The Ethics of Belief of W. K. Clifford

Abstract

This article is an introduction to “The Ethics of Belief” by William Kingdon Clifford. The author examines the connection of “The Ethics of Belief” with contemporary philosophy of religion, analyzes the nature of relationships between epistemology and ethics in Clifford's theory, and puts it into the context of the ethics of belief in contemporary philosophy. The author concentrates on such notions as epistemic and practical rationality, compares Clifford's theory with moderate evidentialism and pragmatism in the ethics of belief. After that, the author analyzes the most famous critique of Clifford's theory introduced by William James. Then, he discusses the analysis of Clifford-James debates proposed by George Mavrodes. In the end, the author concentrates on Alvin Plantinga's approach to epistemology, as an example of contemporary criticism of Clifford's theory.