Believing without evidence is always morally wrong | Hacker News Reader

Believing without evidence is always morally wrong

aeon.co

5 pointsimartin2k7 comments

The crux of the matter is what should constitute sufficient evidence. Is the same level of evidence required for all beliefs? What about things for which there are no evidence, eg value judgements - I believe fairness is more important than freedom (or vice versa). Seems like an impossible standard to need evidence for everything.

I suspect this conflates two semantically distinct kinds of 'belief': 'I hold the value that fairness is more important than freedom' is not equivalent to 'I know certain facts to be true.'

The scientific method is one example of a principled approach to needing evidence for everything: there is no belief, there are only theories that best explain observed phenomena. Ideally, these should be shed like socks when a better model comes along.

That you hold a certain value is logically true as long as you actually hold that value. There is no belief necessary in that case. _Why_ you believe it, i.e. the justification for that belief would need to be empirically grounded if I understand the article correctly. That seems a tall order.

Further, isn't even the scientific method at its core also based on certain beliefs about the world for which there is no empirical basis? Not that that would make it any less valuable as a tool for understanding the world.

I suppose that I think of holding values and knowing facts to be non-overlapping magisteria (qv Gould). In a reasonable person, facts will inform values, but values don't need to be (and cannot always be) justified by facts. You and I may have the exactly the same set of facts and nevertheless draw different conclusions.

Belief in something as a fact, however, does need to be justified by evidence; especially where used to support values.

>> isn't even the scientific method at its core also based on certain beliefs about the world for which there is no empirical basis?

That's a good point. What do we accept as true, a priori, if we only believe that for which there is evidence? After all, while there is a philosophical basis for you to know that you exist, there is no philosophical basis for you to know as a fact that anything else besides you exists. It is a conundrum.

Still, I think we can still acknowledge uncertainty in our beliefs. "I will act in the belief that X is true even though I have incomplete certainty, but will update my behavior and beliefs given new evidence."

It's not practical to be everywhere all at once to record first hand every event. So, at some point you need to rely on others. The more limited your resources the more you need to rely on others.

In my opinion, that supports the thesis even further. It's not necessary to believe something is true in order to use the information: one can provisionally accept it until more information comes in. Ideally, this is how the scientific method works.

Agree. Also many people ignore that it is actually possible to accept that something is unknown, at least at a given moment.

Many of the most absurd beliefs are the consequence of people not being able to accept that there is not an answer (yet) for a phenomenon. So instead, they rely on "believing" to create an illusion of certainty for themselves.

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