Chapter 6. Democracy’s Ethics of Belief

In Our Name ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 142-165
Keyword(s):  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 387-399
Author(s):  
Jonathan Adler

James’ The Will to Believe is the most influential writing in the ethics of belief. In it, James defends the right and rationality to believe on non-evidential grounds. James’ argument is directed against Clifford’s “Evidentialism” presented in The Ethics of Belief in which Clifford concludes that “[i]t is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence”. After an overview of the James-Clifford exchange and James’ argument, I reconstruct his argument in detail. Subsequently, I examine four steps in James’ argument, and try to show that these amount to fallacies – enticing to reason, but not cogent.


Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publication offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading epistemologists in North America, Europe and Australasia, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include: (a) traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of skepticism, the nature of the a priori, etc.; (b) new developments in epistemology, including movements such as naturalized epistemology, feminist epistemology, social epistemology, and virtue epistemology, and approaches such as contextualism; (c) foundational questions in decision-theory; (d) confirmation theory and other branches of philosophy of science that bear on traditional issues in epistemology; (e) topics in the philosophy of perception relevant to epistemology; (f) topics in cognitive science, computer science, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology that bear directly on traditional epistemological questions; and (g) work that examines connections between epistemology and other branches of philosophy, including work on testimony, the ethics of belief, etc. Topics addressed in volume 6 include the nature of perceptual justification, intentionality, modal knowledge, credences, epistemic supererogation, epistemic and rational norms, expressivism, skepticism, and pragmatic encroachment. The various writers make use of a variety of different tools and insights, including those of formal epistemology and decision theory, as well as traditional philosophical analysis and argumentation.


Ethics ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-166
Author(s):  
Peter Kauber
Keyword(s):  

Ratio ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-159
Author(s):  
Nicholas Nathan

1991 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-156
Author(s):  
Winfred George Phillips

In Brand Blanshard's major defence of reason in religion, Reason and Belief, he criticizes both Roman Catholics and Protestants for advocating contradictory theological doctrines and for believing beyond what the evidence supports. Claiming belief to be an ethical matter, with one morally responsible for one's religious beliefs, he holds that one is morally obligated in such metaphysical matters to believe only what the evidence warrants. Blanshard finds that religious beliefs typically fail to meet the standard of this ethics of belief, and thus his ethics appears inhospitable to religious belief.


1999 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 1105
Author(s):  
M. Jamie Ferreira ◽  
Nicholas Wolterstorff

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