Clifford & James

W.K. Clifford

Shipowner example: I [ship sinks]

Shipowner example: II [ship sails safely]

"...if the belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence, the pleasure is a stolen one. Not only does it deceive ourselves by giving us a sense of power which we do not really possess, but it is sinful because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such beliefs as from a pestilence, which may shortly master our own body and then spread to the rest of the town. "

[I]t is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence.

William James

Definitions:

• hypothesis--anything proposed for belief
• live hypothesis--appeals as a real possibility

• dead hypothesis--has no appeal
• option--a decision between two hypotheses

• living--both hypotheses are live
• dead--at least one hypothesis is dead

• forced--you must choose one
• avoidable--you need not choose

• momentous--what you choose makes a difference to your life
• trivial--what you choose doesn't make a difference to your life

  genuine option--a living, forced, momentous option

The Doctrine of the Will to Believe:

Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds.

Intellectual duties:

• believe truths
• avoid falsehoods

Betting strategies:

• win lots of bets
• don't lose many bets

Criticisms:

(1) James' distinction between the two epistemic injunctions is irrelevant to his doctrine of the will to believe, and

(2) James' real disagreement with Clifford is not over whether we should emphasize one principle over the other but over whether the religious option is forced.

(See George Mavrodes, "James and Clifford on the Will to Believe," The Personalist 44 (1963).)

Corresponding to these three attitudes are three religious positions:

Last updated August 2006 by Edward Wierenga
Copyright © 2006 Edward Wierenga