جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « ethics of belief » در نشریات گروه « فلسفه و کلام »

The question of religious belief and its rationality has become a serious issue in the philosophy of religion due to the claims of modern philosophers. One of the most controversial positions in this regard is evidentialism, which emphasizes that our beliefs should be accompanied by evidence and reasons. In modern times, Clifford, by introducing the idea of "the ethics of belief," advocated evidentialism in its most extreme form. William James, by emphasizing the role of will and emotions in the formation of belief, criticizes Clifford's theory and tries to defend the rationality of religious belief. This paper attempts to answer the question of how James, based on the same evidentialist principles of the evidentialists, criticizes Clifford. It also examines whether his view can respond to the criticisms raised. The aim is to analyze and evaluate James's approach to evidentialism from a non-fideistic perspective using a library-based research method. Considering James's views, especially in his essay "The Will to Believe," it can be concluded that his position in defending the rationality of religious belief against evidentialism is relatively coherent. According to William James, Clifford's evidentialist position is, contrary to its claim, irrational and dogmatic, and desire and will logically play a necessary role in truth-seeking.

Obligationism is one of the consequences of voluntary belief; therefore, the relationship between will and belief is of interest to epistemologists. The main question of this research is to investigate this relationship from William James' point of view, to determine whether from his point of view, non-cognitive factors are also effective in belief, and what effect human will and voluntary nature have on a person's beliefs. This study concluded that although William James disagreed with Clifford's command of direct voluntarism, he was a voluntarist himself. From his point of view, man’s emotional nature not only can, but must choose between hypotheses, and of course, this is only possible in the case of "genuine" choices. From James' point of view, previous acceptances, reputation, and authority of others; practical application of belief; and inclinations are effective in the will to believe. In contrast to Clifford, who did not believe in the belief without sufficient evidence, he believes that man should experience, repeat this experience, and reach the truth by thinking about the results obtained from these experiences. From his point of view, the role of will is prominent in ethics, and the will also plays a role in personal relationships. James believes that one’s prior tendencies and belief in reality play an active role in the realization of that reality.

In his theory of "the Ethics of Belief", William K. Clifford has gone to hold that anyone who believes something without enough supporting evidence has committed a moral fault. In this theory, Clifford has leveled the accusation of immorality against the religious people for their choice is not supported by enough evidence thus unknowingly. His theory came under various criticisms by many thinkers such as William James. The main objections leveled at this theory are: that it is not well-founded, that it is unduly and excessively generalized, that it has failed to consider all dimensions of human character, and the like.     In what follows, the authors have first explained and studied Clifford's theory, and then compared it to the teachings of the Qur'an. They have clarified that if the faith in a school or in a person is based on reasoning and understanding -as it is so in Islam and with many Muslims-, then Clifford theory will not be correct. Granted, as it were, Clifford's claim applied on some beliefs of some religious people considered thus immoral, the faith and doctrines of many Muslims rest on enough and strong evidence and reasoning, so they are morally right

Voluntarism and Evidentialism are two competing approaches to Ethics of Belief. Louis P. Pojman, the American contemporary philosopher, has taken a critical view toward these two approaches and proposed the theory of indirect prescriptive volunteerism.  Based on this theory, in belief formation, arguments are considered as important as background and contextual factors and rationality is considered the best criterion in evaluation of insufficient or conflicting evidence. Based on this sort of volunteerism, under specific conditions, it is morally permissible or even obligatory to defend a belief in spite of evidence pointing against it. In this article, an attempt is made to provide an accurate description of Pojman’s viewpoint concerning the ethics of belief, and an analysis of the theory and the conditions to be satisfied for a belief to be morally permissible based on volunteerism.

The term of ethics of belief is appeared for the first time in Clifford''s well-known essay by the same title in 1876. According to Clifford''s saying that became known afterwards as Clifford''s Credo or Principle «It is wrong always، everywhere، and for anyone، to believe anything upon insufficient evidence». This debate from the time of its presentation by Clifford has been the subject of different controversies. The main problem behind these controversies was that whether human beliefs are principally under the will of human beings to be evaluated morally or they are، like many of mental states، involuntary and passive and so excused of any moral evaluation. Some say that our beliefs are involuntary and are not under our control. In contrast، some believe in the impact of the will on our beliefs or the doxastic voluntarism. Depending on the amount of influence of the will on our beliefs، doxastic voluntarism is divided into two general kinds: direct voluntarism and indirect voluntarism. The doxastic voluntarism (direct/indirect)، on the other hand، can divide into descriptive voluntarism and normative voluntarism. In normative voluntarism، we can say about a kind of epistemic deontologism in our beliefs and it is this epistemic deontologism that entails the ethics of belief. In effect، only when we can say about the ethics of belief that we believe in the epistemic deontologism in our beliefs. Martyr Motahhari believes that the reasoning (ta‘aqqul) and the thinking (tafakkur) as mental actions are in direct control of our will. For him، there is a difference between opinion (‘aqida) and thinking (tafakkur). In his view، thinking is the opinion based on a rational process which can bring about the knowledge. Taking in consideration the process of forming knowledge from him، shows that he believes in a kind of epistemic deontologism. Thus he gives some advices about the ways of acquiring the knowledge that we can place them under the title ethics of belief such as avoidance of intellectual stagnation، distinguishing between belief and the owner of belief and like that.

The interaction of sciences has led to interdisciplinary sciences and to new problems dealt with in philosophy of science. Epistemology is one of the most fundamental sciences needed as an essential condition in any field of study. In some cases, however, there appear a special connection between epistemology and a certain field of study. The ethics of belief is one of the problems produced in the shadow of such connections. William Clifford in th century viewed any belief lacking of enough evidence to be ethically unacceptable. He published the view in an essay and, in this way, influenced contemporary epistemology. His approach gives epistemological discussions an ethical meaning. The paper has studied Clifford`s view critically.

There is no agreement about Pascal’s purpose of suggesting his “Wager.” Is Pascal after presenting a logical reason or merely invites others to his spiritual intimacy? Is his addressee Atheist or his purpse is strengthening Christian faith? What are the origins of “Pascal’s Wager”? In this paper, we try to describe Pascal’s sayings about his wager as far as possible and then, explecate contradictory interpretations about the wager through clarifying the above questions. Firstly, the Religious views about rationality are presented. Then, the historical roots, presumptions and premises of the wager are considered and analyses. After that, the main conflicting conceptions of rationality are recognized by means of considering the most important criticisms and interpretations of Pascal’s wager. Finally, we conclude that many objections to the wager have been raised from detaching its presumptions and premises from its conclusion.

One of the demonstrations presented to prove God’s existence and rationality of religious beliefs is known as ‘Pascal’s wager’. William James has reviewed this demonstration and has presented a new account of it. According to his opinion we do not always form and accept our beliefs based on mere rational reasons; rather in many cases our will and feelings determine the direction of our beliefs. He believes that religious beliefs are among these cases as well. Criticizing skepticism and suspension of propositions on religious beliefs, James believes although the questions and problems related to accepting or rejecting religious beliefs might be rationally unanswered and without a final response such that we cannot take a definite rational position about them, but in practice and considering our emotional needs and the demands of our willing and emotive nature, they are among genuine and real choices which are living, unavoidable and momentous and we cannot be indifferent to them; rather we should study them considering the needs of our emotive and willing nature, if they are in accordance with our wills and pleasures we should accept them and otherwise we should reject them. James’ view has been criticized. Some of the most important criticisms of William James’ account of ‘Pascal’s wager’ are as follows: having an instrumental look at truth, accepting cognitive volitionaism, contradiction in ethical objectivism, paying attention to the profit of this world and ambiguity of concepts such as emotion and feelings.