Pascal

1
Pascals wager

• Simplified version
• Its safer to be a believer than a nonbeliever.
  As a believer, if youre right you go to heaven
  and if youre wrong its no big deal. But as a
  nonbeliever, if youre right its no big deal and
  if youre wrong you go to hell
• Why believe in God?
• epistemic reasons reasons that concern whats
  most plausible, likely to be true, backed by
  evidence, intellectually justified, etc.
• e.g., the design argument
• prudential reasons reasons that concern whats
  in your own best interest, whats to your
  advantage, what makes your (after)life go better,
  etc.
• e.g., Pascals wager

2
Pascal in the Pensées

• Reason
• Reason can decide nothing here
• Pascal thinks its intellectually unclear whether
  God exists I look on all sides, and I see only
  darkness everywhere. Nature presents to me
  nothing which is not matter of doubt and
  concern.
• He mentions the Deus absconditus (hidden God)
  of Scripture (Isaiah 4515, Vulgate).
• This is supposed to be part of Christianity
  Christians profess a religion for which they
  cannot give a reason, Christianity says that
  men are in darkness and estranged from God, that
  He has hidden Himself from their knowledge

3
Pascal in the Pensées

• Intellectual integrity
• According to reason, you can defend neither of
  the propositionsneither theism nor atheism.
• So, you might think, its therefore inappropriate
  to take a position the best response to withhold
  judgment on the question.
• That is, if theres no intellectual basis for
  theism and none for atheism, then the most
  intellectually honest position is a kind of
  agnosticism.
• But Pascal insists that you must wager and that
  it is not optionalyou have to take a
  position on this issue.
• So theres nothing intellectually dishonest in
  taking a position. Youre forced into it.

4
Pascal in the Pensées

• Wagering setup
• You can either go with theism or atheism.
• You have two things at stake your reason and
  your will.
• You might gain knowledge or you might fall into
  error.
• You might gain happiness or you might fall into
  misery.
• Wagering reason
• Since this is an intellectually unclear and
  forced choice, neither option will compromise the
  integrity of your reason.
• Wagering happiness
• Go with theism If you gain, you gain all if
  you lose, you lose nothing

5
Standard payoff matrix
God No God
Believe 8 -0/0
Disbelieve -8 -0/0
Heaven, hell, nothing lost or gained in this world
6
No hell payoff matrix
God No God
Believe 8 -0/0
Disbelieve -0/0 -0/0
Heaven, no hell, nothing lost or gained in this
world
7
Pascal in the Pensées

• Cost of religious obedience
• Pascal seems to start out with the assumption
  that theres no cost to believing if God doesnt
  exist (if you lose, you lose nothing)
• But later he seems to allow for the view that
  there is a real cost, in giving up a happy life
  (I may perhaps wager too much).
• In any case, since what you stake is finite,
  therefore the wager still works.

8
Cost of obedience payoff matrix
God No God
Believe 8 -n
Disbelieve -8 0/-0
Heaven, hell, n the cost in this world of
religious obedience
9
Pascal in the Pensées

• Probabilities
• Pascal seems to start with the assumption that
  Gods existence has a probability of 0.5 (Since
  there is an equal risk of gain and of loss...)
• But he later allows for the view that the odds
  are against Gods existence, insisting that the
  wager still works.
• Just as 0.5(8) 0.5(-n) gt 0.5(-8) 0.5(0),
  so too 0.01(8) 0.99(-n) gt 0.01(-8)
  0.99(0)
• The wager still works, so long as Gods existence
  has a probability greater than zero, and so long
  as the cost of religious obedience in this world
  is finite.

10
Pascal in the Pensées

• Objection choosing beliefs?
• Pascals entire argument seems to rest on the
  assumption that beliefs can be voluntarily chosen
  (this view is called doxastic voluntarism).
• But that assumption seems false.
• My current belief is that cats do not lay eggs. I
  cannot simply choose to believe otherwise.
• I can raise my arm at will, but I cant change my
  beliefs at will.
• So someone might object to Pascal, Yes, Im
  convinced that its to my advantage to be a
  believer, but I have no control over my beliefs!

11
Pascal in the Pensées

• Reply indirect control
• Since your reason is not keeping you from belief,
  it must be your passions.
• So dont bother looking at proofs and reasoning
  instead, work on your passions.
• Imitate believers you know Follow the way by
  which they began by acting as if they believed,
  taking the holy water, having masses said, etc.
• Eventually it will influence your passions and
  make you into a genuine believer.
• In other words, even if we have no direct control
  over our beliefs, we still have indirect control.

12
Summary

• Reason can decide nothing.
• You have to pick one side or the other.
• You stand to gain more happiness by being a
  believer than by being a disbeliever.
• This holds true even if there is a worldly cost
  to being a believer, and even if Gods existence
  is unlikely.
• Even if you cant directly choose to be a
  believer, you can gradually gain belief by
  imitating believers.

13
Objectionsintellectual honesty / personal
integrity

• Mackie on indirect control
• Remember that Pascal says that picking a side
  will not compromise (or shock) your reason.
• But Mackie thinks the indirect conversion process
  recommended by Pascal does just that.
• He writes that, in deliberately cultivating
  non-rational belief, one would be suppressing
  ones critical facultiesand Pascal himself
  writes that the process will naturally make you
  believe, and deaden your acuteness.
• This is an especially big problem if you think
  the odds are against Gods existencenow Pascals
  recommendations are to deliberately... reject
  all rational principles of belief in uncertainty.

14
Objectionsintellectual honesty / personal
integrity

• Why not suspend judgment?
• Remember that, despite his assumptions that
  reason doesnt support theism or atheism, Pascal
  thinks its still okay to pick a side because you
  have to pick a side.
• That is, he defends the intellectual integrity of
  picking a side by saying you cant refuse to
  wagerthis suspension of judgment agnosticism
  isnt a real alternative.
• But why isnt it a real alternative?
• Maybe he thinks its not a legitimate alternative
  because such agnosticism is practically
  equivalent to atheism.
• But even if thats true, such agnosticism still
  seems intellectually superior to theism and
  atheism (at least given Pascals assumptions
  about what reason can tell us)

15
Objectionsintellectual honesty / personal
integrity

• Biting the bullet
• Pascal might retreat to the claim that it is
  still rational to sacrifice ones intellectual
  honesty and personal integrity.
• After all, whats a little dishonesty compared
  with eternal bliss?
• A very principled nonbeliever might insist that
  it is never okay to sacrifice ones integrity for
  the sake of self-interest.
• But suppose you could get a trillion dollars just
  by getting yourself to form some trivial
  unjustified belief (e.g., that the trillionth
  digit of pi is odd)wouldnt that be okay?
• Of course, Pascal spends a lot of time
  emphasizing the grave importance of the question
  of Gods existence. It therefore doesnt seem
  like something to take trivially.

16
Objectionsintellectual honesty / personal
integrity

• Fooling God?
• Mackie writes that Pascal needs God to be both
  stupid enough and vain enough to be pleased with
  self-interested flattery
• Pascal could respond that, even if we find that
  kind of God distasteful, its still rational to
  be a believer in such a God.
• A more palatable response what starts out as
  self-interested flattery of God will eventually
  develop into genuine heartfelt worship of God.
• That way, God might reward those who follow
  Pascals wager without being stupid or easily
  fooled.

17
ObjectionsThe many gods objection

• Pascals key assumption
• Pascal seems to assume that there are only two
  possibilities (1) God exists and rewards
  believers with heaven (and perhaps punishes
  nonbelievers with hell), and (2) God doesnt
  exist and were all annihilated at death.
• He even has a nonbeliever character say, I know
  only that, in leaving this world, I fall for ever
  either into annihilation or into the hands of an
  angry God, without knowing to which of these two
  states I shall be for ever assigned.
• But this seems to overlook a lot of possibilities.

18
ObjectionsThe many gods objection

• Other possibilities
• God exists, everyone goes to heaven.
• God exists, everyone goes to hell.
• God exists, only Protestant Christians go to
  heaven (everyone else goes to hell).
• God exists, only Sunni Muslims go to heaven.
• God exists, only people who speak Czech go to
  heaven.
• God exists, believers go to hell, nonbelievers go
  to heaven.
• God exists, everyone goes to heaven except those
  who follow Pascals wagerthey go to hell.

19
Reversal payoff matrix
God1 God2 No God
Believe 8 -8 -n
Disbelieve -8 8 0/-0
Heaven, hell, n the cost in this world of
religious obedience
20
ObjectionsThe many gods objection

• Mackie on predestination
• Perhaps people are predestined to salvation or
  to non-salvationperhaps to damnationno matter
  what they now decide, or try to decide, to do
• If you think salvation is a matter of divine
  grace, and if youre serious about avoiding
  Pelagianism, then you might think theres nothing
  you personally can do to acquire salvation.
• Pascal seems to make the controversial assumption
  that you personally can put a strategy into
  effect that will probably get you saved.
• But if the Calvinist doctrine of double
  predestination is true, then that assumption
  cannot be made.

21
Cliffords The Ethics of Belief

• Famous statement
• It is wrong always, everywhere, and for any
  one, to believe anything upon insufficient
  evidence
• Famous shipwreck case
• People die because some shipowner stifles his
  doubts about his ships seaworthiness.
• Even if the ship didnt sink, hed still have had
  no right to believe on insufficient evidence.
• Another case public accusations
• The charges turn out to be false, and the
  accusers are dishonored.
• Even though they sincerely believed the charges
  were true, since they got their beliefs by
  listening to the voice of prejudice and passion,
  they had no right to believe.

22
Belief and action

• Objection
• Their beliefs werent wrong, just their
  actionsthey should have investigated more
  thoroughly before they acted.
• Short reply
• You cant separate the belief from the action
  like this. After all, if youve already got
  strong beliefs on a matter, its impossible to do
  a fair and unbiased investigation.

23
Longer reply

• Beliefs are action-guiding
• Beliefs by their very nature have an influence on
  actions.
• Even a single trifling belief will have wider
  effects on other beliefs, as well as on our
  habits in accepting beliefseventually
  influencing our actions.
• Beliefs are not private
• Our lives are guided by the common opinions
  found throughout society.
• We have a responsibility to take care of this
  stock of common opinion.
• We owe it to the rest of humanity and to future
  generations to form our beliefs with evidence and
  testing.

24
Longer reply

• Its everyones responsibility
• This duty is not just for intellectuals.
• Even the rustic and the hard-worked wife have
  an influence on the stock of common opinionso
  they too are on the hook.
• Its not easy
• Feeling like we know whats going on gives us a
  pleasant sense of power.
• And it feels bad to realize that we were wrong
  and lose this false sense of power.
• But we have to give it up, out of respect for
  mankind.

25
Longer reply

• Character/habits credulity
• Unsupported belief is always bad, even when it
  doesnt have the kind of bad effects you can
  point to.
• For it weakens your intellectual habits, and
  makes you into a credulous person.
• Cf. Even if stealing doesnt hurt anyone, it
  makes the thief into a worse person.
• We dont want to end up with a society of
  credulous persons, sinking back into savagery
• Character/habits dishonesty
• If my mind is filled with unsupported beliefs,
  others are more willing to lie to me, and they
  get into bad habits.
• Dishonesty spreads around alongside credulity,
  and we end up with a general disrespect for
  evidence and truth.

26
Universal skepticism?

• Objection
• 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?
• Short reply
• Certain matters concerning morality and the
  physical world have stood up to testingthey have
  a practical certainty
• Also, you dont need beliefs to act. Its quite
  possible to act on probabilitiesafter all,
  thats precisely how you get evidence.

27
Longer reply relying ontestimony and tradition

• Testimony
• Its okay to accept testimony only when we have
  evidence that the reporter is honest, capable of
  knowing the matter, and reasonable.
• In particular, its not enough for the report to
  be a good person. We need reason to think that he
  might know what hes talking about.
• Example Even if Muhammad was a good person with
  excellent contributions to society, that doesnt
  give Clifford any reason to trust his claims
  concerning the supernatural.
• Example Trusting a chemist is okay on normal
  matters of chemistry. But not if the chemist
  claims to know of an atom of oxygen existing
  throughout all time.

28
Longer reply relying ontestimony and tradition

• Tradition
• Tradition is good at supplying us with the
  means of asking questions, of testing and
  inquiring into thingsproviding us with a
  framework for inquiry.
• It shouldnt be taken as a collection of
  cut-and-dried statements to be accepted without
  further inquiry.
• We should accept the claims of tradition only
  when we have evidence that the persons
  responsible knew what they were talking about.
• He illustrates this good use of tradition with
  examples from the moral and... the material
  world.
• The sacred tradition of humanity consists in
  questions rightly asked, in conceptions which
  enable us to ask further questions, and in
  methods of answering questions.

29
Conclusion

• Moving beyond experience
• Clifford also discusses what to think about that
  which goes beyond our experience.
• The rule is to take our experience as a guidewe
  make the working assumption that nature is
  uniform.
• Summing up
• We may believe what goes beyond our experience
  only when it is inferred from that experience by
  the assumption that what we do not know is like
  what we know
• We may believe the statement of another person,
  when there is reasonable ground for supposing
  that he knows the matter of which he speaks, and
  that is speaking the truth as far as he knows it
• It is wrong in all cases to believe on
  insufficient evidence and where it is
  presumption to doubt and to investigate, there is
  more than presumption to believe

30
Objections to Clifford

• Exaggerated consequences
• Most commentators seem to agree that Clifford has
  overstated the bad consequences of beliefs based
  on insufficient evidence.
• After all, perhaps people can hold to a limited
  class of such beliefs without losing all respect
  for evidence and all intellectual virtue.
• e.g., some respected scientists claim to have
  religious convictions based on pure faith, backed
  by no evidence at all
• And presumably lots of people can hold to wildly
  irrational beliefs without it having much of an
  influence on the rest of society.
• Clifford could always insist that theres
  something intrinsically wrong with unjustified
  beliefs, but then hed be giving up his
  destructive social consequences style of
  argument.

31
Objections to Clifford

• Foundational matters
• Its hard to know how to give evidence for things
  like the reliability of ones senses, or the
  reliability of ones memory, or the existence of
  an external world, etc.
• Perhaps its okay to accept these things merely
  as working hypotheses, or to just take them for
  granted as a sort of background framework for
  thinking.
• But then why cant we take religious beliefs
  (like the existence of God) for granted in the
  same way? (Historically, a lot of people have
  done just that)

32
Objections to Clifford

• Foundational matters, contd
• Maybe its okay to accept them because theyve
  stood up to testing.
• But the tests we use rely on things like the
  reliability of the senses, the existence of the
  external world, etc. They take for granted what
  were supposed to be testing for.
• Similarly, the evidence we have for saying some
  testimony or some tradition is reliable and
  trustworthy is typically taken from previous
  testimony and tradition.
• Generally, its hard to do tests or provide
  evidence without drawing on a large pre-existing
  stock of beliefs.
• So, again, its unclear whether we need to have
  evidence for all our beliefs.

33
Objections to Clifford

• Children
• How do we get beliefs in the first place? Are we
  supposed to rely on evidence from day one?
• It seems implausible that a child would first
  need evidence of his mothers reliability and
  trustworthiness before believing her claims about
  the names of things.
• Perhaps the child should just take her claims as
  working assumptions for the purposes of further
  testing?
• But if all you have to work with are working
  assumptions, how do you get the kind of evidence
  needed for justifying a belief?

34
Objections to Clifford

• Religious belief
• Perhaps religious belief doesnt fit Cliffords
  rule because theres no way to get evidence one
  way or the other.
• Clifford would probably say that, even when
  evidence is unavailable, belief without evidence
  has bad consequences.
• You might think that there are no bad
  consequences to religious beliefs like God loves
  us and wants us to be nice.
• But Clifford would argue that these beliefs will
  in any case reinforce bad habits across the
  board.
• So the heart of the matter might be this Is it
  psychologically realistic that people can treat
  religious beliefs differently from their other
  beliefs, as a sort of isolated special case?

35
William JamessThe Will to Believe

• James criticizes Cliffords essay, arguing that
  belief on insufficient evidence is sometimes
  okay.
• Distinctions, terminology
• Live / dead hypothesis A hypothesis is dead when
  we couldnt bring ourselves to believe it (e.g.,
  the mythology of ancient Greece) otherwise its
  live.
• Option decision between two hypotheses
• Living / dead option between two live
  hypotheses?
• Avoidable / forced option possibility of not
  choosing?
• Momentous / trivial significant stake,
  irreversible decision?

36
Psychology of human opinion

• Against doxastic voluntarism
• We cant change our beliefs at will.
• A Pascals wager conversion would end up lacking
  the inner soul of faiths reality
• Without some pre-existing tendency towards
  Catholicism, imitating Catholics wouldnt bring
  belief.
• Non-intellectual influences
• But beliefs arent entirely controlled by the
  intellect.
• Authority and intellectual climate make a
  big difference fear and hope, prejudice and
  passion, imitation and partisanship, the
  circumpressure of our caste and set
• Our foundational beliefs (e.g., in truth itself)
  are just passionate affirmations of desire, in
  which our social system backs us up
• We disbelieve facts and theories for which we
  have no use

37
Stating the thesis

• Evaluating our psychology
• So apparently, as a matter of fact, our beliefs
  are influenced by lots of non-intellectual
  factors.
• Is this a bad thing? Is it reprehensible and
  pathological?
• Or it is okay, to be treated as a normal
  element in making up our minds?
• James thinks its okay
• Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but
  must, decide an option between propositions,
  whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by
  its nature be decided on intellectual grounds
  for to say, under such circumstances, Do not
  decide, but leave the question open, is itself a
  passional decision,just like deciding yes or
  no,and is attended with the same risk of losing
  the truth

38
Dogmatism, absolutism,and empiricism

• Dogmatism
• James is going to work with the assumption that
  there really is such a thing as truth.
• Absolutism
• When you get at something true, there is some
  sort of telltale indication that youve gotten
  it.
• James uses the metaphor of a bell that goes off
  in your head whenever you get knowledge.
• He thinks that most of us are absolutists at
  heart. Even empiricists like Clifford think they
  know certain things for sure.
• Empiricism
• But James is an empiricist he thinks that there
  is no sure indicator of truth, and that no belief
  is so sure as to be beyond reinterpretation and
  correction.
• The test of a belief is not whether it comes from
  some infallible intellectual faculty, but whether
  it stands up to repeated examination.

39
Two goals

• Epistemology involves two goals
• Gain truth
• Avoid error
• Ranking these goals
• Clifford thinks (according to James) that
  avoiding error is of supreme importancehed give
  up all chance at gaining truth rather than risk
  any error.
• Others might think gaining truth is more
  important.
• James insists that any such ranking is an
  expression of our passional lifesome people
  are terrified of believing false things, whereas
  others feel like its no big deal.
• He says Cliffords rule is like a general
  informing his soldiers that it is better to keep
  out of battle forever than to risk a single wound

40
Examining agnosticism

• Jamess strategy
• James is going to examine principled agnosticism
  in the realms of science, morality, and religion.
• Hes going to see whether we should be agnostics
  when confronted with ambiguous evidence.
• Science
• James will argue that it makes sense to be
  agnostic on scientific issues when the evidence
  is ambiguous.
• Morality
• James will argue that principled agnosticism is
  absurd in cases of personal relations.
• Religion
• James will argue that its okay to follow
  pro-religion passions, and that principled
  agnosticism is an irrational rule.

41
Science, morality

• Science
• The options in science are not momentous or
  forced, so principled agnosticism makes sense as
  a way of avoiding falsehood.
• Its not like science is so urgent that we need
  some belief, any belief to get by.
• Though its nice to have zealous scientists
  pushing their theories, just as a way of
  encouraging scientific progress.
• Morality
• James seems to suggest that both philosophical
  skepticism about morality and commitment to
  morality are okay.
• With personal relations, having positive hopeful
  beliefs (precursive faith) is a good way of
  making these beliefs eventually come true.
• It would be absurd to wait for evidence as to
  whether someone likes me before trusting them.

42
Religion

• Essence of religion
• First, the best things are the more eternal
  things
• Second, we are better off even now if we believe
  the first thing to be true
• What if religion is true?
• The option is momentous a vital good is at
  stake.
• The option is forced being agnostic is just one
  more way of missing out on this vital good.
• Agnosticism isnt a way of avoiding the options
  its a way of taking a specific option Better
  risk loss of truth than chance of error.
• Its not saying the intellect is better than the
  passions its saying that the fear of error is a
  better passion than the hope of gaining truth.
• Doesnt my passional need of taking the world
  religiously have any say in the matter?

43
Religion, contd

• Personal religion
• Now consider that (for most of us) religions
  present the eternal perfection as somehow
  personal.
• And the option feels like its being proposed to
  our active good-will, as if evidence might be
  forever withheld from us unless we met the
  hypothesis half-way
• Agnostics might cut themselves off forever
  from their only opportunity of making the gods
  acquaintance
• Principled agnosticism is irrational
• If all this is true, then principled agnosticism
  keeps us from the truth.
• And a rule of thinking which would absolutely
  prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of
  truth if those kinds of truth were really there,
  would be an irrational rule

44
Religion, concluded

• Waiting for evidence
• James thinks its bizarre to say were required
  to wait for the evidence to come in.
• It might make sense if we were absolutists, if we
  thought our intellect would somehow tell us when
  we had knowledge.
• But were empiricists, so we dont expect to know
  anything for sure.
• Tolerance
• We shouldnt criticize each other for making our
  decisions one way or the other.
• We ought, on the contrary, delicately and
  profoundly to respect one anothers mental
  freedom

45
Some comments on James

• Jamess counterexamples
• Clifford gives a big universal rule it is wrong
  always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe
  anything upon insufficient evidence
• One way of understanding James is that he comes
  up with two kinds of counterexamples to this
  rule
• Beliefs such that believing them helps make them
  come true (e.g., social relations).
• Beliefs such that the only way to get the
  relevant evidence is to believe them first (e.g.,
  God).
• Im taking this from the Stanford Encyclopedia
  of Philosophy article Pragmatic Arguments for
  Belief in God written by Jeff Jordan

46
Some comments on James

• Optimistic practical beliefs
• People have given other examples of practical
  beliefs that its okay to have (even without
  sufficient evidence).
• The world is an overall nice place.
• People can usually be trusted.
• Our efforts can make the world a better place.
• The problems I experience will not last my whole
  life.
• I can successfully climb up from the edge of this
  cliff.
• These beliefs make your life go much better, the
  line of thought goes, and so its okay to believe
  them without sufficient evidence.

47
Some comments on James

• Depressive realism
• Some evidence in psychology indicates that happy
  people tend to overestimate their own abilities,
  reputation, etc.
• In contrast, people suffering from depression
  tend to give relatively accurate estimates.
• Im told this is all extremely controversial, and
  I have no expertise in the matter.
• But perhaps it could lend support to the idea
  that having unjustified optimistic beliefs makes
  your life go better.

48
Objections to James

• Optimistic beliefs
• Its unclear whether you need to have optimistic
  beliefs in order to get the benefits James
  mentions.
• Maybe all you need is a sort of optimistic
  pretense where you dwell on happy outcomes.
• In baseball, do you need to believe Im going to
  hit a home run or is it enough to focus on that
  particular outcome?
• Perhaps Jamess arguments cant justify religious
  belief, but only a sort of hopeful pretense
  (which arguably fits with some traditional
  notions of faith).

49
Objections to James

• Fear of false beliefs
• James says Clifford is against beliefs based on
  insufficient evidence because Clifford suffers
  from a pathological fear of false beliefs.
• James also says that principled agnostics in
  general have nothing to back up their position
  but a fear of false beliefs.
• But first, thats probably a misinterpretation of
  Cliffordwhat Clifford is worried about is the
  destructive consequences for society if people
  stop respecting truth and evidence.
• And second, a principled agnostic neednt take
  avoiding false beliefs as the one supreme goal of
  epistemologyshe might argue that her agnostic
  methods will give us the best mix of gaining true
  beliefs and avoiding false beliefs.
• That way, an agnostic might have something better
  than a dubious passion backing up her recommended
  methods.

50
Objections to James

• Are religious beliefs good?
• James sometimes seems to assume that religious
  beliefs make things better.
• After all, he focuses on our right to believe
  good, nice, optimistic things.
• Presumably, for example, James would not defend a
  racists right to follow his racist passions and
  believe that certain races have genetically lower
  IQs.
• Now, religious beliefs like God loves us and
  wants us to be nice are hard to worry about.
• But when we get to more detailed, real-world
  religious beliefs, its highly controversial
  whether theyre good, whether they make things
  better.

51
Objections to James

• Living options
• Whether an option counts as living for you will
  depend on lots of arbitrary factors about where
  you happened to be born.
• And whether an option is living determines
  whether you have the right to believe itJames
  doesnt defend the voluntary adoption of beliefs
  that seem bizarre and incredible to the believer.
• It might seem irrational to deliberately allow
  your beliefs to be influenced by such arbitrary
  factors.
• But perhaps James thinks that you need some
  arbitrary cultural background or another in order
  to start intellectual inquiry in the first
  placewithout it, youd have nothing to work with
• Remember from the Clifford slides, I mentioned
  that we might need a large pre-existing stock of
  beliefs.

52
Objections to James

• Getting at the truth
• James seems to reject any epistemic rule that
  might possibly cut us off from the truth.
• He rejects Cliffords rule dont believe without
  sufficient evidence because perhaps God wont
  reveal himself unless youre willing to take a
  leap of faith.
• But every epistemic rule might possibly (if
  things get weird enough) cut us off from the
  truth.
• Any rule of the form never do x might cut us
  off from knowing Godafter all, perhaps God wont
  reveal himself unless you do x.
• Never knowingly believe in contradictions
• Never deliberately suppress good evidence
• Never reject evidence from a person just because
  you dont like the way they look
• So it looks like James would have to reject all
  sorts of very plausible epistemic rules.

53
Part I

• Natural religion
• religion based on scientific-style reasoning and
  observation of the natural world
• as opposed to revealed religion religion based
  on Scripture and miracles
• Characters
• Cleanthes has an accurate careful
  philosophical turn
• Philo careless carefree scepticism
• Demea rigid inflexible orthodoxy

54
Religious education

• Demeas method
• First... learn logics, then ethics, next
  physics, last of all, of the nature of the Gods
• Teach children the weakness of human reason
  before teaching them religion
• First, a proper submission and self-diffidence,
  and then, open to them the greatest mysteries
  of religion
• This protects them from the dangers of
  philosophy, from that assuming arrogance of
  philosophy, which may lead them to reject the
  most established doctrines and opinions

55
Religious education

• Philo agrees
• Ignorant and devout The ignorant masses see the
  endless disputes of scholars and cling tighter
  to religion.
• A little learning... Novices to philosophy get
  excited about reason and end up rejecting
  religion.
• Skeptical and devout But once you learn enough,
  youll see the weakness of human reason (even in
  common life, even in basic physics and
  metaphysics), and you wont trust reason in out
  there matters of theology.
• _________________________________________________
  _____________________
• Both Philo and Demea say that a healthy
  appreciation of the weakness of human reason
  (which comes from mature study of philosophy) can
  be good for religion.

56
Skepticism insincere and unlivable

• Cleanthes is having none of it
• Self-proclaimed skeptics are insincere or maybe
  just joking. They rely on reason just like
  everyone else.
• Maybe you can actually be a skeptic for less than
  a few hours but you cant keep it up, and after
  a while, you return to the real world along with
  everyone else.
• And why go through the trouble!?
• The Stoics thought the truly virtuous could
  overcome even torture. The Pyrrhonian skeptics
  thought you could live your life as a skeptic.
• Both failed to see that, just because you can
  keep something up for a little while, it doesnt
  mean you can keep it up your whole life.

57
Philos defense of skepticism

• The healthy residue of skepticism
• Maybe you cant keep up skepticism all the time,
  your whole life.
• But something will remain with you you wont
  forget the lessons of skepticism, and it will
  affect the way you think.
• Why to bother with skepticism
• Why do skeptics act like normal people? Were
  humans and we cant help it.
• Why go into deep skeptical philosophy? Its
  interesting and pleasant and rewarding.
• Why philosophize? Everyone does some reasoning.
  And philosophy is just regular and methodical
  reasoningno different in kind from the reasoning
  of common life.

58
Philos defense of skepticism

• Going too far
• When we leave common life and start reasoning
  about stuff like eternity and God, weve gone too
  far.
• Reasoning about trade, or morals, or politics,
  or criticism is okayit gets backed up by
  common sense and experience.
• But reasoning about God has nothing backing it
  up, and we dont know whether we can trust our
  reason.
• In reasoning about common life, skeptical worries
  never succeed, because they get outweighed by
  common sense and observation.
• But in reasoning about God, skeptical worries are
  powerful, because theres nothing to oppose them.

59
Religion and science

• Cleanthes responds
• Even you skeptics accept reasoning about out
  there stufflook at science!
• It would be crazy to reject Galileo or Newton on
  the general grounds that human reason is too weak
  and untrustworthy on such remote subjects.
• The ignorant masses, they reject science because
  they dont understand it, and they cling to even
  the lowest superstition.
• But you skeptics are perfectly willing to accept
  scientific reasoning, even about very outlandish
  topics.
• So, unless youre just inconsistent or biased,
  you should be willing to accept reasoning
  concerning God.

60
Religion and science

• Sincerity
• So, again, youre just being insincere. Its
  obvious you dont believe what youre saying.
• Ill be charitable and say youre just joking,
  youre just having a good time.
• Obvious arguments for religion
• And its not like the arguments for religion are
  really strained and weird and intricate.
• On the contrary, theyre perfectly obvious and
  natural.
• So reasoning about religion is actually in better
  shape than scientific reasoning.

61
Religion and skepticism

• Cleanthes continues, addressing Demea.
• Early Christianity
• In those days, everyone railed against reason.
• The Church Fathers borrowed from the Academic
  skeptics.
• The Protestant Reformers bashed reason.
• Catholics have written skeptical tracts very
  recently.
• Enlightenment Christianity
• But then Locke said Christianity is based on
  reason.
• Bayle and others misused skepticism, and everyone
  joined Locke.
• And now everyone acts like atheist and
  skeptic mean the same.

62
Religion and skepticism

• Philo chimes in
• This looks like priestcraft (priests
  manipulating people for their own gain)
• In the old days, only a love of reason could
  challenge religion.
• And people were more susceptible to
  indoctrination.
• So the priests bashed reason.
• But now people are more independent-minded and
  they know about other religions.
• So now the priests base everything on reason.
• Cleanthes responds
• Come on, its only natural for people to use
  whatever means they have to defend their beliefs.

63
Review

• Philo seems to be going with some hardline
  version of agnosticism
• Reason is incapable of showing anything one way
  or the other about religion.
• Those who think reason can prove or disprove
  religion are putting too much stock in reason.
• Trusting reason might be okay in matters of
  common life, but not in matters of theology.
• But Cleanthes thinks reason is up to the task
• There are obvious arguments to establish the
  important doctrines of religion.
• These arguments are just as solid (or even more
  so) than scientific arguments.

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