I. Clifford

 

A. Clifford

 

1) Note that Clifford says that the shipowner’s guilt would not have been different if the ship had sailed safely. Is he right about that?

I think that he is. Happening to get things right doesn’t affect the issue.

 

2) What is the status of the shipowner’s belief, given what Clifford says about his evidence?

It’s somewhat unclear, given that the past record does seem to support his belief. The case is somewhat murkier than Clifford’s writing suggests. But we can give him the point, perhaps.

 

3) What do you make of the example about the new religion? What is Clifford’s point here?”

His claim is that the beliefs of the accusers are wrong. Again, this is the case even if they are true. You could worry about exactly how the details of the case are supposed to work out. But let’s assume he’s right about this one also.

 

4) What’s the point of the section beginning with the thought that it is the action, not the belief, that is wrong? He says that this view is “right and necessary”. What’s right? He goes on to say that you can’t “sever” the belief from the action. But what does this mean?

 

5) There are claims about how uniformly awful believing on insufficient evidence is. Some remarkable claims:

a) Every belief has “some influence upon the actions of him who holds it.” If not directly, it affects the aggregate of beliefs.

 

b) No belief is a private matter.

 

c) No belief is “without its effect on the fate of mankind.”

 

6) See claim at very end of section I, and the argument preceding it. What’s the idea here?

 

7) Clifford’s principle - interpreting it; generalizing on it. Some questions:

 

a) Clifford restates his case for why it is always wrong in the middle of p. 3 - “And, as in other such cases...” Notice mix of “consequentialist” and “intrinsic” reasons given.

 

b) An argument: given the sorts of considerations Clifford mentions that make belief on insufficient evidence wrong, it is almost undeniable that there are situations in which these very kinds of factors are outweighed by comparable benefits of the belief. That’s the point of Examples 4.4 and 4.5. So: if we are talking about some sort of moral wrongness, and consequences determine it, then Clifford’s thesis is mistaken.

 

c) But I think that there is a notion of “epistemic wrongness”. And it is not a function of consequences (at least in any straightforward sense). It’s more a kind of “intrinsic” epistemic wrongness. From an epistemic perspective, belief on insufficient evidence just isn’t right. So this gives us another interpretation of the principle.

 

d) “Insufficient” also needs explanation. Notice that there’s a wholly trivial reading of the principle. One idea: sufficiency depends upon importance of related actions. First, consider Ex. 4.3. Another example: high stakes. But we don’t have to see it this way. Separate belief and action. Cf., you can believe that a defendant is guilty, but vote not to convict because the evidence isn’t strong enough.

 

e) Clifford’s discussion in Pt. I may lead you to think that his view is that “sufficient” evidence must be very strong. But what he says about testimony suggests otherwise. See conclusion, p. 6: “We are led, then ...” Note example that follows.

 

f) Going beyond experience: this will be a major topic for us in the coming weeks. Some things to notice at this point. i) End of 2^nd ¶ - “the question is not”; ii) Uniformity of nature

 

 

II. James

 

1) Key terms: option, living or dead, forced or unforced, momentous or trivial, genuine. See definitions in book. Note that for examples to work as he says, “options” have to be more than just hypotheses put forward for belief.

 

2) Is belief voluntary? Clifford writes as if it is. James takes up this topic in section II. What’s his conclusion? He goes through a variety of examples, discusses Pascal’s wager, mentions Clifford, and then says, in Section III, that the will is a “fifth wheel” in the matter of “credences.” So he seems to be denying freedom with respect to belief.

            But then he says that this is true only with respect to dead hypotheses.

            But by the end of this section his point seems to be that it is not “pure insight and logic” that determines our beliefs. This seems rather different from saying that it is a matter of will.

            For what it is worth: I think that we never believe something just because we choose to do it. But we can influence what we believe in certain indirect ways.

            It’s not entirely clear how this connects with Clifford’s thesis.

 

3) James’s key claim comes in section IV, the italicized sentence. He seems to say that when there is a genuine option that cannot be decided on intellectual grounds (i.e., evidence), then it is not wrong to form a belief on non-intellectual grounds. So such cases would constitute a counterexample to Clifford’s thesis. Emphasize: if there are intellectually undecidable genuine options, then Clifford is wrong.

 

4) Are there any situations of the sort James envisions? He seems to say that scientific issues do not present genuine options. He suggests that there are these:

 

a) moral questions

b) personal relations

c) religious questions

 

5) Are these forced options? Consider the following option:

 

            Believe: God exists

            Believe: God does not exist.

 

Does this case refute Clifford? No, because it isn’t forced. You can suspend judgment. Can we create a forced decision?

 

            Believe: God exists

            Do not believe: God exists.

 

This option is forced, but it isn’t relevant because the evidence (even if counterbalanced) decides the issue. If the evidence is counterbalanced, then you do not believe . . . you suspend judgment. Suspending judgment is one way of not believing.

 

We could rephrase this as a three-way option:

 

            Believe: God exists

            Disbelieve: God exists

            Suspend Judgment: God exists

 

This is forced, but it is clearly decidable on intellectual grounds. There does not seem to be a case of the sort James wants.

 

6) James’ Reply

One thing James tried to say is that suspending judgment is really the same as believing that God doesn’t exist. This would make the original example forced, after all.

 

He uses an analogy with action: you can choose to marry, or choose not to marry. Hesitating forever is the same as choosing not to marry. Maybe the same is true of belief.

 

However, it isn’t the same as belief. Suspending judgment is a real third option, and it is not the same as disbelief. When you disbelieve, you believe the negation. When you suspend judgment, you don’t have a belief at all. (Suppose I do suspend belief . . . is that the same as believing both?) In marriage, there are really only two end states. But in the belief example there are three.

 

 

 

 

 

7) I cannot find in this any good objection to Clifford’s rule. Even if there is some value in picking a side in the kind of case James describes, I do not see that there is epistemic justification for the belief that is selected.

 

8) Conclusion: if Clifford’s thesis is about morality, then it is mistaken. That’s the point of the examples about the athletes, the patients. The main idea is that even if believing on insufficient evidence does cause credulity and the like, it can have compensating benefits that make it ok in some cases.

            If Clifford’s thesis is about epistemology, then it seems ok. James’ examples don’t refute it.