William Clifford The Ethics Of Belief Analysis

In the essay, “The Ethics of Belief” by William K. Clifford, Clifford argues how one believes is not only responsible for self, but for others as well (Burger, 2008). He believes that one should not believe something without sufficient evidence or vigilant reasoning because you are morally obligated to others. Additionally, Clifford does not consider belief and action to be unconnected, because beliefs can result in actions that affect others. Clifford uses a shipowner sending an emigrant-ship out to sea as an example. Initially, the shipowner has reservations about his ship being old and needing an expensive overhaul to be deemed seaworthy as suggested by some experienced personnel. However, he convinces himself the ship will be fine because it had made this trip safely on numerous occasions. Instead of paying to have the ship overhauled and trusting the word of more experienced personnel, he loads families aboard and unfortunately, the ship goes down and all the passengers are lost.

In other words, how is he able to determine whether the ship was or was not sea-worthy? The shipowner had a moral obligation to seek evidence to back his beliefs because he was responsible for the lives of several passengers. Clifford uses this to demonstrate that our beliefs can affect others, therefore, our beliefs can be morally good or bad. Regardless, if the action results in something bad or not, Clifford holds each person responsible for assuring your beliefs are not lacking sufficient evidence because “no belief held by one man, however seemingly trivial the belief, … is ever actually insignificant or without its effect on the fate of mankind …” (Burger, 2008, p.