How effective is William James’ thesis in “The Will to Believe” in refuting William Clifford’s notion of the immorality of belief on the basis of insufficient evidence in his “The Ethics of Belief”?

How effective is William James’ thesis in “The Will to Believe” in refuting William Clifford’s notion of the immorality of belief on the basis of insufficient evidence in his “The Ethics of Belief”?



Traditional arguments like Anselm’s Ontological Argument and the various arguments from Design that try to prove God’s existence have at least one thing in common. That is, they try to prove God’s existence based on logic and reason. The controversy that occurs regarding these arguments often arises when philosophers show that the basic assumptions that are made should not be taken for granted. However, disagreement also arises not because the reasoning is flawed, but because some believe that reasoning itself is not apt to judge God’s existence by. A vast majority of the religious believe that in order to have faith, one cannot appeal to reason, for having reason compels one to a belief rather than allowing one to make a free choice of whether to have a ...