luvluv

Family Man:

Evidentialism is an essential part of James' procedure. It is not an ad hoc addition of my own, it is an explicit and indispensable step in James' own methodology. (It is part of the process that weeds out what beliefs may be live, as I shall explain later. The live theory is not arbitrary as you claim it is.)

I am greatly puzzled. The "middle ground", the third way, is preciesly what evidentialism is all about. Of any proposition, the evidence can compel one to be rationally justified in saying "this is false", "this is true", or in WITHHOLDING BELIEF.

Honestly, Family Man, the concept of WITHHOLDING BELIEF is absolutely central to Clifford's evidentialism and to every form of evidentialism short of logical positivism.

You are acting as if of any proposition it is only possible to have enough evidence to believe it or to lack enough evidence to believe it. But you can also have enough defeaters for a proposition and little enough evidence for it to declare it false. Do you simply lack enough evidence to say "the planet earth is flat" or do you say of the propostion "the planet earth is flat" that it is false?

Of any propostion, we can be rationally justified in saying it is true, we can rationally be justified in saying it is false, or we can be rationally justified in withholding belief. The middle ground, which you say does not exist, is the entire foundation of evidentialism and it is the entire foundation of James' system.

James' system does have something to evaluate. There can be EVIDENCE, and EQUALLY GOOD EVIDENCE, for and against the SAME PROPOSITION. Now if this proposition is of little importance, or is not a forced option, one should wait for further proof to develop. But if such a proposition is momentous, and it is forced, then one may rationally believe it. In the real world it is certainly possible that there can be a proposition for which there is good reason for believing it true and equally good reason for believing it to be false.

And quite obviously in such a case what there is to evaluate is whether or not the belief is FORCED and/or MOMENTOUS. What is left to evaluate is the potential importance of the belief and the potential consequences of believing it to be true, believing it to be false, or of withholding belief. For goodness sakes, FM, this is what I thought we have been talking about!! This is what James' theory is all about, the ancillary considerations!!

I don't think the evidence has to be pointing clearly in one direction in order for a person to act if the consequences of not acting are as potentially great as the consequences of acting. That is James' entire point. It is not irrational to invade a country on evidence that points equally towards the fact that Iraq may have and may not have WMD, since the consequences of not acting if he has WMD are so great.

Can you still not distinguish between justifying a belief (which James' system does not intend to do) and justifying the decision to believe? Take the Iraq example. Is it not clear to you that while clinging to a fervent belief that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction IN ISOLATION would be rationally unjustified given present evidence, while deciding to believe (and therefore act as if) he does have weapons is rational BECAUSE OF THE SURROUNDING CIRCUMSTANCES?

The surrounding circumstances, which you have (perhaps unintentionally) called "nothing to consider" is the crux of James' argument.

Perhaps Bush is not rationally justified in believing that Hussein had nuclear weapons, and if this were a debate in philosophy class he would certainly be a bad pupil. But Bush is rationally justified in acting as if Hussein had nuclear weapons, because of the momentousness of the situation if he does. Some risks are so great that it would be more irrational to sit around, wait for evidence, and DO NOTHING than it would be to believe before you had sufficient evidence.

If there is excellent support both for and against a proposition, that would be a situation in which we would not be able to decide, no?

What is live is not arbitrary. What is live must pass through the preliminary evidential system as "undecidable". If a proposition has no support and very good defeaters (the concept that your 2000 year old dog is talking to you, for instance) then such a belief should not be live. And again, if such a belief gets through the preliminary evidential stage it is the person's faculties of evaluating evidence that is to blame, not James' methodology.

So again, live beliefs are NOT, REPEAT, are NOT arbitrary. It is not simply a matter of what one finds believable. It is a matter of what propositions can make it through the evidential barriers.

Strawman.

That's not true, James' requires us to look at evidence too. A follower of precursive faith is allowed to declare certain beliefs true or false on the basis of evidence ALONE.

Excellent! But can you see that REASONS for a course of action are not limited to EVIDENCES that a course of action is the correct one. It can be that SURROUNDING CIRCUMSTANCES, such as the relative importance of a course of action, and the consequences of acting or not acting, could be REASONS for that person's course of action.

If your employee wanted to get a breast examination because she dreamed he should have one, what would you say? Of course the belief that she needs a breast examination would not be justified by the fact that she dreamed about it, but it being that the consequences of not having one are so great compared with the potential consequences of having one, she would be justified in having the exam.

Right, like when someone is using James' system of precursive faith, which, you know, REQUIRES a person to look for evidence.

(And by the way, what is sufficient evidence again? You use it all the time in real life so you much know what it is.)

How about a belief in God?

Don't equivocate. I am using the word justify in the sense that we have been using it up until now in this discussion. Not in the sense that we have conclusive or logically sound proof, but merely in that we are within our epistemic rights in holding a belief.

Within Clifford's own epistimelogy, he has not given us reason to believe that our moral beliefs are rational.

There is not a single shred of evidence that can be given for the truth of moral statements. Not one. I hereby challenge you to provide one. Notice, I am not saying that there isn't sufficient evidnece for any moral proposition. I am saying there isn't ANY evidence that there is any such thing as a universally morally wrong action. None.

Give evidence for me that it is wrong to convict someone without evidence. You might find it offensive, but that is not proof it is morally wrong. Give me evidence that falsely accusing and imprisoning an innocent man is morally wrong. Give me evidence that not performing regular maintenance on public transportation is morally wrong. You could give evidence that it is dangerous, but that is not evidence that it is morally wrong. Rock climbing is dangerous. Jogging in Central Park is dangerous. Should people be put in jail for that?

I have heard you SAY this a lot.

I'm dying to see it.

Then cut and paste this irrefutable logical argument here. I must have missed it.

It isn't. Provide evidence that people who believe things on faith are more likely to have irrational beliefs.

In my opinion, a belief in a certain supernatural paradigm (Christian theism, for example) makes one LESS LIKELY to believe in alternative supernatural paradigms. Christians don't go around believing the stories of Hindus and Muslims and Pagans.

So it is not self-evident (an odd phrase for an evidentialist). Give me "sufficient" evidence for it.

A solid argument would help him if he was a RATIONALIST, but he was an evidentialist making a case for evidentialism. So he does need to provide evidence to be consistent. The onus is not on me, I made no claim. He is the one who says that faith is immoral, and he hasn't provided "sufficient" evidence.

By the way the "sufficient" evidence criteria is as arbitrary as the live criteria.

WHERE?

Wrong, James' system cannot be used for beleifs which have overwhelming defeaters. There is a standard that can be debated. The live criteria is no more arbitrary than the "sufficency" criteria.

False. Remember the presupposed evidential investigation?

Wanna bet?

I'm not asking you to go in there and ask if one can rationally believe in an external world, but whether one can do so on the basis of evidentialism. Go in there and ask whether there is one bit of evidence, not sufficient evidence mind you, but a SINGLE SHRED of reliable independant evidence that the external world is real. I triple-dog dare you.

Our belief that there is an external world is what philosophers call a properly basic belief. It is a belief that evidence cannot be provided for, but we believe anyway because without it all the rest of our beliefs are meaningless. In other words it is a belief we hold not because we have evidence or even logical argumentation for it, but because of the surrounding circumstances.

That's fallacious. How do you know that all the beliefs that we don't have sufficient evidence for (whatever sufficient evidence is) are false beliefs? They could be true beliefs that we don't have sufficient evidence for.

All right, but are you telling me love was not a deciding factor in your marriage? If you met a woman who met all the other criteria but whom you did not love, would you have married her?

(As a side note, since you make no distinction between irrational and non-rational, would you consider a motivation like paternal love irrational? Would you consider a decision to do something for your daughter that was unjustifiable on any grounds but love an irrational decision?)

If you WITHHOLD belief in God, then you don't actively believe that God exists is true or false. Therefore, you don't have a true belief, because you never made the claim that God does not exist, you merely withheld belief in God. So, in the end, we would come out even. To come out ahead, you would actually have to believe that God does not exist, instead of simply withholding belief in his existence.

Can you link me to the thread where you have done this thing?

We do, remember that the benefits which make an option momentous are the benefits that accrue in THIS LIFETIME. So we are capable of knowing whether or not we will be happier as theists or as atheists, for example.

Fantastic. Now you just have to prove that making mistakes and causing harm is immoral.

Good luck.

Ad populum and meritless.

If your argument that there is enough evidence to lack a belief in God's existence were true, there wouldn't be any Christians. See how much fun ad populum arguments are?

Give me a reason to believe that "sufficiency" is not as arbitrary as "live".

The fact that very many people have no problem with how arbitrary it is does not thange the fact that it is arbitrary.

A person could use the live, momentous, and forced options to decide to believe that the PLANE IS IN BAD SHAPE, and a reasonable person would because the consequences of flying it when it was in bad shape are greater than flying it when it was in good shape.

Again, what James is justifying is the situation surrounding the importance or relevance of the belief.

Vorkosigan

Luv, I can't comment on this. I just want to thank you for all the wonderful topics you're proposing and the discussions they drive.

Vorkosigan

Family Man

Aside from the fact I'm not feeling well, I'm going to be busy for a couple of days, and since a response generally takes me a couple of hours, I'm not even going to read your response until Tuesday at the earliest. I can't spare the time at the moment. Just so you know.

I will tell you this, however, I did ask the smart philosophy types around here about rationally believing in the external world. Their response is that the question should be more properly framed as can we be rational if there isn't an external world, as being rational requires external confirmation. Hence, if there isn't an external world, we can't rationally believe in anything -- including the existence of God. Since you claim to be rationally believing in God, by this formulation you must also believe in the external world, which means your entire argument amounts to sophistry. They also made it clear that the external world problem is not considered a very serious one (i.e. they believed in an external world too).

If you don't like it, I suggest you start your own thread in the Philosophy forum and take it up with them. Frankly, I think that particular argument is a waste of time.

luvluv

Vorkosigan:

Thanks, Vorkosigan, I appreciate that. Where ya been hiding out these days?

Family Man:

Of course I believe in an external world, Family Man. I didn't bring this up to debate whether or not an external world actually exists, but whether we can KNOW an external world exists on the basis of EVIDENTIALISM. If you are a committed evidentialist, you would have to withhold belief in an external world because there can be no independant confirmation of it's existence.

But notice the reason the philosophy types gave you for believing in an external world. They didn't say believe because there is good evidence for the proposition. They said believe because of the potential consequences of not believing. My point is that the only way we can justify our most basic belief, the belief without which all our other beliefs are really nonsense, is through using a version of precursive faith.

Pure evidentialism, the belief that we can only be rationally justified in claiming to know what we can provide evidence for, is false. There are beliefs that no evidence can be provided for, and for which no argument can be constructed, which we are justified in holding.

Family Man

First, let me say also that your choice of topics put you a head above most posters on this board. That is not to say your views are correct, but unlike many, your contributions to this board are positive. And that is why I participate in this thread: there are some interesting ideas being discussed here.

Having said that, I have to say that your last substantive post was a big disappointment. I don't mind others disagreeing with me and I don't mind being told I'm wrong. But when someone does so, I expect some explanation of why I'm wrong. Far too often in that last post, you not only provided no explanation, you also ignored things I had said previously. Let me give an example. You said:

Which completely ignored the what I had said earlier:

Tell me, how does one make a distinction between a concept that exists (irrational) with one that doesn't (non-rational). I checked my dictionary just to be sure. I can't, and won't, make a distinction between what is well-established and what is nonsensical.

And for the record, I consider parental love to be an emotion, not a belief, and irrelevant to the discussion.

When I disagree with you, I take care to understand what you're saying and to provide strong reasons why I think you're wrong. When you claimed that Clifford failed because people are imperfect, I explained exactly why that was a poor argument. When you claimed that James wasn't concerned about religion in his essay, I reread it and demonstrated that he was. Must have been convincing, since you've appeared to drop those arguments. As it is, I find myself in a position where I have to repeat and expand on concepts that ought to be obvious to anyone that casually thinks about it. Fortunately, I'm a patient man and I don't mind doing so. I hope your next response will be a little more substansive that your last.

As an aside, I also wonder if you're more interested in proving you know more philosophy or in defending James' concept of Will to Believe. You can accomplish the former and fail in the latter, and don't think for a minute I care about the former.

First, let's consider solipsism. Assuming that the external world is a properly basic belief, are you seriously suggesting that Clifford was concerned with such beliefs? Do you think that his formulation would be substantially different if he had said: "It is wrong to believe anything without evidence, unless it is properly basic". Or, for the masses, "It is wrong to believe anything without evidence, except when it is so frigging obvious that only dolts would question it." It doesn't really change a thing, does it? This has been a complete waste of bandwidth.

Even then, I'm still not convinced that evidence doesn't play a role in our belief that an external world exists. For, you see, I tracked down Russell's book and I found him far more sympathetic to my position than you had let on. Here's his conclusion to the external world problem. Pay close attention to the highlighted portion:

Hmm, our experiences (i.e. evidence) confirms what we instinctively believe. That seems far closer to my position than yours.

Now, I have some even worse news to deliver to you. Your major, and rather strange defense, is that James requires that evidence be checked first before a belief is formed. Upon rereading James, it is clear that he does no such thing. Consider this from his introduction:

He is defending faith. Faith is belief in absence of evidence or reason. What he is saying is: if you determine that there is no coercive reason to believe, believe anyway if it meets momentous, forced and live options. However, the evidentiary position requires that, if no evidence for a position is found, then it must be disbelieved. James is demanding quite the opposite. In fact, on this formulation, Berkowitz's 2000-year old dog would have to be accepted if it meets James' criteria.

Ah, but you say, there are defeaters for a 2000-year old talking dog. But that is hypocritical, as aren't there also defeaters for Jesus? Is it impossible for a dog to live 2000 years? Isn't it equally impossible for a man to walk on water? A dog can't talk? Neither can a man resurrect and rise to heaven. This problem, of course, is why James never explicitedly stated: "Look at the evidential position first." If you do, you'll have to reject both the 2000-year old dog and Jesus's divinity. In fact, under James' formulation, the decision to accept Jesus and reject the dog is completely arbitary. Defeaters and evidence have nothing to do with it.

That is not to say that James rejects the evidential position completely. He appears to believe it has a place. He's just upset that it doesn't allow for his favorite belief and is trying to find a way around the demands of the evidential/rational position.

And in fact, he doesn't consider the evidence at all in his examples:

Where is the appeal to evidence? There isn't any. You're a Christian because it appeals to you. Why it appeals is never discussed. There is a reason why the essay is called Will to Believe.

Worse yet, it appears that, at least in some situations, faith must precede the evidence:

How does one find evidence for a fact if it doesn't come at all unless faith precedes it? It's impossible. James does not require a preliminary evidential examination. And the live option is arbitrary. REPEAT, the live option IS ARBITRARY. There is no more reason to believe in Jesus's divine powers than there is for a 2000-year talking dog. The decision to believe the former is completely arbitrary, as is the decision to disbelieve the latter, under James formulation.

That leads to the charge that sufficient evidence is also an arbitrary criteria. At first glance, it might appear to be so, but in practice it isn't. To expand on another argument you didn't understand, can you (or anyone) come up with a criteria for "beyond a reasonable doubt" that would hold up for all court cases? Didn't think so. Does that mean that term is useless? Of course not. Depending on the nature of the crime, criteria for what constitutes reasonable doubt is set. Interpreting those criteria for the jury is what judges do everyday. Similarly, we develop criteria for what constitutes sufficient evidence everyday. Airlines set rigorous requirements for safety checks that planes have to meet before they are clear to fly, as another example. And even if there is no hard and fast rule, reasonable people can discuss the evidence and come to an agreement as to what constitutes sufficient evidence.

The live criteria is fundamentally different. If you decide a 2000-year old dog is a live concept to you, I can't challenge it on live criteria. I can challenge it on the grounds dogs don't live 2000 years, but I can't on the criteria laid out by James. Similarly, I can point out the men don't resurrect and rise into heaven either, but that doesn't seem to be challengeable either. But that's the type of belief that James is implicitly defending.

Yes, that we can't define a criteria for what constitutes sufficient evidence is a difficulty. But it is much better than the live criteria. At the very least, what constitutes sufficient evidence can be challenged. It can be discussed. It can even be formally established for specific situations. That can't happen with the live criteria. The only criteria is the arbitrary will of the believer, as James' title implies.

Next, to disbelieve is to withhold belief. There is no real difference between the terms. In colloquial terms, I might say I withhold belief to indicate that more evidence might convince, but I'm still disbelieving.

And no, Clifford is not about "the middle ground". It is about when we have sufficient reason to believe something. If we don't have sufficient reason, then don't believe. If you think otherwise, then do your homework and present a case. I'm getting tired of doing all the work on this thread.

I understand perfectly that James is saying that the circumstances affect the belief. The problem is that you're trivializing my response, and since shouting seems to be the only way to get you to recognize that which you don't want to recognize, I'll do it again.

You are seriously underestimating the risks involved in adopting a belief.

And in fact, in every one of your examples, you painted the rosy picture of the situation. Why of course the guy floating in the middle of the ocean should swim for the board. To listen to you, there was no risk the guy will drown.

There are negative consequences to belief. Planes have been flown into buildings because of religious beliefs. Children have died because parents have withheld medical treatment because of their beliefs. Wars and crusades have been conducted on the basis of belief. People die today because other people who hold different beliefs kill them because of it. Creationists try to force their unsupported dogma on the school curriculum. People, on hearing I'm an atheist, have told me to leave the country. Need I go on? Yes, luvluv, I know you wouldn't do any of those things, but that doesn't validate your position. James' rosy road doesn't wash. And the problems you ignore won't go away.

And like James, you are conflating actions and beliefs. Rock-climbing is an action, not a belief. If you're foolish enough to take up rock-climbing without having sufficient reason to believe that you can do so safely, then you're an idiot and you get what you deserve. So, no, rock-cliimbing doesn't have to outlawed. But if you're running a rock-climbing school, you damn well better get your students to sign a release before allowing them access to your equipment or you might get your ass sued. Your counter-examples are specious.

Heck, following your logic, anyone should be allowed to fly planes. Why do they need those silly licenses for anyway? Ignore the risk, everything will be hunky-dory, right? I'm glad I live in a more rational world than the one you advocate.

Finally, I don't find your idea that there can be cases where there is strong evidence for and against something to be coherent. If the evidence is contradictory, then there is no strong evidence either way. The only rational thing to do is to disbelieve.

Now before we talk morality, let's remind ourselves of something. The evidential position and the rational are not mutually exclusive. Yes, I know I said it before, but like I said I'm a patient man. I am a rationalist AND an evidentialist. Do you have a reason why that might be problematic?

And, strictly speaking (as once again I've said before) Clifford is wrong in that he doesn't allow for rational arguments. (Not that that helps James, who is not taking a rationalist position). Hence, I'm not saying that I have an evidential moral argument. It is a rational one. Are you saying that it is irrational to believe that knowingly sentencing an innocent man (or even one where you're not entirely convinced of his guilt) is immoral? Once again, I suspect you're arguing a position you don't really believe and that you're not paying enough attention to what I'm saying.

And you seriously think that deciding an issue randomly isn't going to result in more errors than if you do your homework? Yesterday, I took an Oracle certification exam. Had I not studied and just picked on what was "live" to me, I probably would have gotten about 25% right on the exam and failed. Instead, I had the knowledge and I passed. Or consider a murder in Los Angeles. There are what, 10 million people in Los Angeles? If I just pick someone (gosh, he looks like a murderer) my odds of being right are 1/10000000. Geez, odds are I just did someone an injustice, didn't I? The fact is that believing on insufficient grounds is very likely to lead to serious negative consequences. That is indisputable.

Finally, what is Clifford's argument? I guess next I'll have to interpret the Cat in the Hat for you too, but since you insist.... This is my slightly modified version of it.

1) Our beliefs inform our actions (i.e. they help us choose them).
2) If your belief is incorrect, you are more likely to choose harmful actions than if your belief is correct (see above for examples).
3) If you develop strong evidential or rational reasons for a belief, you will be more likely to develop correct beliefs than if you don't.
4) Therefore, one should only assume beliefs for ones with strong rational or evidential grounds. Doing so will reduce the risk that harm will result from your decisions.

So, considering that James doesn't require a preliminary evidential inspection, your argument appears to me to be in tatters. Clifford, slightly modified, is definitely the way to go.

luvluv

Family Man:

Maybe I wasn't clear. What I meant was that if you made a decision or determined a course of action for your daughter that could not be justified except on the grounds of your love for her, would you consider such a decision or course of action irrational?

It hasn't been a waste of badwith. Consider, on what grounds do you declare your basic beliefs to be properly basic? Not evidence. Not the senses. (I'll get to Russell). So what is it? Why do you accept properly basic beliefs?

(Incidentally, a case has been made by Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga that a belief in God is properly basic. I'm not up on his arguments and I probably wouldn't be able to understand them, but that's just an intersting factoid for your consumption. Kenny and bd-from-kg had what I consider to be the best disccusion I've ever read on this board about the matter, but it seems to have fallen off of late. )

Our experience does not CONFIRM what we believe. That is not what Russell says. He said that our experience DOES NOT CONTRADICT what we believe. This does not constitute evidentiary support, it only confirms that there is a lack of defeaters for the propostion.

The bottom line is that our senses COULD NEVER contradict our conception of the world because our conception of the world comes from our senses. This is textbook Empiricist philosophy, and has been consistently argued by everyone from Locke to Hume to Kant. This is why our sense experiecne cannot justify our conception of the world. Our sense experience MAKES our conception of the world, and therefore to justify our conception of the external world on our senses would be begging the question.

This leaves us in the position where there is no evidence for an external world and no defeaters for the external world. So there is, upon the evidence, no more reason for believing than not believing. We declare such beliefs to be properly basic on SUBJECTIVE grounds. On the grounds that our experience only makes sense if we assume an external world exists (momentous), there are no defeaters for the proposition (live) and withholding belief is absurd, since it is IN PRINCIPLE impossible to provide independant evidence for the external world (forced). It is on THESE grounds, or grounds like them, that a belief in the external world is founded.

(And I know I talk like I know about philosophy, but I only do so because unless I do the discussion will not be productive. Believe me, if this discussion were all about my knowledge of philosophy, this would be a very, very short discussion. In the end though, while I respect your obvious intelligence, you really cannot discuss the issues James (or any serious philosopher) discusses without some basic background knowledge of philosophy. It really is bad form to try to declare the philosophical system of one of the world's most prestigious philosophers to be worthless if you don't have a basic knowledge of philosophy. Unfortunately, philosophy is one of those fields in which the expertise of the proffessionals is not respected. IMHO.)

I can refute that, but I don't have James in front of me and I don't have time to cut and paste.

However, we can skip all of this character assasination against James and just say that since you don't have any problem updating and improving upon Clifford, what is the problem with improving and updating James? What would be wrong with a conception of precursive faith which demanded an extensive prior evidential investigation? (Not that I am conceding for a moment that this was not James position, because it was, I am just trying to get us to save bandwith, since I know this is deep concern of yours. )

There is a truth to that, in that I think James was delineating two different kinds of beliefs. Beliefs for which there is no compelling evidence, but for which there are excellent attendant reasons for accepting, and beliefs which are only made possible through fact. He was only saying of the second category that the belief makes the content of the belief real. I would agree that in those situations, no evidence is required and an evidential preconsideration would be almost useless.

But surely you are not saying that James puts a belief in God into the same category, or that James believes we can believe God into existence?

He was only using the cases when belief plays a role in creating a fact to show that evidentialism as a UNIVERSAL DICTUM is paralyizing and absurd.

But at any rate, lets grant for a split second that James, as written, does not require an evidential investigation. If we were to modify him (as it seems you feel free to do with Clifford) and re-work precursive faith so that this was required, would you still feel that the live beliefs were arbitrary?

I'm not necessarily asking you to come up with a defintion of what is sufficient evidence to account for ALL beliefs. I am asking you, of any ONE belief, to give me an example of what would be sufficient evidence for that belief.

You pick the belief, and then you pick the grounds for what constitutes "sufficient evidence." Then, I would like for you to tell me why someone would be irrational for accepting less or demanding more evidence for that specific belief.

I am going to quote you some passages where James does require a preliminary evidential investigation if you force me to, but let's just skip that for now. Say we modify precursive faith to say that a preliminary investigation is required. That would eliminate the proposition that the dog is 2000 years old, would it not?

I'm not trying to pull rank on you on the philosophical tip, (in reality I think I'm only a handful of layman's books ahead of you on the issue) but this is simply not true. Go ask your philosophy buddies about this. Disbelief means you believe that a certain proposition is false. Withholding belief means that you have not decided whether the belief is true or whether the belief is false.

To disbelieve in God would be to believe that the statement "god exists" is false.

To withhold belief in God would be to have no belief about the truth or falsehood of the statement "God exists".

Ignoring that last joke, evidentialism is all about withholding belief. Clifford would never declare that the statement "God exists" is false. His system prevents him IN PRINCIPLE from ever making that statement (because it is one that cannot be verified "by men as men").

I'm going to ask you a straight forward question. Of any proposition, is it not possible to believe it to be true, believe it to be false, or to not know of it's truth or falsehood. Withholding belief is the term for the latter category. When you withhold belief in something, it is semanticly true that you don't believe in it. But it is also semantically true that you don't disbelieve it. You have no belief about it one way or the other.

No, I'm not. But you are not understanding one of James' basic points. When a proposition is FORCED then withholding belief is just as risky as commting belief.

But there is the EQUAL (and probably greater) risk that if the guy just sits there he will drown. BOTH propostions are risky. That's kind of the whole point.

Wait a second, if beliefs cannot be dangerous than what are we talking about? Flying a plane into a building is an action, not a belief. So what makes my examples specious and yours relevant?

Is there any place for this kind of talk in a serious discussion?

By disbelieve, do you mean to not believe the proposition is true or false, or to actively believe the proposition is false?

How could you actively believe the proposition is false if there is equally good evidence for both sides? Why does the "tie go to the negative" in your system?

Of course I believe that it is wrong to sentence an inncocent man, but I don't claim to base that belief on independant reasoned argument or evidence. I believe based on my acceptance of Christian morality by faith.

But since you seem to believe it by argument, present your argument.

You can do your homework on certain propostions (like the existence of an external world) and still make a decision based on faith. Even if you are under the impression that this is not what James says, can you disagree that this is possible?

What, in short, would be your objection to precursive faith if it required an extensive, exhaustive, preliminary evidential investigation.

And, by the way, using precursive faith is not a random process. That is a strawman.

This premise has not been established, and CANNOT be established EXCEPT by evidential investigation. You have to prove, numerically, that harm comes more often when believing incorrectly (about forced and momentous options) than when withholding belief. Your examples don't establish your premise, which is that you are MORE likely to choose harmful actions than if your belief is correct.

It also begs the question as to whether or not a person's epistemic foundation is attached to their morals. What difference does it make, to an utterly unscrupulous man, whether or not the boat he is about to send you on is not seaworthy? You are assuming that if a person knows by evidence that his boat is not seaworthy that he is more likely on those grounds to not send the ship out to sea. But why would we assume that a person's morals follows their knowledge? Many people who do bad things (murder, infidelity, rape, etc.) know full well they are doing bad things, and they do them anyway. What assurance is there that simply knowing for sure that what they do is wrong will make them any less likely to do it? Nothing in your argument even addresses this crucial question.

Look, it's real simply F.M. You have not established that harm is immoral, so all you've really done here is present a flawed argument that believing not based on evidence causes harm. And even that won't fly until you prove evidentially and numerically (which you must do by your use of the word "more") your second premise. Then you have to somehow add an additional premise that establishes that a person's epistemic process always or even mostly establishes their moral decisions. To do that you have to somehow rationally prove that people only or mostly fail in their moral obligations because they do not know that there action is wrong or harmful, and that seems to me to be false based on my knowledge of human nature.

Then, as I said before, you would have to make an argument that causing harm is morally wrong. AND THEN you would have to make the argument that causing harm is more morally wrong than other possible moral wrongs, because it could be that a person could cause some harm for a potentially greater moral benefit. (For example, we are causing harm with our war in Iraq but could it be that the end result of causing harm could be a better overall situation for the Iraquis? So was it wrong to cause harm in that case?)

I think you are a pretty smart guy, Family Man, but you should have a talk with Pomp over that the Morality boards for the sheer impossibility of supporting any moral statement with an evidential or moral argument. I don't think it would be exagerrating to say that it has never been done, not by a single one of the hundrec of thousands of brilliant moral philosophers and ethicists who have tried. I know it sounds like a lofty claim, but then I bet a week ago you would not have believed that there is no independant evidence for an external world, would you?

There is such a double-standard in this statement that I am really choking down a smile at this point. Even if we were to grant that James does not require a preliminary investigation, why would we not want to compare a modified version of precursive faith against a modified Clifford? Why is it that Cifford can be modified but no consideration can be made of a modified precursive faith ?(not that it needs it, but I'll show you that tommorow).

Is it really so clear that a version of precursive faith which requires a preliminary investigation would not be superior *or more consistent* than a modified version of evidentialism?

I ask because there is within James' system clear grounds for allowing evidential considerations. But Clifford in particular, and evidentialism in general, offers no consistent grounds for accepting properly basic beliefs. It is a blanket contradiction of Clifford to accept the external world. Granting them "properly basic" status without even a word as to how they acquirred this status does not solve the problem. Granting properly basic status TO ANY PROPOSTION contradicts the claim that we can or should ONLY believe what we have evidence for.

Family Man

I'll be a few days before I respond to this (for the record, I read only the first part before realizing I'm far too angry to post at the moment) assuming I do at all. Personally, I expect people, in a discussion, to lay out arguments fairly and clearly. What I consider bad form is jerking people around when it is clear that you have information that the other doesn't. As you noted, I am perfectly intelligent and quite willing to listen and learn. (And, in fact, that I have learned something is the only reason I'm even considering continuing this). What I definitely do not appreciate are "triple dog dares", which I find juvenile and offensive.

Nor is that the only bad form I've seen from you in this thread. There is no logic behind Clifford's argument? Really, luvluv, that's not honest discussion, that's obstructionism. His logic may be faulty -- something I don't believe -- but there is clear logic behind it. My estimation of you fell greatly when I read that, and I doubt I'm the only one who felt that way.

What I will leave you with is this thought. If I concede that Clifford technically erred in not considering properly basic beliefs, do you really think that anything has really changed? Clifford (or James) were clearly talking about non-properly basic beliefs. Surely you're not claiming all beliefs are properly basic, are you? That's why I think this has been a waste of bandwidth; I don't think it has much relevancy to the argument.

And, as I'm sure you know, whether belief in God is properly basic is hardly a topic for this thread. That's a different argument entirely. I'd also suggest you reread that Russell quote again. His clear implication is that belief in the external world is something we can be confident in.

I'd like to continue this discussion, but not if it means playing more games. I'm a busy man, I don't have hours to commit to posting, and I resent finding out that I'm feeding someone's ego. You think that properly basic beliefs undermine Clifford's arguments, then you lay out the argument in a clear, concise and fair manner. Don't expect to win points with anyone by asking them loaded questions and then laying traps -- especially when it is questionable whether the point is even relevant to the discussion.

luvluv

Where did I say there was no logic behind Clifford's argument?

Okay, well we simply disagree here. I see nothing in Clifford's essay that allows for properly basic beliefs. It is not at all clear to me that Clifford was restricting himself to non-properly basic beliefs. And, in my opinion, it is problematic if an epistemic system says that we cannot do precisely what we need to do in order to have properly basic beliefs, which is to believe for reasons other than evidence and reason.

No, but is it possible that there are some beliefs which are properly basic which we don't know about yet? (free will, for instance) Clifford's thesis would prevent us from knowing these things or believing in them, and I consider that to be a drawback of his system.

You've said that, but you've only argued it briefly in rhetorical questions. I think it does have relevancy to the argument. You've asked me would it really be a big deal for Clifford to accept properly basic beliefs.

YES.

1) Clifford repeatedly states that it is morally wrong for anyone to believe anything without evidence or "certain kinds" of authority.

2) He very clearly and emphatically allows for NO EXCEPTIONS. No mention of proper basicality is made.

3) Properly basic beliefs cannot be justified by evidence. (I'll get to Russell in a second.)

4) Properly basic beliefs cannot be justified by they type of authority granted sufficiency by Clifford. The existence of an external world cannot be established by "men as men." There is no such thing as a man who is able to verify the existence of an external world by evidential investigation.

Thus, it seems to me that Clifford has made his system IMPERVIOUS to properly basic beliefs. How could he adopt them without basically admitting his entire system was built on faulty premises?

How can he say: "It is wrong for anyone anywhere to believe ANYthing without sufficient evidence" and then say "Oh! Except your senses, certain types of authority, your memory, and the idea of an external world. There's no way to tell if any of them exist, or if they really give us accurate information, but nevertheless trust them in determining whether or not evidence for a particular proposition is 'sufficient' (whatever that means)"

That's like telling somebody "Hey there's no way to know whether or not this clock has the right time, but it is morally wrong for you to schedule anything without going by what time it says it has. Also, even though we have no idea whether or not this clock has the right time, if you schedule by it we will just say you are rationally justified in doing so."

That seems to be a problem to me.

On the other hand James system is tailor made for accepting properly basic beliefs. Properly basic beliefs go hand in hand with his system, so if we were to modify precursive faith so that a preliminary investigation was required, why wouldn't that be the way to go?

I'd suggest you read a few more books on the topic. Again, I'm not trying to pull rank, I'm just stating the honest truth. If you think that Russell, or any other major philosopher, is suggesting we can justify our belief in the external world on evidence, you are simply misreading him. You can turn that criticism into an ad hominem attack against me, or you can consider the possibility that I am right and ask around. Trust me. That is simply not what he was saying. He was saying there are no defeaters for the proposition that there is an external world. He was not saying there was evidence for it.

You're not feeding my ego. I'm far from a philosophy guru. I've taken like one philsophy class in my entire scholastic career and every other bit of knowledge I have has come from about 5 or 6 laymens level philsophy books (Including such scholastic classics as "The Idiot's Guide to Philsophy")

To be blunt, I would greatly prefer it if you already did know the things I am having to refer you to. It's not like I have free time coming out of my ears, and having to refer you to books so that the discussion can proceed at a proper level is not my idea of a good time. Respectfully, unless you have done some basic background reading there is little reason for you to be in this discussion EXCEPT to learn, and there are a lot of statements you have made in this discussion that you simply don't have the right to make. William James is not just a guy with a PHD, he is one of the greatest American philsophers and psychologists. Of the two, James is the more reputable philospher, and it is not EVEN close. (Go to Barnes and Noble and try to find a book by Clifford, then try to find one written by James. Even in my little po-dunk Barnes and Noble in North Carolina James has nearly an entire SHELF in the philsophy section.)

I'm not trying to upset you, and I'm sorry if I am. I am just stating what I consider to be the facts. Most of the people on infidels can run circles around me on the philsophy tip, and I can assure you I did not start a thread on internet infidels with the expectation of giving ANYONE a lesson in philosophy (there are few people on this board who need to learn more than I). I didn't know who was going to respond to this thread, but I was under the impression that it would be someone more knowledgable than I. Again, I am not saying that you and I are vastly different in our knowledge of philosophy, but I would say that you do not appear to have done your homework in some areas. That is not an insult, and you shouldn't take it as one. But what would you rather me do? Refer you to some data that can back up my points or simply ignore you? If you challenge something that I know to be basic philosophical knowledge I can only do one or the other.

I agree this thread has taken some negative turns, and I certainly apologize for my part in that. However I think it is obvious that I have not been alone in that endeavor.

I've tried to do so above.

They weren't loaded questions and they weren't traps. I honestly thought you knew where I was going when I asked the questions.

Family Man

Ok, now that I've given myself time to calm down, I have a suggestion of how to proceed. Part of my frustration is that I simply do not have the time to write monster responses, along with doing the research necessary to write informed ones. We have a number of issues that have to be resolved. I suggest we examine these one at a time, which will hopefully keep the size of our posts down to a manageable level.

I suggest we start with the issue of properly basic beliefs. I am deeply skeptical that this has any relevancy to the Clifford/James debate, as neither seem to be discussing properly basic beliefs. The question is, how does the existence of properly basic beliefs undermine Clifford's argument?

Family Man

Nevermind, it is clear from your response that you are far more interested in obstruction than honest discussion. This is no longer worth my time.