Key Concept
God as God – The phrase “God as God” is basically a synonym for “God the subject.” In other words, it refers to God precisely in God’s status as an incomprehensible divine Other.
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Often, when we think about living an ethical life, we focus on which actions are ethical or unethical. Do you have an ethical obligation to give money to charity? Is it always wrong to tell lies? How does a virtuous friend behave? W. K. Clifford thought that acting morally was an important part of living an ethical life. But he denied that it was the only thing that contributed to an ethical life. He also thought that our beliefs could be ethical or unethical. Specifically, he thought it was unethical to believe something that you lack sufficient evidence for. Here, we’ll be examining his arguments for this position.
William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) was a British philosopher and mathematician. He was a prolific writer who made important contributions to multiple academic fields during his relatively short life.
In philosophy, he is most often remembered for his 1877 essay “The Ethics of Belief.” In that essay, he argues that we have an ethical obligation to believe in accordance with our evidence and provides an account of what kind of evidence can (or can’t) justify us in believing various things. You’ll be reading portions of this essay. The full text can be found here.
Evidence – information that increases the probability that a claim is true.
Sufficient – enough of something for a particular purpose. Whether something is sufficient is context-dependent.
Doxastic Voluntarism – the view that we have at least some control over what we believe.
Clifford begins his essay with an imaginative story that is meant to help make it seem intuitive that we can wrong other people through what we believe. Here is the story.
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.
Even though the shipowner had good reasons to believe that his ship might not be safe for a long ocean voyage, the shipowner managed to convince himself that the ship was safe. Because he managed to convince himself that the ship was safe, he sent it out on a long voyage without having it inspected or repaired first. As a result, the ship sank and the passengers died.
Did the shipowner do something wrong? Intuitively, most people think that he did. Clifford uses that intuition to argue that the shipowner acted wrongly because he believed something that he “had no right to believe.” Here is how Clifford made the point.
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.
An important point for Clifford here is that, due to wishful thinking, the shipowner had actually managed to develop the sincere belief that the ship was safe. But Clifford posits that even if the shipowner had done such a good job convincing himself that the ship was safe that he could no longer doubt the belief, the shipowner still acted wrongly. This shows that neither sincerity in a belief nor high confidence in a belief is sufficient to make it morally permissible.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines what we can know, when we can be justified in believing something, and related issues. Virtue epistemology is a subfield in epistemology that examines what it looks like to act well in our epistemic lives. Virtue epistemology includes thinking about what kind of things constitute intellectual virtues and intellectual vices. Common examples of intellectual virtues include being diligent, intellectually humble, and open-minded. Common examples of intellectual vices include being lazy, intellectually arrogant, and close-minded. At points, Clifford displays an interest in virtue epistemology. For example, in the passage above, he criticizes the shipowner’s belief because it was not honestly earned or the result of patient investigation but rather a product of stifling doubt. Honest and patient investigation displays epistemic virtue. Stifling of doubt—at least when it is based on laziness, close-mindedness, or a lack of intellectual curiosity—displays epistemic vice.
Later in his essay, Clifford returns to this point, arguing that “If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.”
Part of why we might be intuitively inclined to criticize the shipowner’s belief in this case is because it led to a chain of actions that resulted in a bunch of innocent people drowning at sea. That certainly is a bad outcome. But Clifford thought the wrongness of such a belief wasn’t contingent on this kind of bad outcome.
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.
If the ship had happened to make it safely across the sea, that would have just been a matter of luck. Given that the shipowner had not had the ship properly inspected, he was taking a big risk. Specifically, he was risking other people’s lives. Consider the following scenario: You successfully take a plane ride from Chicago to Los Angeles. Upon landing, you find out that the plane had not properly been inspected and that there had been a significant risk that the plane would crash mid-flight. You also find out that the reason the plane had not properly been inspected was because the inspector really hadn’t wanted the inconvenience of inspecting the plane and so had convinced herself that the inspection wasn’t necessary. Would you be angry at the plane inspector, even though you arrived safe? Would you want to hold her accountable for her negligence? If so, do you think this supports Clifford’s position? In what ways?
Before continuing with his argument, Clifford tells a second imaginative story meant to help strengthen his position that people can wrong one another with what they believe.
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 the 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.
This second story includes some interesting differences from the first story of the shipowner. For example, in the first story, no one seems to have figured out what the shipowner did and so no one held him accountable. But in this second story, after the agitators were exposed for believing and spreading unjustified and malicious views about the members of the minority religious faith, they suffered harm to their reputations. Their fellow island inhabitants considered the agitators dishonorable for accusing members of the religious minority of terrible things when the agitators “might easily have obtained” evidence of their innocence. This also caused the other inhabitants of the island to distrust the agitators. Clifford was likely expecting that his readers would also consider the agitators dishonorable and untrustworthy.
At this point, you might be thinking to yourself—maybe it wasn’t the belief that the ship was safe that was wrong; maybe it was just the action of sending the ship out to sea that was wrong. Clifford anticipates this kind of objection and responds as follows.
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.
Clifford makes clear that he thinks our actions are indeed morally important. He also seems to think that there are certain times where we cannot control what we believe. (Presumably this is what he’s referring to when he talks about a person’s belief “being so fixed that he cannot think otherwise” or about circumstances where people “are not yet capable of controlling their feelings and thoughts.”) He seems to think that in those circumstances while we may not be responsible for our unfounded beliefs, we still are responsible for not acting on our unfounded beliefs.
But implied in Clifford’s comments is the belief that, at least sometimes, we can control our beliefs. Notice, for example, that he talks about those who are not yet capable of controlling their thoughts. This implies that he thinks at least some people at least some of the time can control their thoughts. Similarly, his language suggests there are times when our beliefs are not so fixed that we cannot control them. He thinks that under such circumstances it is important that we control what we believe so that it accords with the evidence. This is because our beliefs tend to affect our actions. Clifford notices, quite sensibly, that if we believe out of accordance with the evidence that we will tend to act in a way that is out of step with our evidence. He also seems to think that holding firmly to a belief will make it hard for us to question it fairly.
Generally, we are considered morally responsible for only that over which we can exercise some control. But can we in fact exercise control over our beliefs? Can you make yourself believe right now, for example, that you are on a sinking ship with W. K. Clifford? If you can’t, this might seem like some evidence that we cannot control what we believe. And if we cannot control what we believe, maybe it doesn’t even make sense to talk about an “ethics of belief.”
This objection is part of a much larger debate over the issue of doxastic voluntarism. The word ‘doxastic’ in English means ‘pertaining to belief’ (the root word here is the Greek doxa meaning something like ‘belief’ or ‘judgment’). So, you can think of doxastic voluntarism as the view that we have voluntary control over at least some of our beliefs. Clifford was a doxastic voluntarist. The doxastic involuntarist, by contrast, holds that we cannot control what we believe and may offer objections like the ones above.
Simplifying matters, there are two general kinds of responses the doxastic voluntarist can give. Direct doxastic voluntarists argue that we do exercise direct control over at least some of our beliefs. Indirect doxastic voluntarists argue that while we may lack direct control over our beliefs, there are lots of ways we can exercise indirect control over what we believe by controlling what evidence we pay attention to, whose testimony we seek out, etc. You can learn more about doxastic voluntarism here.
For Clifford, an important part of why he thinks it is important to believe in accordance with our evidence is because he thinks our beliefs will inevitably impact our actions. In fact, he goes so far as to say that something is not “truly a belief at all” unless it has “some influence upon the actions of him who holds it.” This doesn’t mean that we always immediately act on our beliefs. Rather, Clifford argues that each of our individual beliefs contributes to our total belief structure.
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.
In a moment, we will be introduced to Clifford’s key ethical conclusion in “The Ethics of Belief.” Once you see his principle, it may help explain why it is important for him to argue that every one of our beliefs influences how we act.
An important part of Clifford’s argument is his recognition that our beliefs impact other people. He thinks we have duties both to other people and to humankind generally, and he thinks that we cannot satisfy those duties when we believe irresponsibly. This perspective shows up at multiple points in Clifford’s essay, including in the following passage.
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.
Critics of Clifford often argue that he has an overly stringent view of when we can believe something. If that is so, there at least seems to be something laudable about how his high standard for believing is a reflection of how seriously he takes our ethical duties to others.
In focusing on the social significance of our beliefs, Clifford’s essay is a precursor to the modern field of social epistemology, which focuses on the epistemic significance of social interactions, practices, norms, and systems. Examples of issues in social epistemology include when we are justified in believing something based on someone else’s testimony and when we should become less confident in our beliefs because we learn that others disagree with us. In the passage above, Clifford’s concern with the epistemic significance of things like “[o]ur words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought” resembles a common focus in feminist social epistemology on the significance of concepts, ideas, and frameworks for helping us come to better know or understand our own experiences or the world around us. You can read more about Clifford’s social epistemology here.
At the end of the first section of Clifford’s essay, he summarizes what he has argued for.
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…
Here, Clifford reiterates how he uses his two cases of the shipowner and the religious agitators to motivate his views about the ethics of belief, given the impact our beliefs can have on others. He then moves from this summary to his key principle.
Clifford is perhaps most famous in epistemology for his principle that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” Initially, this view sounds really strong, in part because it uses lots of strong language—“always,” “everywhere,” “anyone,” and “anything.” But this strong language may be there just for emphasis. Clifford’s principle seems to simply state the following: it is always wrong to believe without sufficient evidence. If you accept Clifford’s conclusion that the shipowner or the religious agitators believed wrongly, then you agree with him that at least sometimes it is wrong to believe without sufficient evidence. But a key question remains: has Clifford successfully argued that it is always wrong to believe without sufficient evidence?
Given the strength of Clifford’s universal principle that it is always wrong to believe on insufficient evidence, one might worry that Clifford’s view would lead to skepticism. Clifford anticipates that his reader might have this worry and so asks the question himself.
Are we then to become universal sceptics, doubting everything, afraid always to put one foot before the other until we have personally tested the firmness of the road? Are we to deprive ourselves of the help and guidance of that vast body of knowledge which is daily growing upon the world, because neither we nor any other one person can possibly test a hundredth part of it by immediate experiment or observation, and because it would not be completely proved if we did? Shall we steal and tell lies because we have had no personal experience wide enough to justify the belief that it is wrong to do so?
Clifford recognizes it would be bad if his principle led to these outcomes. But he denies that this kind of skepticism will result from following his principle. Here is his response:
There is no practical danger that such consequences will ever follow from scrupulous care and self-control in the matter of belief. Those men who have most nearly done their duty in this respect have found that certain great principles, and these most fitted for the guidance of life, have stood out more and more clearly in proportion to the care and honesty with which they were tested, and have acquired in this way a practical certainty. The beliefs about right and wrong which guide our actions in dealing with men in society, and the beliefs about physical nature which guide our actions in dealing with animate and inanimate bodies, these never suffer from investigation; they can take care of themselves, without being propped up by ‘acts of faith,’ the clamour of paid advocates, or the suppression of contrary evidence. Moreover there are many cases in which it is our duty to act upon probabilities, although the evidence is not such as to justify present belief; because it is precisely by such action, and by observation of its fruits, that evidence is got which may justify future belief. So that we have no reason to fear lest a habit of conscientious inquiry should paralyse the actions of our daily life.
As this passage shows, Clifford does not think that his view leads to skepticism. This is because he thinks we do have sufficient evidence for many of our beliefs. This is, in part, because many of our beliefs have been subjected to testing and scrutiny, and they have stood up to such tests.
Clifford also makes an important distinction here. He requires that our beliefs have sufficient evidence. He does not require that our beliefs have certain or infallible evidence. Rather he thinks that “practical certainty” (i.e., enough justified confidence for practical purposes) is sufficient for belief in many contexts.
Clifford’s most famous critic is the American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910). James challenged Clifford in his essay “The Will to Believe.” Check out this video comparing Clifford’s and James’ views and arguments.
In “The Ethics of Belief,” Clifford argues that our beliefs themselves can be ethical or unethical. Part of how he makes this argument is with vivid hypothetical stories, like those of the shipowner and the religious agitators. Clifford later adopts the position that it is always wrong to believe something without sufficient evidence. This naturally leads to the question of when we have sufficient evidence to believe something. He doesn’t think sufficient evidence requires certain evidence, which is how he avoids skepticism. He instead thinks that we are often justified in believing things, for example when we are told things by reliable testifiers or when we have good inductive evidence for a belief.
We’ve talked a lot about Clifford’s ethics of belief, but Clifford is also interested in a related kind of ethical duty: the duty of inquiry. He writes, for example that “Inquiry into the evidence of a doctrine is not to be made once for all, and then taken as finally settled. It is never lawful to stifle a doubt; for either it can be honestly answered by means of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry was not complete.” As in the case of his ethics of belief, he holds a high standard in the ethics of inquiry. Clifford’s interest in inquiry is another way in which his work anticipated contemporary discussions in epistemology. In recent years, the epistemology of inquiry has became a topic in its own right and the source of various debates
For more on the ethics of belief, the ethics of inquiry, and related topics, keep reading Clifford “The Ethics of Belief.” You can also read a summary of some of Clifford’s key ideas from 1000-Word Philosophy or learn more about contemporary issues in the ethics of belief in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Excerpts from “The Ethics of Belief” in this essay come from the version reprinted in Lectures and Essays (1879), volume 2, pp. 177–211, available in the public domain from Wikisource. All images were created using Midjourney and are the property of The Philosophy Teaching Library.
Satta, Mark. 2024. “Can Beliefs Be Unethical? W. K. Clifford’s The Ethics of Belief.” The Philosophy Teaching Library. Edited by Robert Weston Siscoe, <https://philolibrary.crc.nd.edu/article/can-beliefs-be-unethical/>.
God as God – The phrase “God as God” is basically a synonym for “God the subject.” In other words, it refers to God precisely in God’s status as an incomprehensible divine Other.
Incarnation – The Christian doctrine of the incarnation is the notion that the word of God became fully human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is closely associated with the doctrine of the trinity, which asserts that God the Father, God the Son (Jesus as the word made flesh), and God the Holy Spirit are one God.
Religious Fanaticism – In Feuerbach’s use of the term, a religious fanatic is someone who is unwaveringly faithful to God as an utterly mysterious superhuman being. They subordinate other things—especially the love of other humans—to submission before this divine other.
God the Subject – When Feuerbach refers to God as a subject, he is referring to the commonplace religious belief that God is a being who has various attributes, like a loving nature.
Faith Separates Man From God – Faith separates God from man in this sense: it treats God as a mysterious other, a being radically distinct from us.
Faith – Belief in and fidelity to a transcendent divine subject like God.
Orthodoxy – Orthodoxy refers to “right belief,” and it is concern with identifying heresies and ensuring that people believe and practice correctly.
Indirect Form of Self-Knowledge – Feuerbach’s view is that religious belief is a naive way of relating to our human nature and its perfections. It is naive or childlike because it treats these as external realities that belong to God. He believes a mature and contemplative person realizes these don’t belong to God, but rather to our species, abstractly conceived.
Above the Individual Man – The human perfections are “above the individual” insofar as no particular individual ever perfectly realizes them. They are abstractions.
Divine Trinity – Feuerbach is having fun here. He is using the theological phrasing of the Trinity to talk about human perfections. In calling reason, love, and freedom of the will “divine,” he means they are absolutely good; they are activities whose goodness is intrinsic to their practice or exercise. This isn’t a novel philosophical view. For example, Immanuel Kant argued that autonomy or a good will is the only thing which is unconditionally good.
Perfections – The end to which a faculty or power is ordered. For example, omniscience would be the perfection of the intellect. Traditionally, God is said to possess all perfections.
Love – When Feuerbach writes about love, he is referring to unconditional concern for others and the desire for fellowship with them. He is here asserting that love, understood in this sense, is the perfect activity of the affective faculty. In other words, our feelings and passions are fully actualized and engaged in an intrinsically valuable activity when we genuinely love others.
Infinite – The infinite is whatever can be understood as unbounded or unlimited. Human nature in the abstract is unbounded and unlimited. It is only bounded or limited in its concrete form as it is realized by particular material individuals.
Higher Consciousness – The sort of consciousness that mature human beings possess, but which other animals do not. It is “higher” than animal consciousness because it involves thinking abstractly about the form or essence of things.
Science – Feuerbach uses the term science in its classical sense, meaning systematically organized knowledge. Any body of knowledge founded on an understanding of first principles and the essences of things is a science in this sense.
Popular Sovereignty – The view that a government’s authority to rule comes from the people, making a ruler subject to the will of their citizens.
The Divine Right of Kings – The theory that kings are chosen by God and thus that political revolt is a rebellion against the will of God.
Synthesis – The prefix ‘syn-’ means “together,” so a synthesis “brings together” or combines elements of both a thesis and its antithesis.
Antithesis– An antithesis is the contradiction of a thesis. For example, internationalism could be understood as the antithesis of nationalism.
Thesis – In Hegelian terms, a thesis can be understood as a position or theory. Examples include any of the “-isms” that we discuss in science, history, and philosophy, such as Darwinism, capitalism, nationalism, etc.
Progressor’s Temptation – a unique temptation for those making progress in which pride impedes their further progress and leads to backsliding.
Progressors – those who are not yet expert Stoic practitioners, but who are also aware of the fact that they must change their lives in that direction. They are working on making progress.
Intellectualism – the philosophical view that our motivations and emotions are all judgments. The reason why you do something, your motivation, is because you believe it’s the right thing to do. The reason why you feel good or bad about something, an emotion, is because you believe that something good or bad happened to you.
Duties – acts of service, obedience, and respect that we owe to each other. The duties we owe to each other depend on what kind of relationship we have.
Askeses – exercises of Stoic thought and practice that make the lessons and habits of Stoic philosophy second-nature for Stoic practitioners.
Externals – things that are not under our control but that are all-too-easily confused with things that should be important to us, like wealth, status, and pleasure. Too many people believe externals like these are necessary for the good life, and the Stoic path is to focus not on these things but rather what is up to us.
The Fundamental Division – the division between things that are under our direct control and those that are not. The important lesson is to care only about the things we can control.
The Greatest Happiness Principle – A principle which says that actions are right insofar as they promote happiness and wrong insofar as they promote unhappiness