What is the ethics of belief?

William James, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

William James answers

The question Clifford posed under that heading is whether we are ever entitled to believe something without sufficient evidence — and his answer was no, never, under any circumstances. Believe only on evidence, he said; to believe otherwise is "guilt" and "sin." I find that position philosophically confused, and I have said so at length in "The Will to Believe" (1896) and again in "The Meaning of Truth" (1909).1

The confusion begins with the pretense that there is a neutral, purely intellectual posture available to us — the posture of suspended judgment, of waiting for the evidence to come in. But look at Clifford himself: he proclaims his belief in the conscious-automaton theory on the same evidence that leads Lewes to reject it; he believes in primordial units of "mind-stuff" on evidence that Bain would find worthless.2

Why? Because, like every human being of any mental originality, he is peculiarly sensitive to evidence bearing in one direction. The whole man is at work when we form our philosophical opinions — intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate, just as they do in practical affairs.3 The "absurd abstraction of an intellect verbally formulating all its evidence and carefully estimating the probability thereof by a vulgar fraction" is ideally inept and actually impossible.4

Clifford's evidentialism is itself a substantive commitment, held with the full force of his personality, not the neutral default it pretends to be. Now, faith is synonymous with working hypothesis — the difference between them is only that some hypotheses can be refuted in five minutes while others may defy ages of inquiry.5 A chemist who conjectures that a wall-paper contains arsenic acts on that conjecture and finds out; Darwin's theory of natural selection exhausts the labor of generations in its corroboration, each tester proceeding by acting as if it were true and expecting disappointment if the assumption is false.6

This is not irrationality; it is how inquiry moves at all. But there is a further class of truths — and this is what I wished most to make clear — where belief is not merely a preliminary condition of inquiry but a factor in the very constitution of the fact.7 The Alpine climber who must leap a chasm has no prior evidence of success; but hope and confidence nerve the feet to execute what fear and mistrust would make impossible.8

Doubt, and you shall perish; believe, and you shall save yourself — and the only difference is that to believe is greatly to your advantage.9 Here faith creates its own verification. This is not a license to believe whatever flatters us; it is the recognition that in every fact into which personal contribution enters, where a certain degree of subjective energy is required, the future fact is conditioned by present faith in it.10

The questions that matter most — Is life worth living? Is there a superhuman consciousness from which help may come? Is anything being permanently bought by all this suffering? — are precisely of this class.11 To wait for proof while doubting is, in practical terms, to weigh down the negative side; it is a choice, not the absence of one. Clifford would have us die professing ignorance and proclaiming the duty to refuse belief; I say that under genuine-option conditions — where the alternatives are live, forced, and momentous — that refusal is itself a wager, and a losing one.

Sources

  1. He calls it 'guilt' and 'sin' to believe even the truth without 'scientific evidence.'
    The Will to Believe, pp. 91–93
  2. Why does Clifford fearlessly proclaim his belief in the conscious-automaton theory, although the 'proofs' before him are the same which make Mr. Lewes reject it? Why does he believe in primordial units of 'mind-stuff' on evidence which would seem quite worthless to Professor Bain?
    The Will to Believe, pp. 91–93
  3. The whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 91–93
  4. The absurd abstraction of an intellect verbally formulating all its evidence and carefully estimating the probability thereof by a vulgar fraction by the size of whose denominator and numerator alone it is swayed, is ideally as inept as it is actually impossible.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 91–93
  5. Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis. The only difference is that while some hypotheses can be refuted in five minutes, others may defy ages.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 94–95
  6. theories like that of Darwin, or that of the kinetic constitution of matter, may exhaust the labors of generations in their corroboration, each tester of their truth proceeding in this simple way,—that he acts as if it were true, and expects the result to disappoint him if his assumption is false.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 94–95
  7. there is a certain class of truths of whose reality belief is a factor as well as a confessor; and that as regards this class of truths faith is not only licit and pertinent, but essential and indispensable. The truths cannot become true till our faith has made them so.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 96–97
  8. hope and confidence in myself make me sure I shall not miss my aim, and nerve my feet to execute what without those subjective emotions would perhaps have been impossible.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 96–97
  9. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. The only difference is that to believe is greatly to your advantage.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 96–97
  10. in every fact into which there enters an element of personal contribution on my part, as soon as this personal contribution demands a certain degree of subjective energy which, in its turn, calls for a certain amount of faith in the result,—so that, after all, the future fact is conditioned by my present faith in it.
    The Will to Believe, pp. 96–97
  11. Is life worth while at all? Is there any general meaning in all this cosmic weather? Is anything being permanently bought by all this suffering? Is there perhaps a transmundane experience in Being... Is there a superhuman consciousness of which our minds are parts, and from which inspiration and help may come?
    The Meaning of Truth, p. 27