The Ethics Of Belief

The Comparison of Ethics and Will in Belief Socrates is quoted as saying “ I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” and that is what we are asked to do for this end of the term writing assignment. Philosophy, at least in my own case, has never been easy to understand, especially when talking about the religious implication. When it comes to those aspects I always tend to look in the direction of faith because I was born and raised a Christian. This is why comparing William James and his piece “The Will to Believe” to W.K. Clifford's piece “The Ethics of Belief” will be eye opening because I will have to see the other side to believing that is outside of faith. Both of these concepts have value to the topic but depending
James also states that when the evidence is not always know, like for example in everyday life, we either have to act by faith or not do anything at all. (James p.148). Now looking at this text as a Christian, I personally do believe that faith is key in making decisions. In James’ passage from the text he says that “ ‘Belief’ is defined as a live, momentous optional hypothesis on which we cannot avoid a decision, for not to chose is in effect to choose against the hypothesis”( James p148-149) meaning that it is in that moment we decide what our decision will be based on whatever is going on at that time. He gives the name hypothesis to anything that could be offered to our belief and then James asks us whether or not to believe in certain things. He says that if he were to offer up a situation that happened in a certain area then to those who weren’t involved he says that the hypothesis is “dead” but to those affected or in the area of that particular situation then to them the hypothesis would be “alive”. James says that “, the hypothesis is among the mind’s possibilities:” and by this I believe that what he meant was that the hypothesis is open to interpretation of whether or not the hypothesis is right