[00:00:01] INTRODUCER:
We are assembled, ladies and gentlemen, to hear the– I was going to give you the number of the Howison Lecture, whether it’s the forty-eighth, but I didn’t get a program as I came in. But in any case, the latest of the series of annual lectures which honor the memory of George Holmes Howison, the founder and the first professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California. One of Professor Howison’s, uh,
(coughs)
dominant interests was to develop close relations between philosophical studies in California and in England. And I’ve always heard from my old friends that he regarded as one of his great achievements, one indeed of his proudest achievements, the fact that he induced Professor McTaggart of Cambridge University to make what sixty years ago was a fairly venturesome, uh, journey to the Far West to participate in a symposium on “The Bearings” of Recent Advances in Science upon Certain Metaphysical Convictions.” This was well before my time, but I have always imagined that, uh, convinced Kantian, as Howison was, he was also very glad to get the Cambridge Hegelian here to, uh, debate with him and to set him straight, correct some of his errors.
Well, in any case, over the years, the lectureship that Howison’s students and friends established in his memory has brought the university not only many of the, uh, leaders in American philosophical thought but, uh, an excellent, uh, representation of, uh, philosophical scholars, uh, from England. So Howison’s steps towards establishing the, the California-England, uh, entente have been, uh, carried further. We’ve had a Howison lecture from Professor G.E. Moore of Cambridge, from the, um, from two of the White’s professors at, at Oxford, uh, Mr. Paton and, uh, and the late, uh, Professor Austin, from, um, Gilbert Ryle, the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics at Oxford.
And, uh, tonight, uh, we are to have as our Howison lecturer, the, um, recent holder of the Wykeham Professorship of Logic at Oxford and even more recently a Gifford lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, uh, Professor Price. Before I mention a few of Professor Price’s preeminent achievements, I would like to tell you that our– in our student days, uh, Professor Price’s and mine, He was universally believed capable of walking to the farthest point in Oxfordshire after lunch and get back to his rooms in college in time for tea. You can well believe this, I think, from Mr. I said universally believed to do this, actually almost universally.
There were a few skeptics
(laughter)
who believed that he kept secretly concealed somewhere on Headington Hill, a, uh, an aerial glider
(laughter)
and, uh, made part of this walk, uh, by, by air. He was a member of the Royal Air Force in the First World War and has been a great collector of airplane models. Um, he has lately been moving back and forth frequently from Los Angeles to Berkeley,
(cough)
but I gather not on foot because, uh, uh, he, according to Professor Mates, he appeared, uh, and, uh, Mr. Price is an expert in appearances, he appeared emerging from an airplane a few hours ago at the San Francisco Airport, and Mr. Mates is also an expert on appearances, so I, I am convinced that he arrived not on foot, But, but by, uh, plane. Well, uh, all, uh, students of, of philosophy, uh, are deeply in Professor Price’s debt for the work he has done as philosophical scholar, as teacher, and as philosopher in theory of knowledge, particularly theory of perception. And besides this, it’s my opinion that he has done a good deal to stem, in respective studies of Hume, to stem the, uh, the fashion of altogether too easy, uh, refutations by finding verbal contradictions in Hume and direct our attention to much more important matters in Hume and in Immanuel Kant, uh, his work.
Uh, Professor Price’s subject tonight is, uh, again, I regret that I didn’t come in the front door, and so I haven’t the program, but as I remember it, it’s, uh, causes for belief or of belief-
[00:05:36] PROFESSOR PRICE:
Yes.
[00:05:36] INTRODUCER:
And reasons for belief.
[00:05:39] PROFESSOR DENNES:
The, uh, the rationalist optimism of the nineteenth century that intelligent men would soon be able to limit their beliefs to those for which there was adequate evidence has suffered terrible blows in our century. And the tendency has been to veer over to an opposite position, which, which, uh, it seems to me very much needs, uh, uh, correction and careful analysis. Just what Professor Price will talk about in detail I do not know.
I feel confident he will make an important contribution, uh, to this problem, uh, too. It is a pleasure and an honor to introduce as our Howison Lecturer, uh, Professor Price of Oxford.
(applause)
[00:06:37] PROFESSOR PRICE:
Professor Dennes, ladies and gentlemen, may I first say what a very great pleasure it is to me to be here addressing you in Berkeley. There have been very friendly relations for many years now between the philosophers of my own country and the philosophers of this place. May I also say what a very great honor it is to me to have been invited to contribute to this very distinguished series of lectures, the Hägerström Lectures.
I hope I shall be worthy of my predecessors. It has often been said that we should distinguish between the causes of a belief and the reasons for a belief. I think that this is an important and useful distinction.
But when we try to apply it to particular examples, we find we encounter certain difficulties and complications which need to be cleared up. It will be easier to discuss this subject if you will allow me to use just a little bit of technical terminology. Only a little bit and nothing very technical, so please don’t be alarmed.
In ordinary everyday speech, we use the word belief both for the believing and for what is believed. And this way of speaking does not usually lead to any trouble. But still, the two things, the believing and what is believed, are very different.
For example, I believe that it is now after four AM in London. The believing is a mental attitude of mine, a very familiar one, though not an easy one to analyze. But what is believed, that it is now after four AM in London, is not a mental attitude at all.
It is something which is either true or false. It is what philosophers and logicians call a proposition. And with your permission, that is what I am going to call it in this lecture.
Moreover, for the sake of brevity, it is sometimes convenient to use letters of the alphabet, such as P, Q, et cetera, to denote propositions. For example, Smith believes that P, Jones believes that Q. And I hope you will not mind if I sometimes do this too.
Well, now we can return to the distinction between causes of belief and reasons for belief. Beliefs, like other human phenomena, need explanation, and they are especially felt to need it when they are surprising or unusual. Well, it is maintained that there are two quite different explanations which may be given of them, and that we must be very careful not to mix the two sorts of explanation up.
On this view, the question, why is such and such a belief held, is an ambiguous question and may be answered in two quite different ways. On the one hand, the answer might consist in mentioning various psychological factors which caused this or that person to believe a proposition P. For example, wishes, hopes, fears, processes of social suggestion, et cetera.
Conceivably, his belief might even have been caused by hypnotic suggestion, that is, by hearing certain words which a hypnotist said to him. On the other hand, when we are asked to explain the belief that P, to explain why someone holds it, we might give quite a different sort of answer. We might mention various reasons for believing the proposition P, the evidence in favor of it, the facts which make P probable or more probable than not.
And this sort of explanation, too, may satisfy the person who asked the question. He may not have known that there were these reasons for believing the proposition P or any reasons at all for believing it. Now that he’s been told these reasons, now that certain facts have been brought to his attention which support the proposition P or are evidence in favor of it, now he is no longer puzzled as he was before.
For example, why is it believed that it is dangerous to be out of doors for some hours or even days after an atomic bomb has been exploded in the neighborhood. The answer would be because the atmosphere will be full of radioactive dust particles which are highly injurious to the human organism. Now, this is a perfectly satisfactory answer to the question: Why is this proposition believed?
It is then argued that if we do not distinguish carefully between these two quite different ways of explaining a belief, we may fall into serious confusions. The most important of them, perhaps, is the one which Professor Broad has called the genetic fallacy. We are liable to suppose that when we have found the psychological causes of some belief, we have thereby shown that the belief is unreasonable, or even that the proposition believed is false.
This is a very familiar way of pouring cold water on religious beliefs, as you must have noticed. Why do people believe that God exists? What makes them believe this?
Oh, well, you see, they believe it because they are timid people. They want to feel secure in an uncertain world, or because they are upset by the fact that wicked men so often get away with it in this life and want them to be punished in another one. Or again, because they were brought up in pious homes and have never had intellectual enterprise to question what they were told in their childhood, etc.
But it would be pointed out, a belief is not necessarily discredited, shown to be unjustifiable, when we have discovered its psychological causes. There may still be good reasons for it all the same. At any rate, we have not shown that there are not.
Indeed, the proposition believed might actually be true, or at any rate, we have not shown that it is false. God may exist after all, however discreditable or non-rational the motives may be which make certain people believe that he exists. Furthermore, when I very much want to believe a proposition P or very much wish it to be true, it is possible not only that there are good reasons for holding this belief, but even that I myself have good reasons for holding it.
For instance, I am planning to take a walk in the country on Saturday afternoon. So, I should very much like to believe that Saturday will be a fine day. When you talk to me on Friday evening, you find that I do believe this.
And knowing my tastes and habits, you conclude that my belief is just a piece of wishful thinking, as it’s called. But if so, you might quite easily be mistaken. Although I do wish to believe this proposition, tomorrow will be fine, I might also have very good reasons for believing it.
I might have looked very carefully at the sky this evening. I might have considered the clouds and the wind direction,
(clears throat)
observed the behavior of the barometer, and given due weight, though no more, to the weather forecast in the evening paper.
(laughter)
Thank you. What I’m suggesting is this: It is perfectly possible to have good reasons, good evidence for believing what one wants to believe, good reasons for disbelieving what one wants to disbelieve. I say this is possible.
Now, if you are a rational person, you will take care to estimate the relevant evidence in as unbiased a manner as you can. And you will attend, if you want to believe the proposition, you will attend with special care to the evidence against it, if there is any. Before I discuss this matter further, it will be well to point out, I think, that when we talk of discrediting a belief, we may mean two different things.
It is one thing to show that a particular belief is unreasonable, and another thing to show that the belief is mistaken. That is, that the proposition believed is false. A reasonable belief need not necessarily be correct, and an unreasonable belief need not necessarily be mistaken.
It may be very reasonable for me to believe a false proposition if all the evidence that I have is in favor of it. On the other hand, a proposition may in fact be true, though all the evidence that I have is against it. And then I should be quite unreasonable if I believed it, or, as we sometimes say, I should have no right to believe it.
For example, in the year fifteen hundred, it would have been very unreasonable for anyone to believe that men would someday be able to cross the Atlantic in six hours. No one at that time had the slightest evidence for this perfectly true proposition, and all the evidence then available was strongly against it. So, if I’m right here, there is a sense of the word wrong in which it would have been wrong for anyone in fifteen hundred to believe this true proposition.
Similarly, there is a sense of the word right, in which it can be right, or if you like, right and proper, for someone to believe a false proposition. Namely, when all the evidence which he has supports that proposition. There are cases, then, where it is unreasonable for someone to believe a true proposition and reasonable for him to believe a false one.
If this sounds paradoxical or even shocking, I would point out that it is merely a consequence of the purely logical distinction between probability on the one hand and truth on the other. A proposition may be probable on such and such evidence,
(cough)
and yet it may still be false. Conversely, it may be improbable on such and such evidence, and yet it may still be true. Now, the reasonableness or the unreasonableness of a belief is defined in terms of probability and not of truth.
I think this is perfectly obvious on reflection, but we are sometimes inclined to forget it. We tend to think, or at least the writers of school history books and people like that seem to think, we tend to think that people are silly or unreasonable to believe false propositions. But sometimes, on the contrary, they would have been silly not to believe them on the evidence which was at that time available.
So far, I have been trying to explain what philosophers mean when they distinguish between the causes of a belief and the reasons for a belief. I think we can all agree that it is an important and useful distinction. Nevertheless, when we do try to make use of it, in our judgments about other people’s beliefs, or indeed about our own, we encounter certain difficulties and complications to which I should like to call your attention.
(coughs)
You’ll remember that a few minutes ago, I mentioned a common type of argument which Professor Broad calls the genetic fallacy. I think that some people really do fall into the kind of confusion which Professor Broad has in mind. They really do suppose that they have shown a belief to be unreasonable, or even that they have shown a proposition believed by someone to be false, when they have pointed out the psychological causes of this belief, the wishes, fears, mental habits, et cetera, which cause a person to hold it.
Nevertheless, I think that the type of argument which Professor Broad calls the genetic fallacy is not always fallacious. For when we ask, “Why is such and such a belief held?” The meaning of our question is not clear until we have specified what particular believer or class of believers we are talking of.
For example, why does Smith believe the proposition P? Or why do all the inhabitants of this village believe it? Now, when we examine Smith’s psychological history, we may find that he has strong motives for believing the proposition P. Strong desires or very firmly fixed mental habits which make him wish that the proposition P should be true, or make him fear the consequences which would follow if P were to be false.
Well, this by itself will not show that his belief is unreasonable. Still less will it show that the proposition he believes it is false. But suppose we also find that he has never considered any evidence for the proposition P at all.
What conclusion shall we draw? We must not conclude that there are no reasons for believing the proposition P, still less that the proposition P is false. But I think we shall be justified in concluding that Smith is being unreasonable when he believes this proposition, that he, at any rate, has no reason for believing it or no right to believe it, even though other people may have a very good right to believe it, and even though the proposition may be, in fact, true.
To put the point another way, we must distinguish, I suggest, between the reasons which there are for believing something and the reasons which a particular person has for believing it. The reasonableness or the unreasonableness of a particular person’s belief depends upon the reasons, if any, which that particular person has for holding it, and not just upon the reasons which there are for holding it. Of course, this is still true when the person is oneself.
The same distinction, I think, between the reasons which there are and the reasons which a particular person has, is also relevant when we are considering the degree of a person’s belief. The reasons I have for believing a proposition may be sufficient to justify a rather low degree of belief, what we call an opinion, whereas actually, perhaps, I believe the proposition with complete conviction. Well, it is then unreasonable of me to believe the proposition to that degree.
I have no right, as we say, to be completely sure about it. Although I do have the right to accept it, in the case supposed, with a moderate degree of confidence. It’s worthwhile to mention this point because completely unreasonably believing, the believing a proposition when one, one has no reason at all for believing it, is not perhaps so very common.
But we do, I think, very commonly believe propositions much more firmly than our evidence justifies. Here again, the decisive point is the evidence we ourselves have, and not just the evidence which there is, or the evidence which other people have, or may have. Thus, an expert meteorologist may have evidence which justifies him in being completely sure that there will be a fog at eight AM tomorrow morning, whereas ordinary sky watchers like ourselves would only be justified in having a mild opinion on the subject.
(coughs)
It would complicate the discussion too much to go into this question of degrees of belief in more detail. I only ask you to notice that the distinction between causes and reasons is relevant when we are considering degrees of belief, and not only when we are considering what right, if any, a person has to believe such and such a proposition at all. But just in passing, and just to shock you a little, since a lecture is supposed to be provocative I should like to protest against the view which some people really do seem to hold that a state of complete conviction is somehow intrinsically good or praiseworthy.
On the contrary, it seems to me that there is far too much conviction in the world. I think we are all of us far too much inclined, I’m sure I am, far too much inclined to be absolutely sure when all we’re entitled to on the evidence we have is a mild and rather tentative opinion. And sometimes we are completely sure about something when the reasonable attitude on the evidence that we have is suspensive judgment, sitting on the fence, as we call it, neither believing nor disbelieving.
Most of us dislike sitting on the fence, but I would suggest that sometimes it is the only posture which is appropriate to a rational being.
(laughter)
I quite like it myself.
(laughter)
I’m afraid in my desire to shock you, I have strayed a little from my main argument, to which I will now return.
(laughter)
As I suggested earlier, it is true that when someone very much wants a proposition to be true, he may also have very good reasons for believing it, as in my example about the believing that Saturday will be a fine day. Nevertheless, I think there is still a relevant question to ask about this person, though a very difficult one to answer. It is this.
Would he still have believed this proposition if he had not had any good reason for believing it? Would he have believed it anyway, evidence or no evidence? I want Saturday afternoon to be fine, and I believe that it will be.
Now, would this wish of mine have been sufficient by itself to induce me to believe that proposition, even if I had not looked at the clouds, and not examined the barometer, and not read the weather forecast in the evening paper? Well, I’m afraid you might have some grounds for answering yes to this hypothetical question if you considered other analogous beliefs of mine and the way in which I arrived at them. If so, you would have some grounds for suspecting that though I did have reasons for my belief in this particular case, yet these reasons did not influence me or didn’t influence me very much.
You might have some grounds for thinking that my examination of the clouds, the barometer, and the evening paper was, so to say, a mere formality which did not make any real difference, or not very much. Now, since philosophers are sometimes reproached for discussing only trivial examples, let us consider another one where the issues at stake are more serious. The members of the jury may greatly dislike the prisoner at the bar.
They don’t like his face or the way he dresses. His hair is too long. His manners are decidedly offhand.
They have also heard very strong arguments in favor of his guilt, whereas the arguments of the defense were very weak indeed. They bring in a verdict of guilty.
(cough)
Now, this verdict is the reasonable one on the evidence. But were they wholly reasonable in giving it? Possibly they were.
They may have tried very hard to disregard the emotional bias which they had against the prisoner or to make allowances for it, and they may have succeeded. But it is conceivable, at any rate, in some places and ages, that their dislike of him would have been sufficient by itself to make them bring in a verdict of guilty, even if the evidence for his guilt had been weak or conflicting. We shall suspect that it would have been sufficient if we find that in other cases where the evidence actually was weak or conflicting, they frequently acquitted people whom they liked and condemned people whom they disliked.
So, paradoxically, it is possible, I think, to have reasons for a belief and yet to be unreasonable or not wholly reasonable in holding the belief. We may have reasons for it, and good ones perhaps, in the sense that we are aware of relevant evidence which really does support the proposition believed. But it may be that this evidence has little influence or even no influence upon us when we give our assent to the proposition.
As I put it before, perhaps we should have assented to it anyway, whatever the evidence was, or even if we didn’t have any evidence at all. We can now see that there are some difficulties about this distinction between causes of belief and reasons for belief. It is of course true that if you mean by the reasons for a belief just the facts which support the proposition believed, then you are not saying anything about causes.
The relation of being a reason for, in this sense of the phrase, is a purely logical one and has nothing to do with causation. It is the logical relation sometimes called probabilification. The reasons for believing P, in this sense of the phrase, are just those facts, whatever they are,
(clears throat)
which increase the probability of the proposition P. But when we ask, why does a particular person Smith believe that P, we are not merely concerned with the reasons that there are for believing the proposition. As I’ve said before, we are concerned with the reasons, if any, which Smith has for believing this proposition.
Or again, the reasons, if any, which the members of this particular group have for believing it. In other words, we are not just asking whether there are facts which support the proposition P or increase the probability of it. What we are asking is whether Smith himself is aware of any such facts, whether he has considered them and appreciated their relevance, and further, whether such consideration of them influenced him at all when he accepted the proposition P. Or would he perhaps have accepted the proposition anyway, even if he had not considered these or any other facts which were evidence in favor of it.
Well, now it may begin to seem that the sharp distinction between reasons and causes is a little less sharp than we thought. The reasons for a belief are something quite different from causes of it. Well and good, we must certainly agree to that.
But having reasons for a belief, being aware of a world of facts which increase the probability of a proposition P, appreciating their relevance, attending to them with the proposition P in mind. Surely all this, that is, having reasons for believing, is itself a psychological state, and may very well be a cause or a part cause of believing, just as wishes or fears may. Thus, in this context, when we are asking why a particular person or group of persons believes a proposition P, it may seem that the distinction between causes and reasons has to be replaced by another one, by a distinction between two different sorts of causes.
What we will call non-rational causes or cause factors on the one hand, emotions, wishes, et cetera and rational or cognitive causes or cause factors on the other. And when we ask the question, what makes Smith believe that P, using the causal word make, we are in fact quite content with an answer which tells us the reasons that he has for believing it. What makes you believe that it will be wet tomorrow?
Well, I’ve just noticed that the wind has gone round to south, that there’s a halo round the moon, and the barometer has been slowly going down all day. That would be a perfectly satisfactory answer to this apparently causal question, what makes you believe this? Should we say then that although being a cause of a belief and being a reason for it are quite different, yet the most important distinction we have to consider is a distinction between two different sorts of causes or influences which operate in our minds, non-rational causes or influences on the one hand, and rational causes or influences on the other?
Well, I’m afraid there is some difficulty about this way of describing the situation, too. The way of describing it in terms of a distinction between two different sorts of causes. My Oxford colleague, Professor Gilbert Ryle, has provided me with an ingenious example to illustrate the difficulty.
Suppose we take the case of the juryman, which I considered before. After the trial is over, the juryman says to us, “Attending to the evidence made me conclude that the prisoner was guilty, and it also made me very tired.” Now surely this is a very queer statement.
Indeed, a rather poor joke, somewhat like saying, “He went away in tears and a bath chair.” Example I took from some grammar book. I don’t know where.
(laughter)
And similarly, if we say, as I did, that the juryman may be influenced by the evidence put before him and may also be influenced by his emotions about the prisoner, isn’t it rather queer to use the same word influenced in both cases? Well, I must confess there is some oddity in this way of speaking. But I think it would be equally odd, or more so, to say that having reasons in favor of a proposition, being aware of evidence for it, is something which never has any effect upon our minds at all.
Let me offer a counterexample to balance Professor Ryle’s example about the word ‘make’. What makes you believe that it’s going to rain? Nothing makes me believe so, but my reasons for believing so are as follows.
Say that I’ve noticed a lot of altostratus cloud in the sky. Or again, what makes you believe that it’s going to rain? Nothing at all makes me believe it, but I can tell you my reasons for believing so if you would wish to hear them.
Now, wouldn’t this also be a rather odd way of answering your question? As I pointed out before, if somebody is asked, “What makes you believe so and so?” And he answers by mentioning the reasons, the evidence which he has for believing it, we all accept this as a satisfactory answer to the question, what makes you believe it?
Now, why should we want to use the causal word make here or other causal words such as influence? I think it is because we do not want to say that having reasons for a belief is something totally ineffective, something which makes no difference at all to what happens in our minds afterwards. On the contrary, the discovery that there are good reasons for believing a proposition, good evidence for it, this discovery may make a very big difference indeed to our subsequent thoughts, feelings, and actions.
We may notice that this applies both to having reasons for believing something and to having reasons for doing something. In both cases alike, the having of reasons makes a difference, and often a very important difference to what happens afterwards. This is one of the cases, I think, not the only one probably, where there is a close relation between the epistemology of belief and moral philosophy.
Well, I hope I’ve now explained why it is natural and tempting to say that our beliefs are influenced by two different sorts of causes or cause factors. Natural to say that having good reasons for a belief, being aware of evidence in favor of a proposition, appreciating the relevance of that evidence. That all these are states of mind which do have effects, and quite important effects, too, just as wishes, fears, likes, and dislikes have effects.
But if we do speak in this way, in terms of two different sorts of causes or cause factors or influences, rational ones on the one hand and non-rational ones on the other, we must, I think, lay great emphasis on the phrase “two different sorts.” Having reasons for believing a proposition, being aware of evidence which supports it, estimating the force or the weight of that evidence is something which does have effects upon our minds. And wishing a proposition to be true is also something which has effects.
That’s what makes us inclined to say that both are causes, and that both may have an influence upon us. Nevertheless, I think they are radically different sorts of causes. Well again, attending to the evidence for or against a proposition is a mental state, something which happens in our mental history.
And wishing a proposition to be true is also a mental state. But the two mental states are very different indeed. Perhaps we should go even farther and say that a different sort of causation is involved in the two cases.
It might be said, perhaps, that when we are influenced by the reasons or the evidence which we are aware of for accepting some proposition, it is because we freely consent to be influenced by them. Because we freely submit ourselves or expose ourselves to the force or the weight of the evidence. Whereas no such free consent is involved when we are influenced by our likes or our dislikes, our wishes or our fears.
Then, it is rather that we fail to exercise the freedom which we have to disregard or resist these non-rational influences. Well, if we are trying to believe reasonably, we have to be on our guard against these non-rational influences I have spoken of. And a certain degree of voluntary effort is often needed, as I have suggested.
But it is not always easy to be on our guard against them, because these non-rational influences, such as wishes and fears, are liable to operate in an indirect manner, behind the scenes, as it were, so that we do not quite notice what is happening to us. When we consider some belief of somebody else’s which appears to us quite absurd, or it might be some past belief of our own, the surprising thing very often is not so much that someone did hold this belief given the evidence which he actually had before his mind at the time. The surprising thing, the thing which requires causal explanation, is the limitations of his evidence.
Why did he fail to consider other evidence which would have shown that the proposition he believed was false or highly improbable? Of course, there may be a perfectly reputable explanation. Perhaps he just wasn’t in a position to get this additional evidence.
For example, primitive beliefs about astronomy were no doubt very queer, but there were no telescopes in those days, and there was no trigonometry either. We can hardly call Bronze Age men unreasonable for not having invented telescopes or trigonometry. But sometimes the additional evidence which would have shown the man that his belief was highly improbable was quite easily available to him.
The trouble was that he did not bother to look for it. The possibility that there might be more evidence somehow failed to occur to him. He may even have known of this additional evidence in some sense of the word know, but he did not call it to mind or attend to it, or at any rate, he didn’t do so at that particular time.
Such a failure to recall relevant facts, facts which one does in a way know and perhaps does actually recall in other contexts, such a failure is quite liable to occur when we are forming our beliefs about other people’s characters, especially when they are people towards whom we have strong emotions, whether of a favorable or an unfavorable kind. Love makes us blind, as we say, and hate makes us blind, too. What kind of blindness is it?
Well, I suggest these emotions make us blind to relevant evidence. Evidence which, if only we would attend to it, would show us quite clearly that our beliefs are mistaken. I am suggesting then that when somebody holds an unreasonable belief, the unreasonableness often lies not so much in the believing itself, but in the limitations of the evidence on which he bases his belief.
And I think this is the way in which non-rational cause factors, wishes, hopes, fears, likes, dislikes, and so on, most commonly influence our beliefs. We want to believe a proposition P, or we want not to have to disbelieve it. Well, this wish of ours tends to limit our attention.
It causes us to attend to evidence which is favorable to the proposition and prevents us from attending to evidence which is unfavorable. Given this limitation of our attention, our belief is in a way reasonable, for we do accept the proposition which is supported by the evidence we are actually attending to. Our unreasonableness really occurs at the previous stage, in that we allow our attention to be limited in this way by non-rational influences such as wishes and emotions.
What is the remedy for this? The remedy is to be wide awake and keep ourselves so by a voluntary effort. To be clearly conscious of our desires and emotions, what we call our prejudices, and of their tendency to put blinkers on us, so to speak.
Their tendency to restrict or limit our attention and prevent us from noticing or recalling some of the facts which are relevant to the forming of our beliefs. But I am afraid it is very difficult to be wide awake all the time.
(music playing)
(applause and cheering)