@philosophyminis: Is it ever immoral to believe in God? Is it ever wrong to believe in ghosts or heaven or fate? According to Richard Dawkins, if we tolerate others believing things without sufficient evidence, then we open up an entire category of ridiculous beliefs, from garden goblins and the tooth fairy all the way up to Lizard Illuminati. This is the idea known as ‘epistemic responsibility,’ and it says that we have a duty to believe things only with sufficient evidence. In his 1877 essay 'The Ethics of Belief', the philosopher W.K. Clifford said that ‘it is wrong always and everywhere for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.’ This principle is known as ‘evidentialism,’ and it says that we should only believe those things that we have evidence for. In his essay, Clifford gives the example of a ship owner who is selling tickets for a once in a lifetime journey. The ship owner has a hunch that his ship might not be up to the journey, but yet he sells tickets anyway. He asks no more questions. He turns a blind eye and he does not call in any professional help. Is the ship owner to blame for any future disasters? Is he to blame for not asking more questions? Dawkins turns Clifford's argument onto religion. Dawkins says that faith is the great copout. It is an ‘excuse to evade the need to think and to evaluate.’ For Dawkins and Clifford, if we accept things without critical thinking, without questions, or without evidence, we are not only ignorant, we are immoral.

Jonny Thomson

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Thursday 16 April 2026 13:14:41 GMT