of evidence results in poorly developed judgments, and a wrong solution made by one person could change the lives of millions of people. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The internal evidence in The Ethics of Belief confirms that he took an act utilitarian approach, except, of course, that he was dealing with the consequences of beliefs instead of acts. In the alternative, if it were possible, it would still impose such a burden as to make it impractical to over-believe in an ethical way. But, to imagine Clifford's response, consider Clifford's shipowner again. In contrast, the epistemic interpretation is that the ethics of belief is about acquiring true beliefs and avoiding false ones, which means that we should avoid believing without sufficient evidence because it results in our believing falsely, full stop. Clifford explained that the reason of this judgment is not far to seek: it is that in both these cases the belief held by one man was of great importance to other men (Reference Clifford1879a: 182). It is like levitation or psychokinesis: it has never been observed or demonstrated, and it therefore cannot be taken seriously as a real possibility. If over-believing is sometimes accompanied by altered standards of evidence, it is impossible to predict the other beliefs that they would permit us to acquire, let alone their effects. Is it true that one direction is coming back in 2020? Why Or Why Not? For those who dont believe, no proof is possible. Stuart Chase Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Published by Cambridge University Press, Department of Philosophy, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820822000139, Reference Andrew, Dole, Dole and Chignell, Objective Consequentialism and the Licensing Dilemma, The Ethics of Religious Belief: A Recent History, Right and Wrong: The Scientific Ground of the Distinction, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Decision-Theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, Ethics and Evidentialism: W. K. Clifford and the Ethics of Belief, The Journal for the Critical Study of Religion, Ethics and Society, What Ought We to Believe? Since we have a naturally selected disposition to seek what we take to be evidence, if our will has an influence on our beliefs, its influence will often be accompanied by alterations to our standards of evidence to make it appear, at least to ourselves, that we have evidence for what we have willed to believe. WebClifford believes we have some epistemic obligations. For one thing, he was apparently unaware of its dark side. 4 What is Cliffords shipowner story and what is it meant to show? But, in the same case, the evidence obtained shows that the first course of treatment would be either a complete cure or immediately fatal, that the second would be somewhat beneficial, and that doing nothing would result in a lingering death. Learn a new word every day. The option of believing his ship to be seaworthy would certainly have been live, because it concerned a real possibility for him. The sources of beliefs include environment, events, knowledge, past experiences, visualization etc. Clifford Natural selection has to care about truth because truth is the only plausible proxy for the property of being fitness-promoting when it comes to many beliefs. In the first example, he described a shipowner who overcame doubts about the seaworthiness of his vessel and sent it forth full of emigrants, who drowned when it sank. The combination of a naturally selected disposition to seek what we take to be evidence and the disadvantageous nature of an ability to believe purely at will explains why believing purely at will is as implausible as levitation or psychokinesis. WebClifford's shipowner example "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." Of course, with Clifford's emphasis on service to the community, everyone can be seen as occupying the role of servant of the community. James certainly tolerated errors and treated Clifford's views as unreasonable: Clifford's exhortation has to my ears a thoroughly fantastic sound. "corePageComponentUseShareaholicInsteadOfAddThis": true, Beliefs shape our thoughts, actions, and the structural organization of all society. In light of Cliffords epistemological and ethical commitments, Aikin restates this principle as the Integrated Evidentialist Rule: What is Cliffords shipowner story and what is it meant to show? Clifford certainly approved of Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics (Reference Sidgwick1874), describing it as an admirable book (Clifford Reference Clifford1879b: 161). He adds: Wherever the option between losing truth and gaining it is not momentous, we can throw the chance ofgaining truthaway, and at any rate save ourselves from any chance ofbelieving falsehood by not making up our minds at all till objective evidence has come (Reference James1896b: 2627; italics in original). This is Cliffordianism. 1. The shipowner was wrong to believe the ship was A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition about the world is true. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Cliffords principle, It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence and an objection to it based on William Jamess contention that Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot . And, he allowed that we can make inferences that presuppose the uniformity of nature (Reference Clifford1879a: 206). But while James made efforts to show that over-believing can sometimes result in true beliefs, he did nothing to demonstrate that we can ever do so at our own risk, that is, without putting others at risk. The best explanation for James's failure is that he mistook Clifford's position for an epistemic one. What grade do you start looking at colleges? I wish to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Philosophy Exam #2 Flashcards - Learning tools, Unsurprisingly, it has also been the subject of many philosophical debates. 2023. Do you have a belief system around belief systems? These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. He argued that the gamble is permissible when the option of believing is a genuine option (James Reference James1896b: 21), that is, when it is live, forced, and momentous (James Reference James1896b: 1516). Unaware of the problems with group selection, Clifford regarded act utilitarianism as the normative theory that encapsulated the dictates of conscience as they had been received by his own community.