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Clifford's principle holds that it is immoral for individuals, no matter of circumstances, to believe anything without sufficient evidence.While this principle has existed for centuries, it only became prominent in the minds of the common people after the ethics of belief debate in the 19th century [1] between W.K. Clifford and William James, with Clifford articulating the principle in his now ...
Clifford famously concludes with what has come to be known as Clifford's principle: "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." [ 20 ] As such, he is arguing in direct opposition to religious thinkers for whom 'blind faith' (i.e. belief in things in spite of the lack of evidence for them ...
The Will to Believe" is a lecture by William James, first published in 1896, [1] which defends, in certain cases, the adoption of a belief without prior evidence of its truth. In particular, James is concerned in this lecture about defending the rationality of religious faith even lacking sufficient evidence of religious truth.
In 1877 Clifford published an article titled "The Ethics of Belief" in the journal The Contemporary Review. There Clifford argued for a strict form of evidentialism that he summed up in a famous dictum: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence."
However, the trier of fact is allowed to weigh the evidence of the contents of the writings. Clifford clarifies the purpose of the ancient documents rule in his book John Warwick Montgomery's Legal Apologetic (pp. 51–65). Clifford says that apologists may appear to their opponents to have overstated their conclusions based on the ancient ...
According to Reformed epistemology, belief in God can be rational and justified even without arguments or evidence for the existence of God. More specifically, Plantinga argues that belief in God is properly basic, and due to a religious externalist epistemology, he claims belief in God could be justified independently of evidence.
He further argues that since belief is involuntary, these creatures should always have evidence "causally sufficient" for such belief: The presence of God will be for them like a light that—however much the degree of its brightness may fluctuate—remains on unless they close their eyes.
In carefully designed scientific experiments, null results can be interpreted as evidence of absence. [7] Whether the scientific community will accept a null result as evidence of absence depends on many factors, including the detection power of the applied methods, the confidence of the inference, as well as confirmation bias within the community.