In “The Ethics of Belief” by William Clifford, Clifford tries to convey a general belief that mankind should question in there harsh beliefs. He stats examples as to why men should do this and gives the reader a look into another perspective. The first example of a man not questioning his belief, when it would have been the morally right thing to do, was the shipowner. The shipowner used a persuasive argument based on induction in order to tell himself everything will be fine with his ship. In standard form this argument would look like this.
1) “He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms 2) that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also.” (Page 1)
C) Therefore the ship must come home safely now.
This argument was not sound since the ship ended up sinking. Although, it was a valid argument to have, that
I felt that the reason of this writing was to tell the audience to question everything that they believe in and know. This means question everything thing that you read as well. Which means question everything that even Clifford wrote too. For a man that is telling his audience to not have strong opinions about things he sure has a strong opinion about his writings, but regardless he makes good points. This might be a fallacy.
“It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting” (page 5) This sentence really stuck with me. In today’s society, if you for one second question your argument or your own point of view then you just lost the argument all together. You have to be very opinionated in order to get your point across.
contobe 