When reading Clifford’s position on Ethics of Beliefs i thought to myself two things. The first thought that came to mind was, “how is Clifford making his argument” or and recognizing his arguments. The second thought I had was how to relate the reading to our previous teachings on fallacies.
Well first i’d like to break down one of his arguments in standard form. I think one of Clifford’s biggest argument that was presented in the article was:
Premise 1: Unjust belief causes harm
Premise 2: All beliefs lead to action
Conclusion: a man should never take things as true based on having no evidence. A person who believes in “unjustified things” is All beliefs lead to action and an unjust belief causes harm.
“But,” says one, “I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of certain questions, or even able to understand the nature of the arguments. “ Then he should have no time to believe. This quote literally shocked me he basically mocks a man (or woman) who is unwilling to put in the effort to do research on a topic that the individuals so called chose to believe. He then stated that the individual should basically not believe.
I personally remember when i was a kid, i was gullible and believed everything my parents told me. When I was a kid i always wanted to go swimming. It didn’t matter if it was raining or a little chilly out i wanted to be in the water. My dad would always call me a fish. With that being said i remember going on vacation and asking my dad if i could go to the pool. I believe at the time i was around 3-4 years old and my dad had told me “no”. I of course couldn’t just take no for an answer so i then proceeded by asking him “why?” He then went on and said that the resort was filling the pool with sharks. I remember i was completely shocked and curious. I took what my father said and believed it. To me it was “sound” a shark swims in water and a pool is water therefore the shark was going in the pool. Now looking back i can clearly distinguish the fact that a shark would have no business being in a pool at a resort. Unless of course, it was Tiger Kings pool then maybe, lol.
My overall thought of Clifford’s argument is that yes people should not take everything a person says as truth. Yes, we should conduct our own research, so to speak. However, i also believe that there are certain things that people should be willing to believe without having to do the research. By doing so i believe it can prevent an individual from having to seek the repercussions of certain situations.
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