Quiz 14

Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief"
James, "The Will to Believe"
Williams, "Deciding to Believe"

1. For Williams, one cannot:
a. place oneself in a position where one comes to believe that p.
b. want to believe that p, while believing that p.
c. falsely believe that p.
d. come to believe that p because one wants to.

2. The fundamental point of disagreement between Clifford and James is whether it is ever right or proper:
a. to believe with insufficient evidence.
b. to have faith where evidence is insufficient.
c. to doubt in the face of overwhelmingly positive evidence.
d. to believe in science with insufficient evidence.
 
3. James holds that it is proper to "will to believe" when the issue (or option) is:
a. living, avoidable, momentous and the aim of avoiding error is primary.
b. living, forced, momentous, and the aim of avoiding error is primary.
c. dead, forced, momentous, and the aim of gaining truth is primary.
d. living, forced, momentous, and the aim of gaining truth is primary.

4. If belief aims at truth, then Williams argues you cannot believe anything:
a. false.
b. while believing it is improbable.
c. without that belief being based on evidence.
d. while believing that you chose to believe it.

5. James takes agnosticism to be:
a. indefensible.
b. practically equivalent to atheism.
c. a poor option.
d. preferable to outright disbelief in god.

6. Which of the following is NOT, for James, a condition on its being rational to will to believe? The putative belief is:
a. momentous.
b. living.
c. a force option.
d. a source of hope.

7. James argues that in those cases where it is proper to will to believe, then practically:
a. not believing is no different from disbelieving.
b. not believing implies disbelieving.
c. disbelieving implies not believing.
d. not believing is very different from disbelieving.

8. Moore's Paradox, as discussed by Williams, claims that sentences of the form " but I do not believe that p":
a. cannot be true.
b. are self-contradictions.
c. are contradictory to assert.
d. are improbable.

9. James attempts to assimilate the relation of belief and negation ("not") to the logical law that for every statement p:
a. either p is true or not p is true.
b. it is not the case that p is true and p is not true.
c. if p is necessarily false, then p is false.
d. p is not both true and false.

[Answers: 1.D   2. A   3. D   4. D   5. B   6. D   7. A   8. C   9. A]

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