The Nature and Ethics of Belief

FAIN: FR-10292-78

Stuart E. Rosenbaum
Baylor University (Waco, TX 76798-7284)

To do a study on the nature and ethics of belief. The question of the ethics of belief is the question of how, in general, anyone's beliefs ought to be formulated given a certain body of evidence. W.K. Clifford and William James have both tried to answer this question, and are in total disagreement about the issue. This issue leads us not only to epistemology and philosophy of religion, but also to central issues in metaphysics and philosophy of science: the nature of belief, the nature of persons, relativism and determinism. This study will elaborate on the connections between the problem of the ethics of belief and other vital problems in philosophy.