Oscar Galeana

Ways of Knowing
4/1/2016
Critical Analysis: The Ethics of Believing

Importance of Evidence
In Cliffords The Ethics of Belief article he talks about the process humans should go
through to when they are making a belief. He speculates that society does not ask enough
questions to know the truth and society just believes everything they are told without doing
research on their own and he wants humans to find out all the facts first before making a belief.
Clifford is arguing that a belief with insufficient evidence is morally wrong and should not be
trusted to make claims based on it. It is human nature to believe everything we are told and
when humans learn a new story or fact they focus so much on the story and not where its
coming from that they tend to believe it without asking important questions about the origins and
details that help make the story or fact more accurate and truthful. Clifford makes a strong
argument about believing with sufficient evidence to make decisions through his shipowner and
chemist examples.
The shipowner story that Clifford uses is very useful when understanding his argument.
The premise of the story is basing your belief on lacking evidence can cause disasters. The story
is about a shipowner that is going to send a ship out to sea and knows that the ship is very old
and has already gone on many other voyages. He begins to have doubts about whether he should
send the ship out and thinks about doing an overhaul and getting the ship refitted to know it if
has any severe damages and to fix the damages, but he decides not to thinking the ship will be
fine. When he sends the ship out to sea it breaks and goes down (Clifford, 1876, p. 289) .

Clifford's second example was his chemist story. The premise of this story is making a
belief once you have enough significant evidence. The story is about how Clifford would react if
a chemist told him that a substance can be made by putting together other substances. Clifford
goes on to say that he would believe the chemist based on knowing that the chemist has had
professional training (Clifford, 1876, p. 301) .
Cliffords shipowner example is a strong way to support gathering as much evidence as
possible to make a justified belief and then a justified decision based on that belief. The
shipowner had very little evidence about the ship and decided to not get further knowledge about
the conditions of his ship. Even though he did not have all the evidence the shipowner still made
a belief and decided to send his ship out to sea and in result of his belief the boat crashed and the
people on the ship died. Clifford uses this story as an example the importance of researching as
much evidence as possible then making a belief once you have significant evidence that can be
used to make an correct decision. The shipowner did not have enough evidence to make his
belief on and it resulted in a terrible outcome. This example is necessary and sufficient because it
shows what terrible outcomes can come from not having significant evidence to make beliefs and
decisions on.
The chemist story was another great way of supporting Cliffords argument, to make
beliefs based on sufficient evidence. Clifford believed what the chemist said because he knew the
chemist is knowledgeable in chemistry due to his training that he went through to become a
chemist. This logic is solid and does help to support Cliffords argument since Clifford had
enough significant evidence to believe what he was told by the chemist. If a random person
would have told Clifford something about chemistry he would not believe him because he
doesnt know if the person has any training with chemistry, there's not enough evidence their to

base a belief. So Cliffords story shows the amount of significant evidence a human must have
when basing a justified belief. Which is logical to do in his argument to show what amount of
evidence is enough to become significant.
The two premises were necessary to show Clifford's argument from two sides. These two
examples show two different outcomes about what happens when an individual makes his beliefs
with significant evidence and one without significant evidence. They both have strong claims
and shows why an individual should base their belief with sufficient evidence.

Word Count: 728

Citations

Clifford, Professor,The Ethics of Belief, Contemporary Review, 29 (1876:Dec.-1877:May)