Critique of Clifford’s Ethics of Belief According to the Principle of Moral Justice

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Authors

1 Associate professor, Tehran University, Pardis of Farabi, Iran, Qom

2 PhD student, philosophy of religion, Tehran University, Pardis of Farabi, Iran, Qom

Abstract

In this paper, we compare the use of a class of concepts in Clifford’s ethics of belief with their use in the ethics of beliefs provided by his intellectual rival, William James. The concepts include the moral justification of the norm of reason, epistemic justification of the norm of reason, credulity, the idea of acting upon probabilities, and acceptance of beliefs without reasons. We claim that although Clifford proposes the principle of maximal reasons – “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence” – as well as the criterion of verifiability, he does not himself act upon the principle, making use of concepts that push him towards the rival view. Thus, it can be said that we are faced with two Cliffords – extreme and modest – and two sorts of evidentialism – extreme and modest. We introduce the “principle of justice” as the internal feeling of fairness that has been formulated in terms of the Golden Rule – treat others as you wish to be treated and do not treat others as you do not wish to be treated –and then suggest that the system of the ethics of beliefs offered by the modest Clifford is a more just and fair ethics of beliefs.

Keywords

References

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