April 23, 2013The Ethics of Belief By: W.K. Clifford1. A belief is never insignificant or even a private matter because what you believe you make part of yourself. With this belief being part of you you’re judgment and decisions are skewed which can affect others. 2. This affects our character because even though we were never discovered we were still in the wrong. It affects society in the same manner. 3. Their veracity, knowledge, and judgment. 4. We make a guess or an inference that things are the same now as they were before. 5. Historical events cannot be directly viewed and tested whereas physics can. NOTES- Composed of 3 sections discussing when you should/shouldn’t hold a belief o 1. You shouldn’t believe something until you have objective, factual proof. The boat is due for maintenance but the guy says what it hasn’t crashed yet so why would it crash now? He sends it off and it crashes. No matter the outcome, if you hold this false belief you are wrong, even if nothing goes wrong.  In order to go on a ‘witch hunt’ you must have proof/firsthand experience/hard evidence- Best case scenario is you look stupid, worst case scenario you destroy your reputation and are avoided- The ‘witch’ can really only explain themselves and either come out looking good OR they will forever have a negative stigma attached to their name You can never fully separate out belief and action. Your actions will always be influenced by your beliefs no matter how much you try for them not to be.- “no one man’s belief is truly just his own” Also, once you believe something without evidence it will make it much easier for you to falsely believe something else- This starts the slippery slope. Think about airport security since 9/11. Airport security is continually increased without us asking any questions.o 2. You can’t always acquire firsthand knowledge so under what circumstances and you trust what an authority figure says? Veracity (truthfulness)- Does this person have a reputation for telling the truth or lying? Do they seem trustworthy? Do they usually give truthful pieces of knowledge? Knowledge- Are they an expert in the area you’re inquiring about? I.e. don’t ask a doctor to fix your car and a mechanic to fix your grandmother Judgment- Does this person use the knowledge they have well? Do they use good judgment? Do other experts respect this person’s view? You cannot trust a piece of information given from a trustworthy source if they cannot have firsthand knowledge about it. (think about the chemists claim to the oxygen molecule being the same forever. How do they really know? They haven’t been watching it the entire time)o 3. Limits of inference; what can you believe (infer) without actually experiencing something firsthand. Gives the example of the kid touching the hot stove Uniformity in natureyou can make inferences about something after experiencing it once, you don’t have to keep experiencing something over and over again (consistency exists aprox. 100% of the time)- The kid who touches the stove learns that when you touch hot things you get burned. You don’t have to prove that a hot thing burns every time. Uniformity in the characters of man consistency of human action, has a large room for error- People don’t usually lie about being terminally ill but sometimes they