PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: The Will to Believe [HD]

Thomas Donaldson (Stanford University) asks whether it is moral to believe something even when you have no evidence that it is true. He discusses a classic debate on that subject, between philosophers William James and William Clifford.

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[MrAcuriteOf]

The problem with all the supporting arguments for James is that all of them, in some way, rely on evidence. The man knows, from evidence provided by friends or other members of society, that being relaxed will help him, so he can establish a positive feedback loop of "I think it will go well, as I will pretend to be relaxed, whereupon it will begin to go well, ergo I will become relaxed." The story with him needing a religious belief in order to aid his own psyche is in a similar boat, where he could very easily say "I think I will be happy, so I will pretend to be happy, whereupon I will begin to become happy, ergo I am now happy, " and cut out god.


Also, the problem with Pascal's wager is that you could also make the argument that, one, if a higher power exists, it is unknown whether or not it would reward or punish you for your belief, and two, there's a cost associated with blind faith, in that you will live your life in a way that isn't necessarily the best way to live in our actual universe.

[stevekennedy]

Makes sense. People believe because they are rewarded for their beliefs, even if the reward is only a psychological benefit.

[bretlarson]

I think the arguments both by and against Clifford presented are not valid. The man going on the date isn't using belief to counter evidence to the contrary. No evidence exists that his date does not like him, in fact, she obviously liked him enough to agree to go on the date with him, so some evidence she likes him exists. She doesn't know him well enough to have formed a full opinion about whether or not she likes him, which is why she's going on the date.

The ship owner has evidence that the ship is not seaworthy. Both arguments are based on actual evidence and then shoehorned into applying to beliefs. Neither does. The ship owner is choosing to disbelieve his evidence, the dating man is using the little bit of evidence he has to hope that all other evidence he collects will confirm the little bit he has.

Your suggestion that if he believes that his date likes him it's "better for everyone" also lacks evidence. How can you suggest his date will be happy just because he's more relaxed. What if she's not relaxed? What if she felt similarly and was hoping he would be fumbling for the right word just like she was? Why do you assume that one of the participants on the date feeling less stress is "better for everyone"?

I agree there is nothing morally wrong with hoping for the best and pretending you have evidence it is in a situation where no one's life is in danger. It is morally wrong have gut feeling that something is wrong, in a situation where someone's life is in danger, and ignore that feeling and not search for evidence.

The statement that "If you refrain from forming a believe, you miss out on a truth" is also wrong. A truth needs sufficient evidence to support it. If something is true, then evidence will support it and you'll be lead to the truth eventually. Definition of truth that I'm using here:


If the "truth" you're missing out on is simply a personal truth, such as "I like chicken more than steak". There there isn't a logical or scientific means to prove or disprove that statement. There is also nothing really to be gained or lost, it's just an opinion.

The entirety of your argument seems to be, "It's not morally wrong to believe in God if it gets you passed your fears". I agree with that statement, but only up to the point where it starts effecting others. If your belief makes you OK with denying other people rights, preventing them from believing what they want, or denying them services because the God you believe in thinks something is wrong, then you're back onto the morally wrong side of the argument.

[ChipArgyle]

If you can falsely convince yourself over dinner that your date likes you and that's OK, can you also not falsely convince yourself later on that evening that she consented to having sex with you? How can a path of belief be moral and good if it doesn't always lead to moral and good outcomes?

[WirelessPhilosophy]

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[rodolfo]

The problem with saying that it is ethically wrong to believe in things that are not based on evidence is that it pressuposes the existence of a ethics based on evidence. But it seems to me that there is no ethics that does not start from axiomatic presuppositions that don't have evidence for.

The most famous person who defends the existence of an evidence-based ethics is Sam Harris and his argument basically goes like this:

All sentient beings avoid suffering,
Therefore, we ought to reduce suffering in the aggregate.

But note that the conclusion does not follow from the premise, this argument would only be valid if we add the following premise:

All sentient beings avoid suffering,
We ought to reduce the aggregate amount of what all sentient beings avoid,
Therefore, we ought to reduce suffering in the aggregate.

But what is the evidence for the proposition "We ought to reduce the aggregate amount of what all sentient beings avoid"? If you accept it, you will already be believing something without having any evidence for.

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[tempestive]

There's an implied question here - is belief a choice?
As I see it, it's not. You're either convinced of something or not.
That's when standards of evidence come into play. But how can one, by themselves, improve the reliability of their own method without a modicum of the very same tool they're seeking?

Edit: typo

[TheBlidget]

issue with the shy dater example is this.
It would make more sense and he would have more success if he objectively said my issue is that up get nervous, and if I just could calm myself down then my date would go well. knowing his problem he could then say she will like me without needing sufficient evidence. However if he goes into the date saying oh she'll like me regardless and then makes an ass of himself on the date the date is then more likely to go bad when he makes no attempt to mend the "broken ship" that is his dating habits.

[kaleyjohnson]

these videos are helping me through my philosophy class so thank you

[sharpdude]

James' theory on managing risk is reminiscent of Pascal's wager. I wonder if anyone caught that too.

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[BU_IDo]

Pessimists: _“If there is no evidence then I can’t believe”_
Optimist: _“Hope springs internal. The possibility is awe inspiring”_
Realist: _“I have no answers”_

[oarevalo]

Framing this problem in terms of morality was a terrible choice, as is unnecessary and distracting to the validity of the argument. The matter is if belief without evidence is RATIONAL. Acting as if something is true knowing it isn't doesn't constitute a belief. So self deception like James described is obviously not the kind of belief in question. Also, Pascal's wager is an invalid argument to believe in God because we can arbitrarily propose an action we should take that would grant us infinite happiness, and if we don't take it bring us finite happiness and then no matter the level of doubt we may have about the proposal, the rational choice would be to act on this action. The problem is this logic applies regardless of the action, and there may be unlimited many proposals as such with different or contradicting actions. So Pascal's wager argument for belief without evidence simply because of what's possible cannot be valid.

[WirelessPhilosophy]

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[darkdragonite]

I think there is a difference between having a belief, legitimately, without evidence.. and having a known false belief to mitigate a circumstance.

[Fullprime]

I understand the historical importance of this but I struggle to find the relevance of the authors. In both science (my field being microbiology) and philosophy (my hobby being philosophy of religion) I am seeing a rising trend in what borders on a celebrity culture, where the author is as important as their quote. I fail to see how in such learned fields the authors have any relevance at all when we should all only being judging the relevance of a given theory or philosophy by its own presented merits lest we enter into what has been entertainingly named a 'circle jerk'.

To whit my issue with these philosophies. Stripped of any presumption of philosophical substance granted by the authors, both the arguments and philosophies presented seem incredibly weak. To substantiate morality based on belief without evidence is entirely different to belief in the face of opposing evidence as is the contradiction of the first argument and analogy. The second simply misses the point entirely. To act as though you believe something is not the same as to actually believe. If it were so, therapists would be out of a job pretty sharpish. Second, as the argument centres around morality, the latter argument does little to address the issue of acting without evidence and the wide repercussions outside of a sterile scenario. When debating the this and morality of faith, to attribute it to a world in which the complications of chaos theory are absent makes a mockery of any possible real world application of said philosophy. Although the concept of a slippery slope is an oft over exaggerated ad absurdum style tactic, it is not so ridiculous to imply when discussing such absurd levels of belief as required to be of faith. This is not to ridicule faith, but merely to highlight that compared to the innocuous dating scenario, the amount of belief in the absence of evidence to be of faith is of an exponential increase of absurdly high levels. Therefore, the morality, or lack thereof, of such a belief should be relatively adjusted to absurdly high morality or immorality. That is, to say, if approaching the argument from the original position.

However it is an important point to make, that unlike both examples were evidence was presented but simply ignored, from a purely spiritualistic and not defined religious point of view, there is no evidence against and therefore only the 'evidence' for faith, that evidence being the personal experiences of believers such as define communication and miracles.

However, to stray from the video somewhat, to use my favourite criteria, the falsification principle, I would consider it more prudent to say that to have faith without first considering what would be required to loss that belief is what should truly be immoral, as can be applied to science or faith. For if you cannot think of how your belief can be dispelled, is to accept you think your faith and by extension you yourself are infallible. Now, this thinking can easily be defined as irrational, narcissistic, intellectually harmful and therefore immoral.

[Wingflier]

Concerning "The Shy Dater" story example, there is a fundamental flaw in the reasoning which undermines the entire argument.

The author of the video claims that Rupert, the man going on the date, has *no evidence* and *no reason* to believe that the girl going on the date with him is interested, and therefore believes it advantageous to assume this on faith given his past experiences.

However, there is compelling evidence that the girl is interested, namely that she's going on a date with him, and women generally don't go on dates with men in which they have no interest.

Thus the argument is fundamentally flawed because Rupert does not have to believe on faith that the girl is interested, given that he has solid evidence that she is. Even if it were a blind date, a speed date, or some other scenario where the woman did not know Rupert beforehand, she's still obviously interested in meeting him and getting to know him, hence the claim that there is *no evidence* that she's interested is faulty, and the argument that faith is needed to assume this falls apart.

[darthbert]

The last line is problematic: One should believe in God, because of all the benefits that follow from it.

BiG: Belief in God Bn: Benefits

If one has BiG, then one will receive Bn.
Why should one have BiG? To acquire Bn.

I cannot maintain BiG when I know my motivation for doing so is the acquisition of Bn, and I am suspicious of anyone who can do that. Truth falls out, and it's merely believing for the treats those beliefs bestow.