The Ethics of Belief in Politics and Religion

Several years ago I read an interesting autobiographical essay called Quam Dilecta by the Christian philosopher Peter Van Inwagen. How many times do we read something interesting and say, “This is really interesting; I would like to think about this later; I should write down the reference for this so I can find it later; but I’m lazy; I’m sure I’ll remember five years from now anyway”. I do that a lot and I don’t think I remember much of what I wish I could remember. However this essay Quam Dilecta somehow did stick with me for the past five years. As I just reread it, I marveled at how much I remembered from it.

I think what I remembered most and has possibly even acutely affected my thoughts is Van Inwagen’s analysis of Clifford’s Thesis and the Difference Thesis. Clifford’s thesis refers to its author W.K. Clifford and can be found in its entirety in his work Ethics of Belief. Some may have come across Clifford if they have taken advance math or physics courses (i.e. the Clifford Algebra).

Clifford’s Thesis is quite simple and succinct: It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Difference Thesis is Van Inwagen’s creation: Clifford’s Thesis applies to religion but not to politics or philosophy. Van Inwagen is not advocating the Difference Thesis but merely notes that it seems to be a double standard held by a large number of anti-religious people.

Van Inwagen writes of the seeming double standard:

It is interesting to note that Clifford’s Principle is almost never mentioned except in hostile examinations of religious belief, and that the anti- religious writers who mention it never apply it to anything but religious beliefs…It is this that provides the primary evidence for my contention that many anti-religious philosophers and other writers against religion tacitly accept the Difference Thesis: the fact that they apply Clifford’s Principle only to religious beliefs is best explain ed by the assumption that they accept the Difference Thesis. The cases of Marxism and Freudianism are instructive examples of what I am talking about. It is easy to point to philosophers who believe that Marxism and Freudianism are nonsense: absurd parodies of scientific theories that get the real world wildly wrong. Presumably these philosophers do not believe that Marxism and Freudianism were adequately supported by the evidence that was available to Marx and Freud–or that they are adequately support ed by the evidence that is available to any of the latter-day adherents of Marxism and Freudianism. But never once has any writer charged that Marx or Freud blotted his epistemic escutcheon by failing to apportion belief to evidence. I challenge anyone to find me a passage (other than an illustrative passage of the type I have mentioned) in which any devotee of Clifford’s Principle has applied it to anything but religious belief. And yet practically all philosophers–the literature will immediately demonstrate this to the most casual inquirer–subscribe to theses an obvious logical consequence of which is that the world abounds in gross violations of Clifford’s Principle that have nothing to do with religion.

He goes on to show that if Clifford’s Principle was applied faithfully, we would be lost in a morass of skepticism:

If Clifford’s Principle were generally applied in philosophy (or in politics or historiography or even in many parts of the natural sciences), it would have to be applied practically everywhere. If its use became general, we’d all be constantly shoving it in one another’s faces. And there would be no comfortable reply open to most of the recipients of a charge of violating Clifford’s Principle. If I am an archa eologist who believes that an artifact found in a Neolithic tomb was a religious object used in a fertility rite, and if my rival Professor Graves believes that it was used to wind flax, how can I suppose that my belief is supported by the evidence? If my evidence really supports my belief, why doesn’t it convert Professor Graves, who is as aware of it as I am, to my position? If we generally applied Clifford’s Principle, we’d all have to become agnostics as regards most philosophical and political questi ons–or we’d have to find some reasonable answer to the challenge, “In what sense can the evidence you have adduced support or justify your belief when there are many authorities as competent as you who regard it as unconvincing?” But no answer to this challenge is evident, and religion seems to be the only area of human life in which very many people are willing to be agnostics about the answers to very many questions.

The last sentence rings true; how many agnostics do you know that are agnostic in policy decisions and science etc.? (I do know one or two but they are rare). From my experience, agnostics tend to be extra political and opinionated in other philosophical matters. Now, in their defense, Clifford’s Principle, as worded, is a pretty weak one and I doubt it is consciously used by many agnostics. However the gist of it is common enough: there is just not enough evidence for God (“Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.”- Bertrand Russell). As can be asked of any idea, just how much evidence IS enough?

By making note of the Difference Thesis, one can ask why the religious believer is being held to a double standard. Typically this kind of defense must be set forth against the vociferous atheist/agnostic who thinks that making non-evidentially supported claims is dangerous/immoral to humankind (of course making such moral statements is always a problem for such a person but I digress). You can always retort that they are also making claims that lack sufficient evidential support (whatever sufficient might mean, I don’t know; but if I’m not convinced by it, it must not have sufficient evidence).

That is all well and good, but I think there is another important application of the Difference Thesis that Van Inwagen does not touch upon. It is in regards to the Pluralist Thesis: It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe that their culture/world-view is superior to all others cultures/world-views.

Once again, it may not be the case that someone actually ascribes to the Pluralist Thesis but we see variants of it espoused constantly in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism. Just like as Van Inwagen demonstrated with Clifford’s Principle, the Pluralist Principle is also asymmetrically applied to religious belief. In fact I would say this asymmetry is more apparent that it is for Clifford’s Thesis.

I have been told my intransigent religious beliefs are outdated and narrow-minded. I dated a girl for a few years that reminded me of this quite often. The most obvious way to see the Pluralist Principle in action is to say something like: “I think Islam is totally incorrect religion”. If you say the same thing about all religions you might get a pass but if you then proceed to say, “And Christianity is definitely the true religion” then you will elicit an outcry of disgust our pluralist friends. But if you be of such persuasion to say, “Liberalism is wicked awesome and conservatism sucks”, then you will meet applause (assuming you’re in a liberal audience of course). Why is it incorrect in one case to make absolute statements and not in the other? In all cases, the propositions do not have evidence to convince all the great minds of the world, so I don’t think simple evidence for one proposition over the other is the lynch-pin here. Imagine how different things would be if we applied the Pluralist Principle to politics?

Tags: agnosticism, atheism, belief, Christianity, culture, ethics, God, Peter Van Inwagen, philosophy, pluralism, politics, religion, WK Clifford