Is There an Ethics of Belief?

Recently I’ve been coming across some thinkers promoting an ethics of belief. Initially the idea sounded a little strange to me: ethics concerns actions—intentions to act, dispositions to act, consequences of action—and beliefs matter ethically only insofar as they are relevant or involved in action, right? As I said, this was my initial reaction, and after some reflection, I still hold to it, although with an important caveat. So let me say what I think this notion gets right, and what it misses.

Take for example Colin McGinn’s claim that his atheism results in part from an ethics of belief. I’ll let him say why in his own words:

“It is often forgotten that atheism of the kind shared by Jonathan [Miller] and me (and Dawkins and Hitchens et al) has an ethical motive. Or rather two ethical motives: one is ethical repugnance at the cruelty, tyranny and oppression of organized religion over the course of human history; the other concerns the ethics of rational belief—how we are obliged to form our beliefs about the world. The first motive is familiar and needs no commentary from me. The second is less widely appreciated, but for some of us it is crucial to the whole discussion. We believe, as an ethical principle, that beliefs about what reality contains should always be formed on the basis of evidence or rational argument—so that “faith” is inherently an unethical way to form your beliefs.”

I will focus on the latter principle. McGinn asserts as a ethical principle of belief (formation and retention) that:

“beliefs about what reality contains should always be formed on the basis of evidence or rational argument”

Let’s call this principle ‘MG’. I see some problems with MG as stated. For one thing, it is too vacuous for serious universal application. Most theists, after all, claim that their belief is informed by serious evidence and argument. Thus, in an empty way, their beliefs satisfy MG. Another problem concerns the concepts of ‘evidence’ and ‘rational argument.’ What are we to make of these? By ‘rational argument’ are we committed to making as many of our beliefs as possible consistent with one another? If so, MG is surely too strong. Is it irrational, and therefore, unethical, for someone to be a dualist? As stated by Descartes, for instance, I take it as a truth of reason that dualism simply cannot be correct. Was Descartes—worse than wrong—immoral? By MG, it would seem so. A similar problem emerges with the notion of evidence. I’m not sure exactly what McGinn means by this term, but presumably he means something like verification, demonstration or proof. But many of our beliefs, especially the most interesting and profound ones, nevermake it to the stage where evidence in that sense applies. I, for instance, don’t think that a belief in God is a false belief—it is a confused belief. Most of the new atheists with whom McGinn aligns himself spend way too much time going straight away to arguments about why the belief is false, and skip over the really hard work of unpacking the confusions involved in the concept of God itself. Let me get personal for a moment and say why I think that one argument for the existence of necessary being is very hard to get around—it is one of Aquinas’ five proofs.

From nothing, nothing is caused. Something must always have existed if anything exists. This universe exists (assumed). Thus, something must always have existed, ie something exists necessarily.

Now, of course this is only a proof that something must necessarily exist, not that a personal God with intentions and an interest in human affairs exists. But so what? It is a theological claim, and even though I don’t believe it, I have a hard time saying why. Am I unethical? Not for this reason, I think.

We should also consider that for many of our beliefs we simply lack any decisive evidence or demonstration either way. Is it consistent with MG to form a belief on such matters anyway? For instance, should I believe that quantum mechanics is a correct description of reality? After all, we have yet to solve the puzzling fact of apparent particle-wave duality, and we still haven’t unified gravity with the electromagnetic forces. More importantly, we have no really good idea how this might be possible. Is it wrong to have beliefs on these matters, then? Perhaps McGinn would suggest that we append a rider to MG, such that in cases where sufficient evidence is lacking decisively for or against the truth of a belief, one ought to withhold judgment. Let’s call this MG’. Well, ok, but how do we apply MG’ to cases like the axiom of choice? Doing set theory requires that one take a stance on the axiom of choice--a 'leap of faith,' as it were--without any rational justification. Is this an example of the intrinsic conflict of goods in the domain of belief? Maybe, but this conclusion seems way overwrought.

Finally, what are we to do about counterfactual beliefs? Maybe there are some counterfactuals that we could exclude from reality, but surely not all of them. So what about someone’s belief that, had Napoleon not been defeated, then Germany would have democratized much earlier than it did? It’s surely fun to consider counterfactuals like this, and we can consider them knowledgably, but of course we really have no decisive way of determining their truth value. Again, is it immoral to believe a claim like this?

The fact is that most of our beliefs have no obvious actionable consequences, and because of this, I have a hard time thinking of them as ethical at all, and this in turn is why I think that my initial reaction is basically the right one. As of now, I can think of no morally sensitive consequence of either the belief that the universe is bounded or that it is infinite, and thus, this belief simply has no moral import. Now, we might suggest one further reworking of MG, to something like the following (MG’’):

Beliefs about what reality contains should always be formed on the basis of evidence or rational argument WHEN those beliefs potentially lead to morally sensitive consequences.

But this is just to say, again, and redundantly, that it is the actions or consequences that matter, not the belief per se. Suppose for instance that someone has a completely vacuous belief in a God—believing that some God exists, but who takes no interest whatsoever in human affairs and has prescribed no rules or norms. This belief, basically, is totally irrelevant to how one behaves and lives. It’s difficult for me to understand how such a belief could be moral or immoral at all--how one could be committing the 'sin of atheism' to believe it.

But let me conclude with my caveat. Despite all that I’ve said above, I do believe in a basically Kantian project of enlightenment, and this makes it requisite that I submit my moral and political beliefs to public, rational scrutiny and, when the public argument is persuasive, I ought, morally, to change my mind. So perhaps we could amend MG one final, less problematic way (MG’’’):

Beliefs about what reality contains should always be formed on the basis of evidence or rational argument WHEN those beliefs are morally or politically salient.

I have no problem with MG’’’, but I’m not sure that it says anything except that, insofar as beliefs are relevant to moral action or consequences, we have an obligation to ensure as best we can that those beliefs are, morally, right. But that’s obvious. I think. And again, this means that there is no such thing as a distinct ethics of belief; there is just ethics.