Philo

Volume 7, Issue 1, Spring-Summer 2004

A Defense of the Ethics of Belief

This is an attempt to rehabilitate W. K. Clifford’s long-rejected position that “it is [morally] wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence.” I supplement Clifford’s own argument with two others. They are all valid. I argue for the truth of their premises. The premises in the arguments I use to supplement Clifford’s own are that we cannot believe purely at will; that we must choose among Cliffordianism, some other rule, and doxastic amoralism; that all other rules are self-subverting in that they can be used effectively at most once; and that a policy of doxastic amoralism has worse results overall than adherence to Cliffordianism. The upshot is that Cliffordianism is an irreducible analogue of rule utilitarianism. I look at some objections to Cliffordianism. I argue that none has merit. I point out that Cliffordianism provides something of a justification for legal freedom of conscience.