Clifford - the Ethics of Belief

Clifford, in his essay on "The Ethics of Belief," examines the integrity of the beliefs that form the actions and character of men. He presents a strong case for the proper investigation of premises. Also, he appears to harshly condemn the ignorant. However, upon further investigation, it is not the amount of information a person possesses that concerns Clifford, but rather how they analyze that information. Overall Clifford presents a persuasive well-founded argument about the proper acquisition of knowledge.

In science the null hypothesis is the statement that says whatever conclusion the researcher is seeking is false. The phenomenon with the null hypotheses is that researchers will go to extreme lengths to reject the null hypothesis and prove that their hypothesis is true. In fact many studies, when analyzed at their most basic levels, will reveal that the researcher manipulated the data in an unethical manner to gain the desired result. Clifford condemns this action as the most ignorant man in a population. Proper belief, according to Clifford, is gained only when the belief is honestly scrutinized and truth, instead of bias, is sought. When a belief is desired for the satisfaction of the believer the evidence noticed by the observer tends to only reinforce the previously held belief. This is a strong point presented by Clifford and there are countless examples of people only seeing what they want to see. Clifford's presentation on the necessity of unbiased analysis is very important because beliefs lead to action.

The caution in the article is that when beliefs are falsely adopted and untruthfully maintained then the actions that stem from those beliefs are harmful to society in one way or another. Obviously beliefs like those of the ship owner, when reinforced for the sake of personal gain, are the worst kind of false beliefs. Many times the most educated people have the greatest ability to convince themselves that