The Ethics of Belief

[ark]

"The Ethics of Belief" - Part 3:

It may be said, however, that in both of these supposed cases it is not the belief which is judged to be wrong, but the action following upon it. The shipowner might say, “I am perfectly certain that my ship is sound, but still I feel it my duty to have her examined, before trusting the lives of so many people to her.” And it might be said to the agitator, “However convinced you were of the justice of your cause and the truth of your convictions, you ought not to have made a public attack upon any man’s character until you had examined the evidence on both sides with the utmost patience and care.”

In the first place, let us admit that, so far as it goes, this view of the case is right and necessary; right, because even when a man’s belief is so fixed that he cannot think otherwise, he still has a choice in regard to the action suggested by it, and so cannot escape the duty of investigating on the ground of the strength of his convictions; and necessary, because those who are not yet capable of controlling their feelings and thoughts must have a plain rule dealing with overt acts.

But this being premised as necessary, it becomes clear that it is not sufficient, and that our previous judgment is required to supplement it. For it is not possible so to sever the belief from the action it suggests as to condemn the one without condemning the other. No man holding a strong belief on one side of a question, or even wishing to hold a belief on one side, can investigate it with such fairness and completeness as if he were really in doubt and unbiassed; so that the existence of a belief not founded on fair inquiry unfits a man for the performance of this necessary duty.

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it. He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart. If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. It goes to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action at every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that no part of it can be isolated from the rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of the whole. No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may some day explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever.

And no one man’s belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone. Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handed on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

 

[Joe]

The story about the ship builder makes me wonder if the very same thought process was followed by the people who last examined the bridge over the Mississippi that collapsed last week causing the death of 8 people.

While it was not mentioned, it also occurred to me that after the ship sank, the ship builder very probably went through a process of justifying to himself that he was not really responsible for the deaths of the sailors. This process of justification is exactly the same in nature as the process he went through in deciding not to do the repairs to the ship in the first place. Basically, it was a reliance on subjective internal fantasy-world musings.

Most people live their lives engaging in this kind of daydreaming, but for the vast majority it results in corrective "punishment" in the form of pain and suffering of some degree as one illusion comes into conflict with another or some immutable universal law (such as gravity) intrudes. That is not to say however that this punishment always or even usually results in the person giving up daydreaming and embracing objective reality, because in the case of a clash of illusions, a fight often ensues with one person successfully, in part or in whole, forcing the other to accept his version of "reality". In the case of the clash being with disembodied objective reality, the person can simply pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on as if nothing happened, but taking careful note to avoid that particular area in the future.

Laura quoted De Rood as saying that those who spend a lifetime seeking and ultimately finding the truth and being set free by it have payed the heavy price of sacrificing their illusions, and having done so they are from then on unable to ignore the truth in all things.

There are also those however who spend their lives seeking after ways to 'objectify' (as in make objectively real) their own illusions rather than seeking the pre-existent objective Truth. To do this, these people also must sacrifice something significant to attain the ability to freely give vent to their subjectivism and convince themselves that they are indeed creators of their own reality, a reality into which the truth cannot penetrate. Such people must sacrifice any essence of objective truth that existed within them, they must finally and totally extinguish it. In doing so, such people end up being unable to ever acknowledge the truth over their own illusions. Indeed, to such people, the truth is the enemy and just as they extinguished all traces of it within themselves, they now must seek to extinguish all trace of the truth in their sphere of influence, which in the case of the controllers of society, is usually very a wide sphere indeed. This must be done if their subjectivism is to reign supreme.

The laws that govern a society are supposedly meant to act as a bulwark against the rampant acting out of subjectivity on the part of the people, and represent an objective reality or truth. It is these laws that are tasked with meting out corrective punishments when subjective delusionists go too far. Corrective punishment can be circumvented entirely however if a society, or those that make the laws, have themselves lost all sense of reality or allegiance to the truth and embraced illusion in general or a specific form of illusion. But to avoid the punishment, a person must align themselves with the lawmakers or controllers of society and the particular details of their subjectivism. For example, lawmakers or controllers of a society could be under the delusion that they are in some way superior to others and that all others are "useless eaters". Any subjectivist candidate seeking to avoid corrective punishment for the outplaying of his narcissistic illusions must show, by his commitment to the lawmakers particular 'flavor' of illusion, that he is worthy of special status. He then enters the elite club and his love of the lie makes him a useful addition in creating the lawmakers version of reality in society.

The extent to which certain people are able to follow this path and ignore the intrusions of reality is perhaps relative to the level to which they abuse others in their lives, because for such people those others, whether they represent the truth or their own particular illusions, must be forced to acknowledge and accept the "reality" of the 'super-subjectivists', those with the will and power to impose their illusions on others. A contemporary example of such types is the Washington Neocons who speak of "reality creation", or Condi Rice who last year was "birthing" a whole new Middle East all by herself, the millions of people with different beliefs or an awareness of the actual truth, and the actual truth itself be damned.

So if objective reality and truth were MEANT to be represented by certain inhabitants of planet earth as a corrective force to the mass of normal human beings' tendency to subjectivism, and if this role has been subverted by a group of super-subjectivist law makers, who then will represent objective reality here? Does the act of subversion of the role of representation of objective reality by the lawmakers mean that objective reality now no longer exists for planet earth? Have we been abandoned by the objective universe? Are we all doomed to suffer for ever under the delusional whims of continuous generations of super subjectivist lawmakers? Have the super insane really taken over the asylum with no one left outside, anywhere, to give orders? If not, and if universal truth also exists beyond little 'ol planet earth and has some way of manifesting itself, how might a world caught in the grip of a gang of powerful subjectivists be reminded of the fact, and balance restored?

Joe

 

[ark]

The Ethics of Belief - Part 4

In the two supposed cases which have been considered, it has been judged wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, or to nourish belief by suppressing doubts and avoiding investigation. The reason of this judgment is not far to seek: it is that in both these cases the belief held by one man was of great importance to other men. But forasmuch as no belief held by one man, however seemingly trivial the belief, and however obscure the believer, is ever actually insignificant or without its effect on the fate of mankind, we have no choice but to extend our judgment to all cases of belief whatever. Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves, but for humanity. It is rightly used on truths which have been established by long experience and waiting toil, and which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning. Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and direct their common action. It is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of the believer; to add a tinsel splendour to the plain straight road of our life and display a bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown the common sorrows of our kind by a self-deception which allows them not only to cast down, but also to degrade us. Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.

It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which comes out of it is often a very bitter thing. It leaves us bare and powerless where we thought that we were safe and strong. To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances. We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn. And if we have supposed ourselves to know all about anything, and to be capable of doing what is fit in regard to it, we naturally do not like to find that we are really ignorant and powerless, that we have to begin again at the beginning, and try to learn what the thing is and how it is to be dealt with—if indeed anything can be learnt about it. It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting.

 

[Ruth]

All comfortably ignorant on a generous welfare system or comfortable numb on a daily grind.(in Australia anyway)

By the way g`day.:)

G'day to you too! I think you may be describing 1/2 of the worlds population, both Australian and others. The other half (the ones that have any ability to 'see' at all), perfer to reside in a 'mental space' where everything is joy, happiness and (usually) nonsense.

Happy, happy, joy, joy stuff. I've even had a family member that they'd rather be looking at this stuff than any other side of reality. Its completely unbalanced, of course.

There's a lot about Bob Dylan in the media at the moment. And it struck me as strange that there are no 'protests' like there used to be in the 60s.

But I've 'sailed' a bit off topic here, sorry Ark. I don't think I would have been much good at philosophy.

 

[T.C.]

The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evidence as was before him.

I agree.

If the ship owner had done everything he could to make sure the ship was safe, then he would be more justified in his belief that it wouldn't sink.

If the ship then sunk anyway, it wouldn't have been his fault.

So it's not the outcome that's the problem, it's whether or not he had a right to believe what he believed.

T.C.

 

[T.C.]

Just in case part two doesn't appear, here it is:

The Ethics of Belief - Part 2

There was once an island in which some of the inhabitants professed a religion teaching neither the doctrine of original sin nor that of eternal punishment. A suspicion got abroad that the professors of this religion had made use of unfair means to get their doctrines taught to children. They were accused of wresting the laws of their country in such a way as to remove children from the care of their natural and legal guardians; and even of stealing them away and keeping them concealed from their friends and relations. A certain number of men formed themselves into a society for the purpose of agitating the public about this matter. They published grave accusations against individual citizens of the highest position and character, and did all in their power to injure these citizens in their exercise of their professions. So great was the noise they made, that a Commission was appointed to investigate the facts; but after the Commission had carefully inquired into all the evidence that could be got, it appeared that the accused were innocent. Not only had they been accused on insufficient evidence, but the evidence of their innocence was such as the agitators might easily have obtained, if they had attempted a fair inquiry. After these disclosures the inhabitants of that country looked upon the members of the agitating society, not only as persons whose judgment was to be distrusted, but also as no longer to be counted honourable men. For although they had sincerely and conscientiously believed in the charges they had made, yet they had no right to believe on such evidence as was before them. Their sincere convictions, instead of being honestly earned by patient inquiring, were stolen by listening to the voice of prejudice and passion.

Let us vary this case also, and suppose, other things remaining as before, that a still more accurate investigation proved the accused to have been really guilty. Would this make any difference in the guilt of the accusers? Clearly not; the question is not whether their belief was true or false, but whether they entertained it on wrong grounds. They would no doubt say, “Now you see that we were right after all; next time perhaps you will believe us.” And they might be believed, but they would not thereby become honourable men. They would not be innocent, they would only be not found out. Every one of them, if he chose to examine himself in foro conscientiae, would know that he had acquired and nourished a belief, when he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him; and therein he would know that he had done a wrong thing.

 

[Saman]

[...]

The Ethics of Belief

I. THE DUTY OF INQUIRY

A SHIPOWNER was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not over-well built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.
[...]

Here is what I think. He had a rigid belief based not only on information from the past rather then both the past and the present, but also because of greed, and because of this, he chose to wishfully think--due to his greed of wanting to save money--that he could actually put his trust in so called Providence solely based on the past recorded states and journeys of his ship. He did not choose to consider the actual present and depreciated state of his ship due many years of seafaring voyages. So because of this he did not have a fluid belief based on both the past AND present states of his ship, which would allow him to make a more probable approximation of its state in the future. Because of his greed, he had 'blinkers' on that were directed towards the past and thus they blinded him to the present and future state of his ship. This is why he chose to not do a thorough overhaul and refitting of his ship for the sake of its passengers; he was seeing reality through 'blinkers' of greed and hence instead bought insurance for the material safety of his own assets! A very STS type of "Providence" indeed in my opinion.

 

[Quitintyme]

The Ethics of Belief - Part 4

In the two supposed cases which have been considered, it has been judged wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, or to nourish belief by suppressing doubts and avoiding investigation. The reason of this judgment is not far to seek: it is that in both these cases the belief held by one man was of great importance to other men. But forasmuch as no belief held by one man, however seemingly trivial the belief, and however obscure the believer, is ever actually insignificant or without its effect on the fate of mankind, we have no choice but to extend our judgment to all cases of belief whatever. Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves, but for humanity. It is rightly used on truths which have been established by long experience and waiting toil, and which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning. Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and direct their common action. It is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of the believer; to add a tinsel splendour to the plain straight road of our life and display a bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown the common sorrows of our kind by a self-deception which allows them not only to cast down, but also to degrade us. Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.

It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which comes out of it is often a very bitter thing. It leaves us bare and powerless where we thought that we were safe and strong. To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances. We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn. And if we have supposed ourselves to know all about anything, and to be capable of doing what is fit in regard to it, we naturally do not like to find that we are really ignorant and powerless, that we have to begin again at the beginning, and try to learn what the thing is and how it is to be dealt with—if indeed anything can be learnt about it. It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting.

This is my first real attempt at posting anything, so I hope it comes out ok. I have many fears and blocks that I am attempting to overcome, especially about posting.

I have always had this conviction(don't know if that is the right word) in my self to seek the truth, to question everything. When I was still very young I was very inquisitive and questioned many things. Especially things about God. Things I was told, things that were explained to me by adults in "authority" (ie. parents/peers/leaders) would sometimes/often cause a "feeling" inside of me that what was given as the truth wasn't correct. Somehow, something inside of me just "knew" that it wasn't right. There would be a "bad taste in my mouth" about the explanation, so I would continue asking questions about the subject/object from different "authorities". As I got older and learned more lessons in life I realized that adults may try to explain things to a child according to the child's level of understanding, and/or sometimes just to have "fun" with the child's ignorance of the truth. The later example is still unacceptable to me. I had a really hard time trying to understand WHY people lie through their teeth when asked for the truth. I couldn't understand why everyone didn't feel the need/duty to give the truth, in full and without bias when asked for it. It took me a long time and many lessons to see the truth of that matter, that people live in their lies and beliefs very comfortably, and my questioning/seeking the truth from them was truly blocked. They do not feel this duty to the truth.
After much reading and investigating, through this forum especially in the last bunch of years, I "believe" I have finally found some other people who also feel this duty to the truth. To find it, to learn it, and to know it. THEN to act on it, to truly share these discovered truths with others who are honestly seeking answers.

I find it difficult to Believe anything anyone proclaims to be the truth,on said person's authority. After lots of experience in SEEing that I was not being given the TRUTH. I cannot accept "it" as true without much investigation and seeking about that proclaimed truth, before that proclamation can be "believed" as the truth by me. I must suspend my judgment about a thing that I may "believe" to be important information, until I can find and SEE the whole picture of the subject/object in question. (of course I can't say always).

If I don't listen to that inner "feeling", that inner "knowing" that what the truth of the matter is, has been obtained, then I have a "feeling" that something is wrong/off/hidden or something like that. I do have many beliefs, I'm sure, that I have accepted under the "authority" of the source of the answers to my questions. But, it is difficult for me to accept their "truth", in full, as given, without some length of investigation of that authority itself. Its/his/her motives can skew the answers very much. Their answer may have nothing to do with the truth of the matter, but only their beliefs and guesses and interpretations of yet other "authorities". It truly is my duty to seek out the truth of the mater when said truth impacts everyone's life in very broad ways, not just mine. I need to see the whole picture before I can "judge" something as right or wrong, true/fact or lie/belief.

Only recently, through reading and contemplation of things discussed by this forum, have I come to more and more realizations about myself and the world. That nothing in and of itself is all good or all bad, black and white thinking. Nor are people all good or all bad. Not only are there "shades of gray" in all situations, but in all people's perceptions of each situation based upon their "beliefs". People/situations cannot be judged as good or bad on their actions alone, but including their state of mind, their beliefs, their awareness of and understanding of the truth(not that such doesn't make them guilty). I don't "believe" that everyone has/or should have a sense of Duty to the Truth that I have, but that doesn't make those people Judged as bad people. I see them as comfortably asleep in their dream reality and who am I to poke that sleeping tiger. I do believe that my desire for the truth cannot really be shared by/with those who are comfortable in their lies. It is a waste of energy. Possibly if someone were to be uncomfortable enough in that dream to try to escape the matrix and start seeking the truth for themselves and to start fighting against that inner predator...possibly then they can start to develop and nourish that duty to truth.

 

[Atreides]

It is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of the believer; to add a tinsel splendour to the plain straight road of our life and display a bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown the common sorrows of our kind by a self-deception which allows them not only to cast down, but also to degrade us.

In this I would have to dissent, and while I have some small issues with many other points, for instance his example cases are extraordinary in their lack of utility on the topic of belief, on this one point he is simply being flippant or possibly cruel. The removal of belief cannot remove tragedy, the same for faith or hope or whatever you wish to discuss in somewhat religious matters. I can imagine a woman bereft of her child. Who is hurt if she believes her child in heaven? Perhaps she even has in her mind a fantasy of her child grown, and married, and happy and fulfilled in heaven? Really, shall we then say that the solace and private pleasure of the believer is somehow unethical, immoral, or bad? Doesn't this somehow banalize the concept of bad, or wrong, or unethical, or immoral or any term you wish to use?

Now, if some atheist, or scientist or moralist or whatever is prepared to return the child to life, we can discuss the practical ethics of such a belief, but Clifford is doing no such thing. The only time a person counts on belief is when he has nothing else to count on. The ship owner would not have done what he was hypothetically made to do. If he could afford to do otherwise he wouldn't risk all to avoid a legitimate cost. If he cannot afford to do a thing, perhaps he is bad for not doing it, but don't claim he did it for belief, that's incredible. Greed, or poverty, or incompetence are not belief.

It is wrong, the nineteenth-century British mathematician
W. K. Clifford affirmed, “always, everywhere, and for anyone,
to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” I am
guessing that Clifford believed what he wrote, but what evidence
he had for his belief, he did not say.

Something like Clifford’s injunction functions as the prem -
ise in a popular argument for the inexistence of God. If God
exists, then his existence is a scientific claim, no different in
kind from the claim that there is tungsten to be found in Ber -
muda. We cannot have one set of standards for tungsten and
another for the Deity. If after scouring Bermuda for tungsten,
we cannot find any of the stuff, then we give up on the claim.
By parity of reasoning, if it is wrong to believe anything upon
insufficient evidence, and if there is insufficient evidence for
the existence of God, then it must be wrong to be lieve in his
existence.

There remains the obvious question: By what standards
might we determine that faith in science is reasonable, but that
faith in God is not? It may well be that “religious faith,” as
the philosopher Robert Todd Carroll has written, “is contrary
to the sum of evidence,” but if religious faith is found wanting,
it is reasonable to ask for a restatement of the rules by
which “the sum of evidence” is computed. Like the Ten Commandments,
they are difficult to obey but easy to forget. I have
forgotten them already.

Perhaps this is because there are no such rules. The concept
of sufficient evidence is infinitely elastic. It depends on
context. Taste plays a role, and so does intuition, intellectual
sensibility, a kind of feel for the shape of the subject, a desire to
be provocative, a sense of responsibility, caution, experience,
and much besides. Evidence in the court of public opinion is
not evidence in a court of law. A community of Cistercian
monks padding peacefully from their garden plots to their
chapel would count as evidence matters that no physicist
should care to judge. What a physicist counts as evidence is
not what a mathematician generally accepts.
Evidence in engineering has little to do with evidence in art,
and while everyone can agree that it is wrong to go off half-baked,
half-cocked, or half-right, what counts as being baked, cocked,
or right is simply too variable to suggest a plausible general principle.

When a general principle is advanced, it collapses quickly
into absurdity. Thus Sam Harris argues that “to believe that
God exists is to believe that I stand in some relation to his
existence such that his existence is itself the reason for my belief ”
(italics added). This sounds very much as if belief in God could only be
justified if God were to call attention conspicuously to Himself, say by a
dramatic waggling of the divine fingers.

If this is so, then by parity of reasoning again, one might
argue that to believe that neutrinos have mass is to believe
that I stand in some relationship to their mass such that their
mass is itself the reason for my belief.

Just how are those neutrinos waggling their fingers?

A neutrino by itself cannot function as a reason for my belief.
It is a subatomic particle, for heaven’s sake. What I believe
is a proposition, and so an abstract entity—that neutrinos have
mass. How could a subatomic particle enter into a relationship
with the object of my belief? But neither can a neutrino be the
cause of my belief. I have, after all, never seen a neutrino: not
one of them has ever gotten me to believe in it. The neutrino,
together with almost everything else, lies at the end of an immense
inferential trail, a complicated set of judgments.

Believing as I do that neutrinos have mass—it is one of my
oldest and most deeply held convictions—I believe what I do
on the basis of the fundamental laws of physics and a congeries
of computational schemes, algorithms, specialized programming
languages, techniques for numerical integration,
huge canned programs, computer graphics, interpolation methods,
nifty shortcuts, and the best efforts by mathematicians
and physicists to convert the data of various experiments into
coherent patterns, artfully revealing symmetries and continuous
narratives. The neutrino has nothing to do with it.

Within mathematical physics, the theory determines the
evidence, and not the other way around. What sense could
one make of the claim that top quarks exist in the absence of
the Standard Model of particle physics?

A thirteenth-century cleric unaccountably persuaded of their
existence and babbling rapturously of quark confinement would have faced
then the question that all religious believers now face: Show
me the evidence. Lacking access to the very considerable
apparatus needed to test theories in particle physics, it is a
demand he could not have met.

In the face of experience, W. K. Clifford’s asseveration
must be seen for what it is: a moral principle covering only
the most artificial of cases.

The existence of God is not one of them.

 

[Divide by Zero]

Now, if some atheist, or scientist or moralist or whatever is prepared to return the child to life, we can discuss the practical ethics of such a belief, but Clifford is doing no such thing. The only time a person counts on belief is when he has nothing else to count on. The ship owner would not have done what he was hypothetically made to do. If he could afford to do otherwise he wouldn't risk all to avoid a legitimate cost. If he cannot afford to do a thing, perhaps he is bad for not doing it, but don't claim he did it for belief, that's incredible. Greed, or poverty, or incompetence are not belief.

I agree with that distinction on when to depend on belief.

In science, where there are measurable things, belief should not be a part of it. But for some reason, those scientists and engineers fall back to belief as an excuse, like in the case of the ship builder. Had he been honest, he would say that yes, he cut corners and ignored things to "get things done". As Laura wrote, he stifled doubt and reframed that as a belief that was a lie!

Science likes to do this half assed judgement of things it doesn't understand and then apply it to everything, like some formula. I'm reminded of game theory, which only applied to psychopaths and economists. Blind intellectualism!

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=Atreides]
In this I would have to dissent, and while I have some small issues with many other points, for instance his example cases are extraordinary in their lack of utility on the topic of belief, on this one point he is simply being flippant or possibly cruel. The removal of belief cannot remove tragedy, the same for faith or hope or whatever you wish to discuss in somewhat religious matters. I can imagine a woman bereft of her child. Who is hurt if she believes her child in heaven? Perhaps she even has in her mind a fantasy of her child grown, and married, and happy and fulfilled in heaven? Really, shall we then say that the solace and private pleasure of the believer is somehow unethical, immoral, or bad?
[/quote]


In the example of a woman who has lost her child, simply knocking down the fantasy because there is no reason to hold such a belief would be cruel from the feeling perspective. Sometimes being right and being helpful can be at odds with each other. Then, one could choose one or the other; or be open to a third way which would reconcile the opposites.

Maybe most people are aware of this story of Buddha and Kisa

_http://path.homestead.com/kisagotami.html

Kisa Gotami lived in Savatthi. She married a rich young man and a son was born to them. The son died when he was a toddler and Kisa Gotami was stricken with grief. Carrying her dead son, she went everywhere asking for medicine to restore her son to life. People thought she had gone mad. But a wise man seeing her pathetic condition, decided to send her to the Buddha.

He advised her: "Sister, the Buddha is the person you should approach. He has the medicine you want. Go to him."

Thus she went to the Buddha and asked him to give her the medicine that would restore her dead son to life. The Buddha told her to get some mustard seeds from a home where there had been no death. Overjoyed at the prospect of having her son restored to life, Kisa Gotami ran from house to house, begging for some mustard seeds. Everyone was willing to help but she could not find a single home where death had not occurred. The people were only too willing to part with their mustard seeds, but they could not claim to have not lost a dear one in death. As the day dragged on, she realised hers was not the only family that had faced death and that there were more people dead than living. As soon as she realised this, her attitude towards her dead son changed; she was no longer attached to the dead body of her son and she realised how simply the Buddha had taught her a most important lesson: that everything that is born must eventually die.

This story may well be a myth. Myths are usually exaggerated. But it illustrates a point. I could say that in the story giving the poor woman the run-around can be considered cruel. But she was already running around and her adaptation to reality was severely compromised. So in this case, a repudiation of her belief that her son could be restored was good.

In the case where a woman believes her deceased son is living in heaven, I would ask the question whether this belief significantly impairs her adaptation to reality. Does she spend time locked up in her room communicating constantly with her dead son? Does she uncritically take whatever advice she gets from her son in heaven and runs her life based on such advice? If so, then the belief is harming her and it needs some gentle intervention.

[quote author=Atreides]
Now, if some atheist, or scientist or moralist or whatever is prepared to return the child to life, we can discuss the practical ethics of such a belief, but Clifford is doing no such thing. The only time a person counts on belief is when he has nothing else to count on. The ship owner would not have done what he was hypothetically made to do. If he could afford to do otherwise he wouldn't risk all to avoid a legitimate cost. If he cannot afford to do a thing, perhaps he is bad for not doing it, but don't claim he did it for belief, that's incredible. Greed, or poverty, or incompetence are not belief.
[/quote]

I am not so sure that we count on belief only when all other avenues are exhausted. Maybe it ought to be that way - but in reality may not be so. I understand belief as a set of mental constructs which are inherited (parents/society/culture) and built up through education and life experiences. They are useful in specific contexts. One criterion for usefulness can be adaptation to reality. This is analogous to the psychological view about projections and how to deal with them. There is empirical evidence to believe that humans project qualities and characteristics on others much like hanging a coat on a hook. The recipient of projection provides some hook on which the coat is hung. Saying we should not project or take back all projections is somewhat impractical like saying it is wrong to live with insufficiently examined beliefs. Talking about projections and taking them back makes sense when there is reason to suspect that development is impaired because of them. So with beliefs - we can hold them as long as they do not impair adaptation to reality and its progressive development to higher levels.

OSIT

 

[mkrnhr]

Belief is not good nor bad in itself, it depends on how, and why it occurs, and to what result. Very often people oppose scientific inquiry to belief but belief ultimately is inescapable. The basic assumption of science is that patterns in nature will reproduce again under the same circumstances, and that our experience of reality is close enough to reality, or at least a useful representation of it. One can of course speculate about the reality or not of personal and shared perceptions, but certain assumptions must be made in order to keep living. The other option will be an infinite series of "what if". One always pushes forward the limits of knowledge, updating previous assumptions (or beliefs) if necessary. What would be pathological is to be so rigid about those assumptions as to not allow them to evolve as new experiences come along.

Theists believe that everything is ruled by the laws of god, and atheists believe that everything is ruled by the laws of nature. And funnily enough, each group, especially the latter, defines itself relatively to the other. Even when atheism didn't exist as a defined doctrine, the acestors of modern theists defined themselves as monotheists relatively to polytheists, etc. Whatever a belief is, the question would be whether that belief is beneficial to a certain individual within a certain context in his/her life, as well as whether it is beneficial to society and life in general. Belief is not an ontological category (what is!) but an epistemological one and by such, it is intimately dependant upon perception. Whether that perception is adaptive enough to come into alignment with truth is probably what matters the most.

 

[Laura]

Years ago when I was doing hypnotherapy, a friend of mine told me about a friend of hers who needed help desperately. I met the woman and her problem was this: about five years previously, her nine year old son had been killed by a hit and run driver while the child was riding his bicycle on the road that passed in front of their house. This woman was either a Jehovah's Witness or 7th Day Adventist (don't remember which, but one of the two) and had been induced to believe that there was no heaven until the last resurrection, and in any case, her son had not been "saved" or whatever, thus was not entitled to participate. I'm not even sure of the details any more but what I do remember is the incredible grief this belief was causing the poor woman. My friend had told her that I did "past life regressions" and that what she had been taught by her religion was not true based on the evidence, so she wanted to talk to me about it.

So, we talked for a long time. I gave her some books to read that discussed the evidence for reincarnation, and she was enormously comforted and able to get on with her life which had basically stopped for the previous years.

Along the same line, there are the many instances I've encountered while doing hypnotherapy of "attached" entities that get into that situation MAINLY because of their beliefs about what will happen at/after death. At one point, I became rather angry that these beliefs about heaven, hell, god, etc, were being propagated and causing so much suffering both for the living and the dead.

 

[Divide by Zero]

When I think of beliefs trapping souls or consciousness, it seems like a feedback loop.

It reminds me of Inception, where the protagonist seemed to "incept" himself into a dream while ignoring the doubts and inner compass that might have made him see reality.

Those poor souls stuck in some dream because of a lie that feeds itself.

 

[Ruth]

I would like to discuss here the views of William Kingdon Clifford, 1845-1879, mathematian and philosopher, as expressed in his essay: "The Ethics of Belief". I will post the essay in parts, so that each part can be discussed separately.

Thus comes part one:

The Ethics of Belief

I. THE DUTY OF INQUIRY

A SHIPOWNER was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not over-well built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it.

Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not unsound after all; that she made her voyage safely, and many others after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her owner? Not one jot. When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. The man would not have been innocent, he would only have been not found out. The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evidence as was before him.

I wasn't aware that beliefs had ethics!! So this is a very interesting idea to me. And I must claim to be very ignorant about what ethics is, too. But that won't stop me having an opinion. :D So please take with a grain of salt.

Beliefs - to me - are nebulous, changeable things, that unless they have a function, or a put into action, or have a consequence, then how can they be subject to ethical scrutiny? They are just "there" in the ether, doing nothing much at all. It's when those beliefs precipitate actions and have consequences that they (should?) be subject to ethical scrutiny? Ok, so that's probably a very legal way of looking at it, rather than an ethical way.

The ship owner failed to inquire, as a reasonable person in his position has a duty to do, about the safety of his ship. That is the first problem. If he had inquired, and I mean professionally inquired, (not just asked the tuck-shop lady, or the window cleaner for their opinion) and it had come back negative towards safety, and still he did nothing, then he is also responsible. If he had been deliberately deceived into thinking his ship was seaworthy when it wasn't and acted on a wrong belief, then he is not responsible. But that didn't occur in this case.

The fact he failed to make the inquiry in the first place, or follow up on the doubts that had been "suggested" to him, make him responsible for any consequences. If he had done that to the best of his ability, and had found that the ship was sea worthy and there were no negative consequences, this means he would have succeeded in his 'duty of care', even with no consequences.