Good and Bad Reasons for Believing: Philosophical Analysis
In the article “Good and Bad Reasons for Believing”, Richard Dawkins argues that you should only believe something once it has been proven by evidence. He also claims that tradition, authority and revelation are three bad reasons to believe something. In this paper I will critically analyse Dawkins’ theory and explain why I agree with his viewpoint as described in the article. Dawkins argues that the appeal to tradition, authority and revelation are fallacies. Unless backed by evidence, they are not good arguments and can’t be trusted blindly. The only way to be certain that something is true is through observation, either personal or by someone who has seen/heard/felt it personally. He stipulates that it is okay to trust authority without personally seeing evidence, as long as “anyone is free to look at the evidence whenever they want”. Dawkins concludes by saying that when confronted with a claim, it is smart to step back and reflect on why people believe it before deciding whether to believe it yourself. Evidence is a valid reason to believe something because once something has been proven through observation, it cannot be argued. It is simply fact, according to Dawkins. On the other hand, when a claim is justified by tradition, authority or revelation there is still room for opinion and argument. When a fact can be argued, it is unfounded and therefore is not a fact at all. In the case of tradition, Dawkins explains that often traditions (specifically religions) stem from stories written long ago that were passed down through generations. Somewhere along the way, they began to be construed as fact, but there is no way of knowing for certain who originally believed them and whether they had evidence or even if they were meant to be taken seriously at all. He then rationalizes that the appeal to authority is fallacy because being in an authoritative position does not make a person all-knowing, nor does it mean that they are always right. Without evidence,