William Clifford The Ethics To Believe Analysis

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To Believe or Not?
W.K. Clifford, in "The Ethics to Believe", and William James, in "The Will to Believe", are engaged in a philosophical debate regarding whether or not it is morally acceptable to hold beliefs without sufficient evidence, in other words, faith – based beliefs. Clifford argues that it is always wrong to believe anything with insufficient evidence. The example he gives that shows how immoral a belief can be without evidence is about a shipowner and his ship and crew. In the story, the shipowner has doubts about his ship being seaworthy or not. Instead of getting it inspected, he ignores his doubts and convinces himself that the ship will be alright because it has come home safe so many times before. Well, the ship ends up sinking,
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Since this is a forced option, I will choose William James, in "The Will to Believe" over W.K. Clifford, in "The Ethics of Belief". I understand Clifford's side with him using those two examples showing that it is wrong to believe anything without sufficient evidence but, like James says, not all decisions are the same. They can be live or dead, forced or avoidable, momentous or trivial. Also, Clifford never used any religious examples with his argument, which maybe if he did, would of helped convince me to be on his side. Also, I think it's a little closed minded to say it is ALWAYS wrong to believe something without sufficient evidence. Furthermore, I appreciated the way James ended his essay. He said to choose what we will and our life is in our own hands. We shouldn't reject or insult other peoples' beliefs just because they are different from ours. So, now I'm going to end this essay with an example similar, to one James used in his essay. Hurricane Irma is on its way to South Florida. Last on the news, it was reported to be a category 4 hurricane. It is one of the most powerful storms ever recorded. I live in an evacuation zone, which is close to the water. They have announced a mandatory evacuation for zones a, b, and e. I live in e. Now the decision is to stay or to leave? Like James says, not making a decision and staying is the same as choosing to stay. So, like James choosing to believe in religion, or God, we are choosing to evacuate because like James, better safe than sorry.

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