Clifford Versus James
William James put his argument against W. ... Clifford’s Evidentialism as simple as “In all important transactions in life we have to take a leap in the dark .” Both men occupied their work with “the Ethics of Belief,” that being Clifford’s evidence-based answer to the origin of belief. James presents a valid argument against Evidentialism with his use of collective philosophical points from others who have debated Clifford as well. Clifford begins his work with an example of a shipowner who has slight reservations against his ship’s next voyage yet he believes that since his ship has never failed before, it will not fail on this next trip. However, the ship sinks and Clifford finds the shipowner guilty because the shipowner made a belief based on false evidence. ... Despite granting evidentialism correct in some cases , James found evidentialism to be incomplete in the cases of religion and morality. James begins his argument defining hypotheses, or anything that can be proposed to one’s belief, and continues his rebuttal based on psychology, free will, moral duty, and faith. ... James continues his classification system by creating a option system. ... ” James continues his introduction to options with a brief notion of free will. ... ” James implies that the idea of believing based on our personal volition of the subjective, can be seen as silly or in the eyes of the physical sciences, as a vile approach. James argument takes shape as it discuses free will and subjectivism and he attacks Clifford openly with a quote. “That delicious enfant terrible Clifford writes: ‘Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer … Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away … If a belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence (even though it is true) the pleasure is a stolen one… It is sinful because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind.