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My Personal Belief System

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Spirituality, nature of reality.

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Belief Systems: Definition, Characteristics & Examples

A belief system is a structured set of principles or tenets held to be true by an individual or larger group. It can contain aspects such as morality, life purpose, or empirical reality (Uso-Domenech & Nescolarde-Selva, 2016).

Belief systems are fundamental to human existence. By studying them, we can gain critical insight into the underlying causes behind both individual and societal actions, values, and perceptions.

Belief systems tend to shape our individual code of conduct. For example, the ethical principle of “do no harm” paves the base for medical professionals’ conduct (Wattenberg, 2019).

Furthermore, these systems extend beyond personal ethics, providing a backbone to cultural groups and shaping significant aspects, including politics, law, and cultural norms . For example, broad constructs such as democracy or justice are underpinned by a cultural group’s shared beliefs and norms.

The Origins of Belief Systems

The genesis of belief systems is multifaceted. It traces back to our earliest human ancestors trying to make sense of the world around them.

Examples include:

• Explaining Natural Phenomena: Oftentimes, belief systems spring from the desire to explain natural phenomena (Converse, 2006). Early societies utilized faith to provide reasons for natural occurrences, such as storms or earthquakes. For instance, the ancient Greeks believed in the God Poseidon, whom they saw as the cause of earthquakes and other seismic events.
• Social Structure and Control: Belief systems also stem from the human need for social structure and control (Kinder, 2006). Early societies established rules and expectations concerning each member’s behavior. This led to principles that were passed down from generation to generation, creating a communal belief system. Japanese culture, for instance, has a deeply ingrained belief known as “giri” or familial obligation , which dictates social interactions and responsibilities (Kinder, 2006).
• Experience and Context: They can also be shaped by experience, cultural context , and education. What we learn from our parents, teachers, and life experiences significantly influence our perceptions, beliefs, and values (Converse, 2006). A person who grew up during the civil rights movement in the United States, for example, may have formed strong beliefs about racial equality due to their experiences during that time. Each of these factors, individually or combined, contributes to the creation and development of belief systems.

Types and Examples of Belief Systems

1. religions.

Religions are complex systems of beliefs that shape an individual’s or group’s spiritual worldview. They typically embody questions about the nature of the divine, the afterlife, and moral standards (Schipper, 2015). For example, Christianity holds the belief in a monotheistic God and emphasizes principles of love and forgiveness.

Examples: Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Janism

2. Philosophical Systems

Philosophical systems consist of frameworks that strive to answer life’s fundamental questions. They deal with concepts such as existence, reality, knowledge, values, and morality. A case in point is existentialism, which focuses on individual freedom, choice, and subjective meaning (Popkin, 2018).

Examples: Existentialism , Utilitarianism , Stoicism, Nihilism, Rationalism, Empiricism

3. Political Ideologies

These are belief systems that govern political views and shape how societies should be organized. They dictate the distribution of power, rights, and resources among the population (Wattenberg, 2019). For instance, liberalism places a high importance on individual rights and freedom , advocating for a democratic system and equality of opportunity.

Examples: Liberalism , Conservatism , Socialism , Fascism , Anarchism

4. Economic Systems

These belief systems define how societies produce, distribute and consume goods and services. They guide the economic policies a country adopts and how it manages its resources (Popkin, 2018). Capitalism, for example, is centered on private ownership of resources and a free market for distribution and consumption.

Examples: Capitalism , Socialism, Communism , Mixed economies , Market economies

5. Scientific Paradigms

These influence our understanding and interpretation of natural and physical phenomena. Constituting specific theories, methods, and standards of practice, they shape scientific investigation and discovery (Rutjens & Brandt, 2018). The theory of evolution, for example, guides biologists and paleontologists in their interpretation of fossil records and genetic studies.

Examples: Theory of Evolution, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Newtonian Physics, Plate Tectonics, Germ Theory of Disease

Influence of Belief Systems on Human Behavior

Belief systems fundamentally influence human behavior . They essentially define our perception of what is right or wrong, shaping our actions in alignment with these views.

Belief systems shape moral behavior (Brandt, 2022). For example, most religions have guidelines on ethical conduct (known as “commandments” in Christianity or “precepts” in Buddhism), which influence followers’ behavior. Believers are urged to adhere to these principles, significantly impacting decision-making and conduct.

Belief systems also affect how we go about our days (Rutjens & Brandt, 2018). Our morning routines, our choice of transportation, even the food we eat, are all influenced by deeply rooted belief structures. For example, a person with a belief system focused on environmental sustainability might choose to cycle to work and follow a vegetarian diet.

Likewise, belief systems influence our social behavior (Wattenberg, 2019). They guide our approach towards fairness, justice, and interpersonal relationships. A person who values fairness may eschew discriminatory actions, promoting diversity and inclusivity in their spheres of influence.

Positive and Negative Effects of Belief Systems

While belief systems help cultures develop norms of behavior, shared identities, and frameworks for action, they can also be restrictive and cause in-groups and out-groups.

Below is a summary of key aspects of belief systems, and their positive and negative impacts:

Summary of Key Points

• Belief systems underpin individual, societal actions and values.
• They influence personal ethics, politics, and cultural norms.
• They’re developed to explain various things, such as natural phenomena, the origins of the universe, and personal experience .
• Main types of belief systems include religions, philosophical systems, political ideologies, economic systems, and scientific paradigms.
• Belief systems can positively shape behavior, offer identity, and help form cohesive societies.
• However, they can also divide societies and cause people to engage in immoral actions.

Brandt, M. J. (2022). Measuring the belief system of a person. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Converse, P. E. (2006). The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964). Critical review, 18 (1-3), 1-74.

Kinder, D. R. (2006). Belief systems today. Critical Review, 18 (1-3), 197-216.

Popkin, S. L. (2018). The factual basis of “belief systems”: A reassessment. In The Nature of Belief Systems Reconsidered (pp. 279-300). Routledge.

Rutjens, B. T., & Brandt, M. J. (2018). Belief systems and the perception of reality: An introduction. Belief systems and the perception of reality , 1-10.

Scanes, C. G., & Chengzhong, P. (2018). Animals and Religion, Belief Systems, Symbolism and Myth. In Animals and Human Society (pp. 257-280). Academic Press.

Schipper, E. L. F. (2015). Religion and Belief Systems. Cultures and disasters: Understanding cultural framings in disaster risk reduction , 162-71.

Uso-Domenech, J. L., & Nescolarde-Selva, J. (2016). What are belief systems?. Foundations of Science, 21 , 147-152.

Wattenberg, M. P. (2019). The changing nature of mass belief systems: The rise of concept and policy ideologues. Critical Review, 31 (2), 198-229.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social-Emotional Learning (Definition, Examples, Pros & Cons)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is Educational Psychology?
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108 Belief Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Belief Essay Topic Ideas & Examples: Exploring the Depths of Human Faith

Beliefs shape our identity, influence our actions, and provide meaning and purpose to our lives. They can be deeply personal or widely shared, encompassing religious, philosophical, political, or cultural perspectives. Writing an essay on beliefs allows us to delve into the complexities of human faith, understanding how it impacts individuals and societies. To inspire your exploration, here are 108 belief essay topic ideas and examples.

Religious Beliefs:

• The role of religion in shaping individual identity.
• The impact of religious beliefs on personal happiness and fulfillment.
• Analyzing the connection between religious beliefs and moral values.
• The role of rituals and ceremonies in religious practices.
• The significance of religious symbols and their interpretation.
• Exploring the concept of faith and its importance in religious contexts.
• The relationship between religious beliefs and the afterlife.
• The influence of religious beliefs on social and political issues.
• Comparing and contrasting religious beliefs across different cultures.
• The impact of religious beliefs on attitudes towards science and technology.

Philosophical Beliefs:

• The significance of personal philosophies in guiding life choices.
• Analyzing the connection between philosophy and morality.
• The role of reason and logic in shaping philosophical beliefs.
• Exploring the concept of free will and its implications on belief systems.
• The relationship between philosophy and religion in shaping worldviews.
• The impact of philosophical beliefs on ethical decision-making.
• The influence of philosophical beliefs on political ideologies.
• Examining the concept of truth and its interpretation in different philosophical traditions.
• The role of skepticism and doubt in challenging existing belief systems.
• The connection between philosophical beliefs and the pursuit of knowledge.

Political Beliefs:

• The influence of political beliefs on individual values and actions.
• Analyzing the connection between political ideology and social justice.
• Exploring the role of political beliefs in shaping public policies.
• The impact of political beliefs on attitudes towards globalization.
• The relationship between political beliefs and economic systems.
• The connection between political beliefs and attitudes towards immigration.
• The influence of political beliefs on environmental policies and sustainability.
• Examining the role of political beliefs in shaping international relations.
• The significance of political beliefs in promoting social equality and inclusivity.
• The impact of political beliefs on attitudes towards human rights.

Cultural Beliefs:

• The role of cultural beliefs in shaping individual and collective identities.
• Analyzing the impact of cultural beliefs on gender roles and expectations.
• Exploring the concept of cultural relativism and its implications on belief systems.
• The influence of cultural beliefs on attitudes towards marriage and family.
• The connection between cultural beliefs and artistic expressions.
• The impact of cultural beliefs on attitudes towards education and learning.
• Examining the role of cultural beliefs in promoting social cohesion.
• The significance of cultural beliefs in shaping dietary choices and food practices.
• The influence of cultural beliefs on attitudes towards aging and death.
• The connection between cultural beliefs and perceptions of beauty and body image.

Personal Beliefs:

• The role of personal beliefs in shaping individual goals and aspirations.
• Analyzing the impact of personal beliefs on decision-making processes.
• Exploring the connection between personal beliefs and self-esteem.
• The influence of personal beliefs on attitudes towards risk-taking.
• The significance of personal beliefs in promoting mental well-being.
• The impact of personal beliefs on attitudes towards relationships and love.
• Examining the role of personal beliefs in cultivating resilience and perseverance.
• The connection between personal beliefs and attitudes towards personal growth.
• The influence of personal beliefs on attitudes towards material possessions.
• The significance of personal beliefs in shaping attitudes towards failure and success.

Controversial Beliefs:

• Analyzing controversial beliefs and their impact on social dynamics.
• The role of controversial beliefs in fostering critical thinking and debate.
• Exploring the connection between controversial beliefs and social progress.
• The influence of controversial beliefs on attitudes towards marginalized groups.
• Examining the role of controversial beliefs in shaping media narratives.
• The significance of controversial beliefs in challenging societal norms.
• The impact of controversial beliefs on freedom of speech and expression.
• The connection between controversial beliefs and social activism.
• The influence of controversial beliefs on attitudes towards authority.
• The role of controversial beliefs in promoting empathy and understanding.

Scientific Beliefs:

• The impact of scientific beliefs on attitudes towards the natural world.
• Analyzing the connection between scientific beliefs and evidence-based thinking.
• Exploring the role of scientific beliefs in shaping technological advancements.
• The influence of scientific beliefs on attitudes towards health and medicine.
• The significance of scientific beliefs in promoting environmental conservation.
• The connection between scientific beliefs and attitudes towards climate change.
• Examining the role of scientific beliefs in shaping educational curricula.
• The impact of scientific beliefs on attitudes towards animal rights and welfare.
• The connection between scientific beliefs and attitudes towards genetic engineering.
• The influence of scientific beliefs on attitudes towards the origin of life.

Historical Beliefs:

• The role of historical beliefs in shaping cultural identities.
• Analyzing the impact of historical beliefs on nationalistic ideologies.
• Exploring the connection between historical beliefs and historical revisionism.
• The influence of historical beliefs on attitudes towards war and conflict.
• The significance of historical beliefs in shaping collective memory.
• The impact of historical beliefs on attitudes towards colonialism and imperialism.
• Examining the role of historical beliefs in shaping political ideologies.
• The connection between historical beliefs and attitudes towards immigration.
• The influence of historical beliefs on attitudes towards human rights.
• The role of historical beliefs in promoting intercultural understanding.

Literary and Artistic Beliefs:

• The significance of literary and artistic beliefs in shaping cultural movements.
• Analyzing the connection between literary and artistic beliefs and social change.
• Exploring the role of literary and artistic beliefs in challenging societal norms.
• The influence of literary and artistic beliefs on attitudes towards censorship.
• The connection between literary and artistic beliefs and the pursuit of beauty.
• Examining the impact of literary and artistic beliefs on self-expression.
• The role of literary and artistic beliefs in promoting empathy and understanding.
• The significance of literary and artistic beliefs in shaping collective memory.
• The influence of literary and artistic beliefs on attitudes towards social justice.
• The connection between literary and artistic beliefs and the imagination.

Media and Technology Beliefs:

• The impact of media and technology beliefs on attitudes towards information consumption.
• Analyzing the connection between media and technology beliefs and political polarization.
• Exploring the role of media and technology beliefs in shaping public opinion.
• The influence of media and technology beliefs on attitudes towards privacy.
• The connection between media and technology beliefs and the digital divide.
• Examining the impact of media and technology beliefs on online communities.
• The role of media and technology beliefs in shaping media literacy.
• The significance of media and technology beliefs in promoting digital citizenship.
• The influence of media and technology beliefs on attitudes towards artificial intelligence.
• The connection between media and technology beliefs and social media activism.

Environmental Beliefs:

• The impact of environmental beliefs on attitudes towards sustainability.
• Analyzing the connection between environmental beliefs and environmental policies.
• Exploring the role of environmental beliefs in shaping consumer behavior.
• The influence of environmental beliefs on attitudes towards climate change.
• The connection between environmental beliefs and attitudes towards resource conservation.
• Examining the impact of environmental beliefs on attitudes towards animal rights.
• The role of environmental beliefs in promoting environmental education.
• The significance of environmental beliefs in shaping attitudes towards eco-friendly practices.

These belief essay topic ideas and examples provide a starting point for your exploration of the intricate tapestry of human faith. Remember to approach each topic with curiosity, open-mindedness, and respect for diverse perspectives. By delving into these beliefs, we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

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Essay About Beliefs: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

To write an essay about beliefs, you need to know the different beliefs people hold; continue reading this article for examples and prompts to help!

Beliefs are a person’s perception of what they believe to be true. However, not everybody’s belief system is accurate. Beliefs are not necessarily religious or spiritual. It can also be political, philosophical, or societal. Our beliefs are formed early based on our environment – what we are told, heard, observed, and experienced. Below are essay examples to help you understand other writers’ viewpoints about beliefs.

1. Christianity Beliefs in The Exorcism of Emily Rose by Penny Silva

2. a personal believe that god does not exist by lauren trauscht, 3. my beliefs by patrick of shrewsbury, massachusetts, 4. irrational beliefs by vincent bridges, 5. my ethical beliefs by blanche allen, 1. your thoughts about the definition of belief, 2. what influenced your belief on a certain subject, 3. an experience that shaped your beliefs, 4. thoughts about the role of religion, 5. your personal political beliefs, 6. your stand on gender identity, 7. opinions about the connection between social media and suicide, 8. the belief system of millenials.

“This means that she believes it is a fact that if there is a God, there is a devil, and if there is a devil, there is God.”

Silva’s essay discusses the movie “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” – a film based on the true story of Anneliese Michel. It’s about a court case concerning the death of a girl. She was either possessed by a demon or was suffering from a severe mental illness.

Viewers of the movie are free to believe what they think happened to Emily as it demonstrates the apparition of both the devil and the However, divine. Silva believes that it’s a must-watch if one wants to understand the accurate interpretation of the works of evil.

“…how could anybody keep up on the Bible for thousands and thousands of years? The stories in there had to have gotten mixed up… if there is a God, then who created God? ”

Trauscht’s many questions about a divine existence lead him to believe there is no God. The author shares these reasons in a simple essay about his beliefs.

“ I have no stronger link to anything else in this world than my family… This belief … was something that was one hundred percent infused in me through my parents.”

The author grew up a family-oriented person, and there’s nothing more important to him than his family. He believes he is today because his parents influenced his life. His belief made him a better person.

“I can always distract myself from negative, judgmental thoughts by simply telling myself, “STOP!” Then replace my blaming, complaining, or excusing with something positive. Wisely choosing the thoughts that occupy my mind and avoiding automatic, negative thoughts that undermine my self-esteem will also help.”

Bridges shares his experience with irrational beliefs that made him think negatively, which affected his behavior and self-esteem. He also talks about how he overcame his irrational beliefs when someone believed in him until he finally started to believe in himself, turning the negative thoughts into positive ones.

Looking for more? Check out these essays about religion .

“In a way, ethics are like a set of rules that govern human behaviors and serve as a basis for right conduct principles.”

Allen argues that we have a different understanding of ethics and how we use it in our everyday lives. He says fairness is one of the ethics he applied in his life. Before concluding, he considers the good and bad effects. He believes ethics should be used to reach a fair decision.

8 Writing Prompts on Essay About Beliefs

After reading the examples above, you now better understand what beliefs are. Below are prompts that can help you in writing your essay.

If you want to properly convey your reasons why you believe in a topic, here is a guide on how to write an argumentative essay .

Since all of us may have varying ideas about the definition of beliefs, you can write an essay about your understanding of what belief is all about. You can also provide answers to the following questions: Is belief something you unconsciously developed or something you consciously made? Do you agree that some of your beliefs may not be authentic? 

Many factors can influence why we think what we think. This includes our environment, what we hear and see, and our observations and experiences. 

Pick a particular belief you have and relay to your readers how you came to consider it as fact. You can also talk about something you didn’t believe before, then tell your audience how you came to support it.

If a particular experience forced you to develop a belief about something consciously, you could explore it via your essay. For example, you grew up not believing in God, but due to a near-death experience where you were forced to pray and were saved, you finally accepted that there is an existing God. 

Or, if you previously believed in God but suffered a painful death of a loved one, you start to question His existence. There are so many experiences out there that may have contributed to what we believe in today. Feel free to write them all down.

You might have heard adults complaining about the morality of the youth today. Does the decreasing interest of young people in religion have to do with moral degeneration? Explain your thoughts about the relationship between religion and morality. 

Your political beliefs have to do with what you consider a prosperous country. “Success” can be defined as a booming or not-so-great economy, but one where the citizens are happy, safe, and accessible. Discuss why you favor a particular political system, including aspects that you want to change.

Gender identity is an ever-controversial subject that still divides many groups today.

However, it also has many subtopics you can focus on. For example, some parents would let their minor children undergo procedures and treatments to change their sex, believing they are supporting their child’s decision. Do you agree with the parents’ beliefs, or would you instead want the parents to wait for the child to be of legal age before undergoing such a procedure?

If you want to expand your knowledge on diversity, here are 21 essays about diversity for students and writers .

With social media’s popularity, cyberbullying also increased. Research found that children and people below 25 years old cyberbullying victims are twice more likely to present suicidal behaviors and self-harm. The same study also found that bullies or perpetrators risk experiencing suicidal ideation and self-harm. What is your opinion on this matter, and do you believe that social media has to do with it? Do parents also have liability on this matter?

During challenging times, more people seek God. However, during the pandemic, millennials in the US-led the shift away from religious organizations. If you belong to the Gen Z or millennials, what’s your stand on this matter? 

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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The Ethics of Belief

The “ethics of belief” refers to a cluster of questions at the intersection of epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, and psychology.

The central question in the debate is whether there are norms of some sort governing our habits of belief-formation, belief-maintenance, and belief-relinquishment. Is it ever or always morally wrong (or epistemically irrational , or practically imprudent ) to hold a belief on insufficient evidence? Is it ever or always morally right (or epistemically rational , or practically prudent ) to believe on the basis of sufficient evidence, or to withhold belief in the perceived absence of it? Is it ever or always obligatory to seek out all available epistemic evidence for a belief? Are there some ways of obtaining evidence that are themselves immoral, irrational, imprudent?

Related questions have to do with the nature and structure of the norms involved, if any, as well as the source of their authority. Are they instrumental norms grounded in contingent ends that we set for ourselves? Are they categorical norms grounded in ends set for us by the very nature of our intellectual or moral capacities? Are there other options? And what are the objects of evaluation in this context—believers, beliefs, or both?

Finally, assuming that there are norms of some sort governing belief-formation, what does that imply about the nature of belief? Does it imply that belief-formation is voluntary or under our control? If so, what sort of control is this? If not, then is talk of an ethics of belief even coherent?

1.1 Origins of the debate

1.2 the ethics of belief before the 19 th -century, 2.1 kinds of norms: prudential, moral, epistemic, 2.2 structures of norms: hypothetical vs. categorical, 2.3 degrees of reflective access, 2.4 relations between doxastic norms, 3.1 the nature of belief, 3.2 the aim(s) of belief, 3.3 knowledge as the norm of belief, 3.4 belief-control, 4.1 strict vs. moderate, 4.2 synchronic vs. diachronic, 4.3 evidence and its possession, 5.1 prudential evidentialism, 5.2 moral evidentialism, 5.3 epistemic evidentialism, 6.1 practical non-evidentialism, 6.2 conservative non-evidentialism, 6.3 fideistic non-evidentialism.

• 7. The Ethics of Acceptance

Other Internet Resources

Related entries, 1. the ethics of belief: a brief history.

The locus classicus of the ethics of belief debate is, unsurprisingly, the essay that christened it. “The Ethics of Belief” was published in 1877 by Cambridge mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford, in a journal called Contemporary Review . At the outset of the essay, Clifford defends the stringent principle that we are all always obliged to have sufficient evidence for every one of our beliefs. Indeed, the early sections of “The Ethics of Belief” are so stern that William James would later characterize Clifford as a “delicious enfant terrible ” who defends doxastic self-control “with somewhat too much of robustious pathos in the voice” (1896, 8).

James's more permissive view—initially a commentary on Clifford presented to the Philosophy Clubs of Yale and Brown, then published as “The Will to Believe” in 1896—has become a kind of companion piece, and together the two essays constitute the touchstone for later discussions.

Clifford's essay is chiefly remembered for two things: a story and a principle. The story is that of a shipowner who, once upon a time, was inclined to sell tickets for a transatlantic voyage. It struck him that his ship was rickety, and that its soundness might be in question. Knowing that repairs would be costly and cause significant delay, the shipowner managed to push these worries aside and form the “sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy.” He sold the tickets, bade the passengers farewell, and then quietly collected the insurance money “when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales” (1877, 70).

According to Clifford (who himself once survived a shipwreck, and so must have found this behavior particularly loathsome), the owner in the story was “verily guilty of the death of those men,” because even though he sincerely believed that the ship was sound, “he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him.” Why did he have no such right? Because, says Clifford, “he had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts” (1877, 70). After making this diagnosis, Clifford changes the end of the story: the ship doesn't meet a liquid demise, but rather arrives safe and sound into New York harbor. Does the new outcome relieve the shipowner of blame for his belief? “Not one jot,” Clifford declares: he is equally guilty—equally blameworthy—for believing something on insufficient evidence.

Clifford goes on to cite our intuitive indictments of the shipowner—in both versions of the story—as grounds for his famous principle:

(Clifford's Principle) “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.”

Despite the synchronic character of his famous Principle, Clifford's view is not merely that we must be in a certain state at the precise time at which we form a belief. Rather, the obligation always and only to believe on sufficient evidence governs our activities across time as well. With respect to most if not all of the propositions we consider as candidates for belief, says Clifford, we are obliged to go out and gather evidence, remain open to new evidence, and consider the evidence offered by others. The diachronic obligation here can be captured as follows:

(Clifford's Other Principle) “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to ignore evidence that is relevant to his beliefs, or to dismiss relevant evidence in a facile way.” (Van Inwagen 1996, 145)

There might be at least two kinds of diachronic obligation here: one governing how we form and hold beliefs over time, and the other governing how we relinquish or revise beliefs over time. If someone violates such a diachronic obligation by “purposely avoiding the reading of books and the company of men who call in question” his presuppositions, Clifford warns, then “the life of that man is one long sin against mankind” (1877, 77).

Despite the robustious pathos, it is not clear in the end that Clifford's considered position is as extreme as these two principles make it sound. In the later part of his essay Clifford puts forward a view about what it is for evidence to be “sufficient” that suggests a more moderate stance. Still, the story about the shipowner together with the sternly-worded Principles turned Clifford into the iconic representative of a strict “Evidentialist” position in the ethics of belief—the position, roughly, that we are obliged to form beliefs always and only on the basis of sufficient evidence that is in our possession. (For more on the notion of “evidence” and the varieties of Evidentialism, see §4-§5 below).

James's Non-Evidentialist alternative to Clifford is far more permissive: it says that there are some contexts in which it is fine to form a belief even though we don't have sufficient evidence for it, and even though we know that we don't. In fact, James and many of his “pragmatist” followers claim that sometimes we are positively obliged to form beliefs on insufficient evidence, and that it would be a significant prudential, intellectual, or even moral failure to do otherwise. “Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds” (1896, 11).

As permissive as this sounds, however, James is by no means writing a blank doxastic check. In “The Will to Believe” he lays out a series of strict conditions under which an “option” counts as “genuine” and believing without sufficient evidence is permitted or required. For instance, the option must be between “live” hypotheses—i.e. hypotheses that are “among the mind's possibilities” (thus, belief in the ancient Greek gods is not a live option for us these days). There must also be no compelling evidence one way or the other, the option must be “forced” such that doing nothing also amounts to making a choice, and the option must concern a “momentous” issue. In the absence of those conditions, James reverts happily to a broadly Evidentialist picture (see Gale 1980, 1999, Kasser and Shah 2006, and Aikin 2014). (For more on the varieties of Non-Evidentialism, see §6 below).

The phrase may be of 19 th -century coinage, but there were obviously ethics of belief well before Clifford and James. Descartes says in the Meditations that when forming a judgment, “it is clear by the natural light that perception of the intellect should always precede ( praecedere semper debere ) the determination of the will” (1641, 7:60). In the context of a search for certain knowledge ( scientia ), Descartes maintains, we have the obligation to withhold assent from all propositions whose truth we do not clearly and distinctly perceive (clear and distinct perceptions themselves, by contrast, will produce belief ineluctably). In other contexts, it may be both permissible and prudent to form a mere “opinion” ( opinio ) whose truth we do not clearly and distinctly perceive. Even then, however, we are obliged to have some sort of evidence before giving our assent. Thus Descartes advises Elizabeth that “though we cannot have certain demonstrations of everything, still we must take sides, and in matters of custom embrace the opinions that seem the most probable , so that we may never be irresolute when we need to act” (1645, 4:295, my emphasis).

Locke's ethics of belief is at least as strict: in the search for scientific knowledge as well as in all matters of “maximal concernment,” Locke says, it is to “transgress against our own light” either to believe on insufficient evidence, or to fail to proportion our degree of belief to the strength of the evidence. In his discussion of “Faith” in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Locke famously moralizes:

He that believes without having any Reason for believing, may be in love with his own Fancies; but neither seeks Truth as he ought, nor pays the Obedience due to his Maker, who would have him use those discerning Faculties he has given him, to keep him out of Mistake and Errour. (1690, 687)

To form a belief about important matters without possessing sufficient evidence—or to believe anything with a degree of firmness that is not proportioned to the strength of our evidence—is to misuse our faculties and court all manner of error. It is also, for Locke, to contravene the will of our “Maker.” Given his divine command theory of ethical rightness, it thus appears that such behavior will be morally as well as epistemically wrong.

By contrast, Blaise Pascal and Immanuel Kant anticipated James by emphasizing that there are some very important issues regarding which we do not and cannot have sufficient evidence one way or the other, but which deserve our firm assent (on practical grounds) nonetheless. (For more on Pascal and Kant on Non-Evidentialism, see §6.1 below).

2. Doxastic Norms

This last point makes it clear that there may be different types of norms governing practices of belief-formation, and that these will correspond to different types of value. The ethicist of belief will thus need to specify the type of value she is invoking, why and how she thinks it can ground doxastic norms, whether it is the only kind of value that does that, and (if not) what the priority relations are between norms based in different kinds of value.

Clifford and Locke, as we have seen, claim that the issue of whether we have done our doxastic best is an epistemic one and also (given a few further premises) a moral one. James, on the other hand, focuses on the important role played by prudential value in the ethics of belief, saying in one passage that Clifford's Principle not only puts us at “risk of losing the truth” and thus of violating an epistemic norm, but that it articulates an “insane logic”—an “absurdity” that guarantees prudential disaster (1896, 25). The general idea is that if something is beneficial, and believing that p will help us achieve, acquire, or actualize that thing, then it is prima facie prudent for us to believe that p . This will be true even if we lack sufficient evidence for the belief that p , and even if we are aware of that lack.

Consider for example someone who reads in the psychological literature that people are much more likely to survive a cancer diagnosis if they firmly believe that they will survive it. Upon being diagnosed with the disease himself, and in light of the fact that his goal is to survive, it will be prudent for this person to believe that he will survive, even if he knows that he (and his doctors) lack sufficient evidence for that belief. James refers to such cases as ones “where faith in a fact can help create the fact” (1896, 25).

Someone might suggest that the patient's knowledge that his “faith helps create the fact” itself counts as a kind of evidence in its favor. If this is right, then the case would not be in tension with Clifford's Principle after all. But other cases can be used to make the same point: Pascal famously argues that it is required by prudential rationality that we believe in God, even though we lack sufficient evidence for that belief, and even though such belief would play no role in “creating” the fact that it describes (Pascal 1670).

Here’s a non-religious example: suppose that you would like to retain a good relationship with your teenage son, and you are aware that this requires believing the best of him whenever possible. You also have some moderate but not compelling olfactory evidence that he is using drugs in the house when you are away (in response to your queries, he claims that he has recently taken up transcendental meditation, and that the funny smell when you come home is just incense). Suppose too that you know yourself well enough to know that your relationship with your son will be seriously damaged if you come to view him as a habitual drug-user. This suggests that you would violate a prudential norm if you go ahead and believe that he is. In other words, it is prudent, given your ends, to withhold belief about the source of the aroma altogether, or even to believe, if possible, that he is not smoking pot but rather burning incense in your absence.

On the other hand, if you regard the occasional use of recreational drugs as harmless fun that expresses a healthy contempt for overweening state authority (in some states, at least), then it might be prudent for you—confronted with the telltale odor—to form the belief that your son has indeed taken up the habit in question. Either way, the recommendation here aims at a kind of prudential or pragmatic value, and not at the truth per se . (For some recent arguments in favor of prudential evidence for belief, see Reisner 2008 and 2009; for arguments against, see Adler 2002 and Shah 2006).

In addition to being sorted according to the type of value involved, doxastic obligations can be sorted according to their structure . The main distinction here is between hypothetical and categorical structure.

Prudential norms usually have a hypothetical structure: if you have prudential reason to survive the disease, and if believing that you are going to do so will help you achieve this end, then you have a prima facie obligation to believe that you are going to survive. Likewise, if you want to protect your relationship with your son, and if believing that he is deceiving you and taking drugs will damage your ability to trust him, then you are prima facie obliged to withhold that belief.

Put more generally: if you have a prudential end E , and belief that p is likely to make E obtain, then you have a prima facie obligation to believe that p . The obligation will be particularly powerful (though still prima facie ) if E cannot be achieved other than through belief that p , and if you are (or should be) aware of that fact. (For more on hypothetical norms generally, see Broome 1999 and Schroeder 2005)

The structure of moral and epistemic norms can also be construed hypothetically in this way. The ends in question will presumably be doing the morally right thing or promoting the moral good , on the one hand, and acquiring significant knowledge or minimizing significant false belief , on the other (see Foley 1987). Achieving these ends clearly does involve an increase in well-being on most conceptions of the latter.

However, because these ends are putatively set for us not by a contingent act of will but rather by our nature as morally engaged, knowledge-seeking beings, some philosophers regard them as categorical rather than instrumental imperatives. In other words, they take these norms to say not merely that if we want to achieve various hypothetical ends, then we have the prima facie obligation to believe in such-and-such ways. Rather, the norms say that we do have these ends as a matter of natural or moral necessity, and thus that we prima facie ought to believe in such-and-such ways.

Note, however, that the most general prudential end—something like surviving , say—may be thought to have an equal claim to the title of a “necessary” end: it is set for us by our nature as living members of a species that has evolved through natural selection. And so by the same logic it might be taken to underwrite a categorical—albeit still prudential—norm of belief, especially in life-or-death cases such as that of the cancer diagnosis above.

So far the norms involved in the ethics of belief have been characterized without attention to reflective access requirements. A reflective access requirement has to do with the subject’s own reflective awareness of some of the relevant facts.

In order to see how such requirements can play a role, consider the following prudential doxastic norm:

(A) If S has end E , and if S's believing that p is likely to make E obtain, then S has a prima facie prudential obligation to believe that p.

This is a purely objective or ‘unreflective’ account of the prudential obligation in question: it is simply concerned with whether the subject in fact has a certain end and whether in fact the belief that p is likely to lead to the accomplishment of that end. If (A) were the right way to articulate obligations in the ethics of belief, then we would have far more prima facie doxastic obligations than we realize.

Reflective or ‘subjective’ components can be added to norms in order to make the results more plausible:

(B) If S knows that she has an end E , and if S knows that believing that p is likely to make E obtain, then S has a prima facie prudential obligation to believe that p .

(B) is towards the top of the scale in terms of reflective access requirements: S has to know that he has E and that believing that p is likely to make E obtain . As a sufficient condition for having a doxastic obligation, it may be acceptable, but most ethicists of belief will not want to make the reflective knowledge necessary in order for there to be genuine prima facie prudential obligations.

Intermediate positions would replace “knows” in one or both parts of the antecedent of (B) with something weaker: “is in a position to know,” “justifiably believes,” “is justified in believing,”, believes, and so on.

Note that an ethicist of belief who wants to include a reflective access requirement in a doxastic norm would need to do so in a way that doesn't generate an infinite regress. Note too that the norms we considered above govern the positive formation of belief. An account of the plausible conditions of reflective access may be somewhat different for norms of maintaining, suspending, and relinquishing belief (for suspending, see Tang 2015 and Perin 2015).

Another closely-related debate has to do with the types of value that can generate doxastic norms and obligations. Value monists in the ethics of belief argue that only one type of value (usually some kind of epistemic value) can generate such norms. A prominent kind of monism, often called “veritism”, says that truth is the fundamental doxastic good: its value is not grounded in knowledge or anything else (see Pritchard 2011, Gardiner 2012, Ahlstrom-Vij 2013).

Other more permissive accounts go beyond the three types of value considered above—prudential, moral, and epistemic—to suggest that there are other types that can generate doxastic obligations as well. Perhaps there are aesthetic norms that guide us to beliefs that have some sort of aesthetic merit, or that make us qua subjects more beautiful in virtue of believing them. There may also be social norms that govern beliefs we form in our various communal roles (as lawyers, priests, psychiatrists, friends, parents, etc. (regarding the doxastic obligations of friends, see Keller 2004, Stroud 2006, and Aikin 2008)) and political norms that govern beliefs we form as citizens, subjects, voters, and so on (here see the second half of Matheson and Vitz 2014).

It's an interesting and open question whether such aesthetic, social, or political norms could be cashed out in terms of epistemic, moral, and prudential norms (e.g. perhaps being someone's lawyer or being someone's friend underwrites certain moral or prudential norms of belief regarding his or her innocence). In any case, the three types of underlying value considered above are the ones most frequently discussed under the rubric of the “ethics of belief.”

Norms, and types of norms, can be related in different ways. According to the interpretation of Clifford presented above, there is a strong connection between the epistemic and the moral types: the fact that there is an epistemic norm to believe always and only on sufficient evidence entails that there is an analogous moral norm. The reasoning here seems to be as follows:

(P1) We have an epistemic obligation to possess sufficient evidence for all of our beliefs; (P2) We have a moral obligation to uphold our epistemic obligations; (C) Thus, we have a moral obligation to possess sufficient evidence for all of our beliefs.

This formulation keeps the types of values distinct while still forging a link between them in the form of (P2). But of course we would need to find a sound sub-argument in favor of (P2) (see Dougherty 2014).

In some places, Clifford seems simply to presume that epistemic duty is a species of ethical duty. That would make sense of why he thinks it just obvious that the shipowner is “equally guilty”—regardless of whether the ship sinks. Elsewhere Clifford defends (P2) by reference to our need to rely on the testimony of others in order to avoid significant harm and advance scientific progress. No belief is without effect, he claims: at the very least, believing on insufficient evidence (even with respect to an apparently very insignificant issue) is liable to lead to the lowering of epistemic standards in other more important contexts too. And that could, in turn, have bad moral consequences.

Elsewhere still Clifford seems not to recognize a distinction between epistemic and moral obligations at all (see Van Inwagen 1996, Haack 1997, Wood 2002, and Zamulinski 2002 for further discussion of Clifford on this issue).

It was noted earlier that one way to read Locke is as arguing for (P2) via the independent theoretical premise that God's will for us is that we follow Evidentialist norms, together with a divine command theory of moral rightness (see Wolterstorff 1996). But Locke can also be read as primarily interested in defending (P1) rather than (P2) or (C) (see Brandt Bolton 2009).

A virtue-theoretic approach, by contrast, might defend (P2) by claiming not that a particular unjustified belief causes moral harm, but rather that regularly ignoring our epistemic obligations is a bad intellectual habit, and that having a bad intellectual habits is a way of having a bad moral character (Zagzebski 1996, Roberts and Wood 2007).

In addition to using theoretical arguments like these, ethicists of belief can connect doxastic norms by appealing to empirical data. If we discover through investigation that it is on the whole prudent to be morally good, then prudential norms may be able support some of the moral norms. Similarly, if we discover that following moral norms of belief reliably leads to the acquisition of knowledge, then there may be a track-record argument that goes from epistemic norms to moral norms (this would effectively be an empirical argument in support of (P2) above). And if we empirically find that adhering to epistemic norms also promotes the moral good, then there will be an argument from the moral to the epistemic.

Finally, norms and types of norms can be in outright tension. The prudential norm recommending belief that your son is not smoking pot when you're gone conflicts with the epistemic norm to follow your perceptual evidence. Likewise, the moral norm to believe the best of others is often tragically in tension with the epistemic norm to believe what the evidence supports, with the prudential norm to believe whatever it takes in order to get ahead, and so on.

Tension or conflict can also exist between doxastic obligations of a diachronic sort. The epistemic norm to gather as much evidence as possible may conflict with the prudential norm to believe in such a way as to save time and effort (example: the fastidious boss who never hires anyone until he has investigated a candidate's entire past, called every reference, and confirmed every qualification). It also conflicts with the moral norm not to believe on the basis of evidence gathered in an immoral fashion (example: the doctor who gathers evidence about human diseases by performing inhumane experiments on prisoners).

Ethicists of belief who are not value monists often claim that there is a way of ordering norms or types of norms in terms of the relative strength or relative ease with which their claims on us can be defeated. This means that in a given situation there will be a determinate answer about what one ought to believe “all things considered.” Others argue, however, that at least some of the norms are incommensurable, and that in many cases there will simply be no answer to the question of what it is right to believe all things considered (Feldman 2000). Still others think that one category of norm collapses into another and that this can give us an all things considered conclusion (for discussion of whether epistemic rationality collapses into prudential rationality, for example, see Kelly 2003)

In sum: a full-blown ethics of belief will say something about the axiological sources of the different types of norms, about the inferential relations between them, about their temporal range (synchronic/diachronic) and about what to do when norms conflict. (See Broome 1999 and Kolodny 2005)

3. Belief, its Aims, and Our Control Over It

Questions about what belief is and how it is formed have typically played a marginal role in the ethics of belief debate. There is agreement among most analytic philosophers that belief is (roughly) a dispositional, affirmative attitude towards a proposition or state of affairs. To believe that p is to take it that p is true—to take it that the state of affairs described by the sentence “ p ” obtains. Note that this doesn't mean that the subject explicitly believes the proposition that p is true , however, since the latter is a different and higher order belief (mere belief that p doesn't require possession of the concept of “truth”, for instance, whereas the belief that p is true does). It is also widely agreed that the majority of our beliefs are not occurrent at any given time, and that belief comes in degrees of strength, confidence, or firmness.

After this, however, agreement breaks down. Representationalists regard beliefs as structures in the mind that represent the propositions they affirm—usually in something like a mental language (see Fodor 1975 and the entry on language of thought ). Behavioralist-dispositionalists regard beliefs as dispositions to act in certain ways in certain circumstances (see Braithwaite 1932–1933). Eliminativists regard talk of “beliefs” as designating convenient fictions that we ascribe to people in folk psychology (see Churchland 1981 and the entry on eliminative materialism ). Primitivists think of beliefs as basic mental states which do not admit of analysis. And so on. There is also a big controversy regarding whether the most fundamental concept here is of degrees of belief (or credences).

This disagreement about the nature of belief has (thus far at least) not been taken to impinge on the ethics of belief debate in significant ways. Of course, eliminativists and behavioralists will have to say that doxastic norms—if there are any—apply at bottom to non-doxastic states. Still, modulo those kinds of changes, these and other ontological analyses of belief seem compatible with many different accounts of its ethics.

By contrast, theories about the aim or goal of belief typically have an immediate and substantive impact on conceptions of its ethics, and can be used, in particular, to answer questions about the relative importance of various norms, whether there are “all things considered” obligations in a given situation, and so on (see Velleman 2000, Wedgwood 2002, Steglich-Peterson 2009, and the essays in Chan 2013 for general discussion; see Côté-Bouchard forthcoming for a critique of the move from aim of belief to doxastic norm).

A few philosophers and psychologists argue that simply acquiring significant truth while avoiding significant falsehood is the only aim of belief, and thus that any doxastic obligations will be structured accordingly (see David 2001). Others argue that there are important aims in addition to, or even in lieu of, the aim of truth-acquisition—aims that can underwrite other doxastic norms (Velleman 2000, Sosa 2000, Sosa 2003, Gibbons 2013). A common candidate here, of course, is knowledge itself (see Williamson 2000, Pritchard 2007, Simion et al. 2016 and the entry on the value of knowledge ), but some authors claim that justification (Adler 2002, Gibbons 2013) and/or doxastic “virtue” is the aim (Zagzebski 2004, Sosa 2011, Wright 2014), while still others plump for a more structurally complex aim such as “understanding” (Kvanvig 2003, Kvanvig 2009, Grimm 2012). (Note, though, that other authors argue that understanding doesn’t even involve belief (Hunter 1998; Dellsén forthcoming)).

As mentioned earlier, in cognitive science and evolutionary biology, it is often assumed that the aim of belief (as well as of almost every other process) is something like “survival.” There are ongoing disagreements, however, about the extent to which that is correct and, even if it is, whether it is necessarily or even contingently connected to the aim of truth-acquisition (Stich 1990, Plantinga 2002, Street 2006).

A very different kind of candidate for the aim of belief would be something like pleasure broadly-speaking, or perhaps “feeling at home in the world.” If one of these is the aim, then the norms it underwrites might at times lead away from truth. For example: suppose Smith is the sort of guy who feels great pleasure when he believes that everyone he knows thinks highly of him, and pleasure is an aim that underwrites a doxastic norm. Then Smith has a prima facie obligation to believe that his friend Jones thinks the world of him.

This is clearly one of the places where debates about psychological strategies such as self-deception, “bad faith,” wish-fulfillment, “irony,” and the like become germane in the ethics of belief (see Wisdo 1991, Wisdo 1993, Mele 2001, Wood 2002, and the entry on self deception ). If the aims of belief can plausibly be regarded as wide enough to include truth-neutral states such as pleasure or “feeling at home in the world,” and if these aims can underwrite genuine norms, then Evidentialism as characterized below clearly delivers a far-too-narrow characterization of its ethics.

We have seen that our conception of the aim of belief can influence our conception of doxastic norms. But it can also affect the extent to which parallels can be drawn between the ethics of belief and the ethics of action generally. If one adopts “value monism” in the ethics of belief (whether it be veritism of some other kind of value), then there will be a strong parallel to monistic consequentialist theories in the ethics of action (DePaul 2001).

A remaining difference between consequentialism in epistemology and in ethics, however, is that a belief’s success at achieving its aim is typically evaluated by epistemologists all at once in the moment it is formed, whereas in the case of an action, subsequent consequences are relevant to the evaluation of its moral rightness, and many of these consequences won’t be known (if at all) until much later (for an extended comparison of these two kinds of consequentialism, see Briesen 2017). That said, it is possible to imagine a diachronic ethics of belief according to which truth is the sole aim of belief, but we evaluate particular beliefs not just on whether they are true but also on their ability to enable or produce the subsequent acquisition of other true beliefs.

If we have a theory according to which the aim of belief is complex, however, then parallels to the ethics of action become more complicated. An ethicist of belief who holds that acquiring significant truth in the right way is the aim of belief, and analyzes the “rightness” of a belief-forming practice in terms of its ability to lead to truth, may find that the relevant parallel is to rule-consequentialism. By contrast, the view that the aim of belief is simply to believe in the right way , regardless of whether that “right way” reliably leads to signficant truth, looks like the analogue of a deontological position in ethics that emphasizes the intentional following of right principles rather than the achievement of some aim external to the act itself. Whether or not these parallels are illuminating, and whether a view in the ethics of belief constrains our options in the ethics of action, is still an open question (see Kornblith 1983, Dougherty 2014).

There are many other variations here. It seems possible to defend the view, for instance, that we ought only to believe on sufficient evidence—as the Evidentialists teach—but that our conception of the aims of belief might provide further and more determinate necessary conditions for permissible belief. It is also possible to argue that the aim of belief makes it the case that we have practical reasons for thinking that only epistemic reasons can license belief (Whiting 2014).

Finally, it may be possible to defend the view that belief by its nature has no specific aim, but is rather a state that can constitute or lead to any number of different goods. If that is right, then we obviously cannot look to the aim of belief to underwrite an account of its ethics.

We have already seen that some theorists take knowledge to be the (or at least an) aim of belief. Some philosophers go further and say that knowledge is also the norm of belief - that is, that any belief that does not also count as knowledge is impermissible or irrational or vicious or defective. Put another way: knowing that p is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for permissibly (rationally, virtuously) believing that p.

One argument for the claim that knowledge is the norm of belief seeks to infer that result from the claim that knowledge is the aim of belief. The aim generates the norm, and any belief that fails to achieve the aim also fails to obey the norm. Perhaps the most prominent argument along these lines starts with the related claim that knowledge is the “norm of assertion ”—i.e., that we ought not assert a proposition if we don’t know it (see Williamson 2000). But if that’s the case, and if belief is the “inner” analogue of assertion, then it looks as though we also ought only to believe a proposition when the belief counts as knowledge. The debate then has to do with whether knowledge really is the norm of assertion, and, if so, whether “belief” is an inner analogue of assertion in such a way that the norm carries over (see Sutton 2005, Huemer 2007b, Bach 2008, Goldberg 2009).

One reason that this position can seem counterintuitive is that an important role that norms often play is that of guiding action. The principle that we should only believe what we know is not a very helpful action-guiding norm, since we often don’t know what we know (according to most epistemologists, at least). Of course, if I adopt this norm, and know that I don’t know that p, then I’ll see that I shouldn’t believe that p either (this negative formulation is what Williamson uses in 2000, 256). But, again, most epistemologists do not think we are typically able to tell, from the inside, whether we would know the proposition in question if we believed it. And yet that ability seems to be presupposed by the idea that this is an action-guiding norm. Another objection to the idea that knowledge is the norm of belief is more intuitive: knowledge seems to most of us like a different sort of accomplishment than belief, or even justified belief, or (after Gettier) even justified true belief. It is one thing to say that we acquire the concept of belief by looking at paradigm cases of knowledge and then subtracting different elements from them (for instance: “justified belief would be just like knowledge but without truth”). It is quite another to say that no belief can count as properly formed unless it also counts as knowledge (for more on all this, see Benton, Other Internet Resources)

A third foundational issue related to the nature of belief has to do with whether or not belief-formation is in some way voluntary or under the control of the will. This issue, too, has an effect on the ethics of belief. Many philosophers and psychologists have concluded that belief is a more or less involuntary response to perceived evidence. But if a behavior isn't ‘up to us’ in any important sense, then it is hard to see how we could be responsible for performing it (see Alston 1989 for an influential argument along these lines).

In response to this “doxastic involuntarist” challenge , some philosophers argue that we do have direct control over at least some of our beliefs (Ginet 2001, Weatherson 2008), or that we at least have control over which beliefs are suspended or relinquished (Rott forthcoming). Others develop a kind of hybrid view that allows certain kinds of belief-formation to count as free and ‘up to us,’ even if they are also caused in us (see Steup 2000, Ryan 2003). Some explicitly reject any parallel between free will and free belief (Wagner forthcoming). Still others focus on the fact that we can be praised and blamed for beliefs (as well as actions) that are not under our control, even if there are no obligations on belief-formation. (Adams 1985, Hieronymi 2006, Southwood and Chuard 2009).

Yet another response, compatible with many of those list above, involves an account of indirect ways in which belief-formation counts as voluntary and thus susceptible to normative evaluation (e.g., Pascal 1670, Feldman 2000, Audi 2001, Yee 2002, Leon 2002, Audi 2008b). Another option is to take the doxastic involuntarist challenge to motivate a new focus on positive propositional attitudes that are by definition voluntary – “acceptances,” for instance (see Cohen 1992, Bratman 1992, Engel 2000, Audi 2008a, and §7 below). Finally, some ethicists of belief seek to argue that there are some obligations on direct belief-formation while also absorbing the putative empirical datum that much of it is not under the control of the will (see Feldman and Conee 1985, Feldman 2000, Adler 2005, Hieronymi 2006 and 2008).

4. Evidentialism: an overview

Evidentialism of some sort is far and away the dominant ethic of belief among early modern and contemporary philosophers alike. The central principle, as mentioned earlier, is that one ought only to base one's beliefs on relevant evidence (i.e. evidence that bears on the truth of the proposition) that is in one's possession. Many Evidentialists (Locke, Hume, and Clifford, for example) add the condition that the amount of evidence in one's possession must be proportioned to one's degree of belief, and that one should only firmly believe on the basis of “sufficient” evidence (where “sufficient” involves the evidence being strong enough for the belief to count as knowledge if true). Some also add one of the reflective access requirements mentioned above: for instance, that we ought to know (or being a position to know, or justifiably believe, or be justified in believing) that we have evidence for the original belief or even that the amount of evidence we have is sufficient (for a survey of these positions and their critics, see the essays in Dougherty 2011).

Once a principle along these lines has been chosen, the relative strictness of a given Evidentialist position will be a function of how many exceptions it allows. The strictest sort of Evidentialist—Clifford, at least on standard readings—says that the principle holds “always, everywhere, and for anyone” (though note, again, that Clifford himself qualifies this later in his essay). There are problems with such a strict position, however, including the threat of the infinite regress that arises if the strict Evidentialist also requires that we believe that we have sufficient evidence for all of our beliefs.

In contrast, moderate Evidentialists take their principles to be exceptionable; thus they allow that there are some circumstances in which subjects are rationally permitted to form beliefs in the absence of sufficient evidence. They might hold that the Cliffordian view applies, say, to the beliefs formed by a military pilot about the location of a legitimate bombing target in the midst of a residential area, or the beliefs formed by a government health official regarding the efficacy of a pharmaceutical trial, at least insofar as these beliefs lead to morally or prudentially significant actions. But at the same time they might think it permissible to abandon these strict standards in ordinary contexts where not much is at stake—for instance, the everyday belief that there is still some milk in the fridge. If the number of exceptions is very large, then the position ends up looking more like one of the Non-Evidentialist positions described below. As a result, the boundary between a very moderate Evidentialism and full-blown Non-Evidentialism can be quite blurry.

As difficult as it is to defend strict or thoroughgoing Evidentialism, it is even harder to defend the view that Evidentialism is in appropriate in every domain. The cases of the pilot and the health official are ones in which the subject's beliefs (largely as a result of the actions to which they lead) simply must, we think, meet some very high standards of evidence. Accordingly, at least some sort of moderate or context-specific Evidentialism seems overwhelmingly plausible.

We have seen that the distinction between strict Evidentialism and moderate Evidentialism is quite sharp but that the line between moderate Evidentialism and Non-Evidentialism is rather blurry. Perhaps the best place to make a distinction between moderate Evidentialism and full-blown Non-Evidentialism is over whether a subject can be not only permitted but also obliged to form a belief on insufficient evidence (or, depending on the reflective access conditions, on what she takes to be insufficient evidence) in certain situations. An ethicist of belief who affirms this, it seems reasonable to say, has thereby abandoned even the most moderate form of Evidentialism and moved into the Non-Evidentialist camp (see §6 below).

It was noted earlier that doxastic norms can be either synchronic or diachronic. Clifford's Principle itself is articulated as a synchronic norm, but in the later portions of the “Ethics of Belief,” he is more concerned to articulate diachronic principles regarding evidence-collection and evidence-assessment. It is from these portions of his discussion that we get “Clifford's Other Principle.”

Many early ethicists of belief modeled their accounts on deontological ethical theories that tend to formulate principles synchronically. Recently, however, virtue epistemologists have emphasized what they take to be the diachronic character of our fundamental doxastic obligations, and suggest that synchronic principles requiring sufficient evidence for a belief at a time are plausibly viewed as underwritten by more fundamental diachronic principles enjoining the cultivation of virtuous intellectual character (Zagzebski 1996, Roberts and Wood 2007, Sosa 2007, Audi 2008b).

Crucial to any theory in the ethics of belief—and especially an Evidentialist theory—will be some account of the nature of evidence itself. Some philosophers construe evidence in terms of demonstrative proof, others in terms of objective and/or subjective probability, and others simply in terms of anything that belief is responsive to (see the entry on evidence ). A fully articulate Evidentialism will also provide an account of how evidence supports belief (see the entry on the epistemic basing relation ), and of what it is to have or possess such evidence.

It will also, perhaps, say something about whether there can be evidence (arguments) in favor of having a belief that p or bringing about the belief that p , in addition to evidence in favor of p itself (see Reisner 2008). It will presumably also have something to say about disagreement between epistemic peers, and the impact that such disagreement can have on our conception of the doxastic norms, especially if the disagreement is not based on a difference in evidence (van Inwagen 1996, Kelly 2005). Finally, it might take a stand on the more general issue of how higher-order evidence interacts with first-order evidence. For example: in the case of peer disagreement, knowing that a peer disagrees with you is a piece of higher-order evidence regarding your first-order belief.

With respect to reflective access conditions, it was noted earlier that Evidentialists cannot require that a rational subject always base beliefs on sufficient evidence that she knows or justifiably believes she has, for fear of an infinite regress. If that is correct, then another less demanding sort of principle must be in the offing, one according to which at least some beliefs can simply be held on the basis of sufficient evidence, regardless of whether the subject has any beliefs about that evidence.

On the issue of evidence-possession generally: if we regard evidence as wholly constituted by mental states (experiences, beliefs, memories, etc.), then an account of what it is to “possess” evidence will be relatively straightforward—we must simply have these mental states. If evidence is not merely in the head, so to speak, then the possession condition in Evidentialist norms may turn out to be quite complex. What is our evidence for the belief that “it's raining”? Is it our awareness or experience of something, such as the street's being wet? Or is it simply the street's being wet? When asked why we believe that it is raining, we typically say something like “because the street is wet.” Is this merely shorthand or does it say something about the nature of evidence? (For arguments that extra-mental facts in the world often constitute evidence, see McDowell 1994 and Ginsborg 2007; for further discussion see Williamson 2000 and Dancy 2000, ch.6).

5. Varieties of Evidentialism

In light of the fact that there are different types of value underwriting different types of obligation, there must also be different types of Evidentialism: prudential, epistemic, and moral at the very least.

Strict prudential Evidentialism doesn't enjoy much of a following; indeed, as with most strict forms of Evidentialism, it is hard to see how it could be motivated. Perhaps it is prudent in general to follow one's evidence, but there will always be cases in which prudential considerations push in the direction of playing fast and loose with the evidence. Wouldn't it be better for the grief-stricken widower to believe that his wife is enjoying life in heaven, or for the devoted spouse to fight off the belief that her husband is unfaithful, even though she regularly finds lipstick on his collar?

One move that the prudential Evidentialist can make in response to such objections is to adopt the doxastic analogue of rule consequentialism. Even if there are particular cases in which it is imprudent to follow one's evidence, the general rule that one should believe on the basis of, and in proportion to, sufficient evidence in one's possession produces the best distribution of prudential outcomes overall.

This kind of moderate prudential Evidentialism can handle a lot of common counterexamples, but there is still the concern that entire classes of beliefs—rather than individual instances—violate the principle and yet seem to produce more beneficial overall results. For instance, wouldn't it be better all around if each of us were as a rule to think more highly of one another's worth, intentions, and capacities than our evidence actually supports?

In response, it might be claimed that the source of the prudential value of always believing on sufficient evidence is that it tends to result in our having knowledge. If that were right, then there would be a clear connection between prudential and epistemic norms (see §2.4 above and §5.3 below). The challenge for such a position, however, is to show that justification or knowledge adds something of genuine prudential value that mere true belief lacks.

Strict moral Evidentialism is unlikely to be attractive to anyone but the most zealous Cliffordian. In its more moderate forms, however, moral Evidentialism is much more attractive and widespread. “You simply shouldn't believe that about your friend!”—expressed in a context where the friend's disloyalty is not conclusively supported by the evidence—sounds to many ears like the expression of a plausible moral obligation (see Wood 2002, ch. 1–3).

Moral rightness and wrongness is analyzed in many different ways, of course; a moral Evidentialist will presumably either adopt one of those analyses and develop her position accordingly, or show that the ethics of belief swings free of debates between deontologists, consequentialists, virtue theorists, and the like. No matter which theory of moral rightness and wrongness she adopts, however, there will be the usual questions to settle about whether there are thresholds of harm beyond which Evidentialist principles are suspended, even in a deontological context, about whether the fundamental objects of moral appraisal in the doxastic context are acts or rules, and about whether there is a ‘unity’ to the moral as well as the intellectual virtues. Again, it is an open and interesting question whether these issues need to be dealt with differently in an ethics of belief than they are in an ethics of action.

By far the most influential and widespread variety of Evidentialism is epistemic (see Chisholm 1957, Adler 2002, Conee and Feldman 2004, Shah 2006). The central thesis of epistemic Evidentialism is that the norms of evidence governing belief are somehow based in the nature and aims of theoretical reason itself. To believe on insufficient evidence is at bottom an epistemic failure—a failure to use our cognitive faculties in such a way that we are likely to acquire significant knowledge and avoid significant unjustified belief. Some philosophers in this tradition also defend Locke's proportionality thesis according to which our degree of belief must be in proportion to the strength of our evidence (see White 2005).

A major challenge facing proponents of epistemic Evidentialism is to find an adequate motivation for it: if there are not sufficient prudential or moral grounds for the obligation to believe on sufficient evidence, then what is the source of its normativity? In response to the challenge, epistemic Evidentialists take a number of different tacks. Some argue that the norms are underwritten by necessary, conceptual truths. On this view, the very concept of belief reveals that it is a truth-aimed attitude that is only properly formed on the basis of sufficient evidence in the possession of the subject. Thus an attitude that is not formed in this way is either not a genuine belief at all, or at best a deficient instance of it (see Adler 2002, Textor 2004).

Other epistemic Evidentialists argue that doxastic norms arise not from analysis of the concept of belief, but rather from reflection on the fact that our belief-forming faculties are simply set up to be sensitive to evidence. The faculties of perception, memory, testimony, introspection, reasoning, and so on, typically generate beliefs on the basis of sufficient evidence, and we usually regard these faculties as malfunctioning, maladjusted, or misused when they generate beliefs in other ways. Pieces of apparent evidence—epistemic reasons, broadly-speaking—reliably provide us with important information about the world, and we have evolved to be sensitive to such reasons in our quest to survive and flourish.

Note that the epistemic Evidentialist does not hold that the acquisition of significant truth—even truth that promotes survival—is the only relevant consideration in this region: our belief-forming faculties are not mere thermometers or motion-detectors. The idea is rather that, as evidence-sensitive believers, we don't merely want to believe significant truths; rather, we want to have good grounds for taking propositions to be true, and to base our belief on those grounds (Feldman 2000; though again see David 2001). This putative fact is then taken to underwrite a norm: we ought to seek not just true belief but knowledge , or, more specifically, we ought to seek widespread significant knowledge without widespread significant error . To seek knowledge in this way is, among other things, to seek to have sufficient evidence for true beliefs and to base them on that evidence.

Another kind of defense of epistemic Evidentialism says that the central Evidentialist principle—that we ought to believe on the basis of sufficient evidence that is in our possession—is not an analytic truth drawn from the concept of belief, and not a ‘functional norm’ arising from reflection on the way our faculties are set up or designed, but rather a synthetic principle that we simply rationally intuit in the course of reflecting on concepts and thought-experiments. This approach seems coherent and in some ways attractive, though it has not found many defenders in the literature.

6. Varieties of Non-Evidentialism

We have already seen that there are any number of ways in which one can fail to be a strict Evidentialist. One might hold, for instance, that belief need not always be based on evidence (though of course the moderate Evidentialist could agree with that), or that belief requires evidence but its degree needn't be proportioned to the strength of the evidence, or that belief requires evidence but need not be based on that evidence, or that belief requires that there be evidence even if the subject doesn't possess that evidence. No doubt there are other ways as well, and the question of whether a particular philosopher counts as an Evidentialist will ultimately hang on how Evidentialism itself is construed.

Most important for present purposes, however, is to note that the fact that someone is not a prudential Evidentialist, say, does not entail that she is a Non- Evidentialist for prudential reasons—or for any other reasons. Indeed, she might still be an Evidentialist, but for moral or epistemic rather than prudential reasons. As I will use the term, being a Non-Evidentialist with respect to a certain domain of beliefs requires, as a necessary condition, that one is not an Evidentialist of any sort about that domain of beliefs.

I suggested earlier that a natural place to draw the line between moderate Evidentialists and Non-Evidentialists about a domain of beliefs rests on the question of whether belief on the basis of insufficient evidence is ever reasonably required . Are we ever obliged to believe, even in the absence of sufficient evidence? Strict and moderate Evidentialists will say no, Non-Evidentialists will say yes. Naturally, the reasons that motivate this putative requirement will be different according to different types of Non-Evidentialism. Here the focus will be on the three main types of Non-Evidentialism that are prevalent among contemporary philosophers: Practical Non-Evidentialism (which includes what is sometimes called “pragmatism”), Conservativism, and Fideism.

As noted above, William James famously sniffs at the impracticable stringency of Clifford's Principle, advocating instead the more liberal policy that we sometimes have the “right to believe” even when we lack sufficient evidence (and even when we know that we lack it). In places, James goes further and suggests that in certain cases—especially cases involving religious and moral belief—it is not merely permitted but positively commendable or even required that we believe on insufficient evidence.

When I look at the religious question as it really puts itself to concrete men, and when I think of all the possibilities which both practically and theoretically it involves, then this command that we shall put a stopper on our heart, instincts, and courage, and wait —acting of course meanwhile more or less as if religion were not true—till doomsday, or till such time as our intellect and sense working together may have raked in evidence enough,—this command, I say, seems to me the queerest idol ever manufactured in the philosophic cave. (1896, 11)

We saw earlier that there are difficult conceptual and psychological problems facing an ethics of belief that says, quite strictly, that we must always and only believe what is prudentially beneficial. Thus while pragmatism is sometimes characterized casually as the view that we should believe whatever “works,” most self-described pragmatists are very careful to specify the conditions under which a subject can reasonably depart from, ignore, or go beyond her evidence (see pragmatism ). These conditions typically involve the absence of really compelling evidence; thus, as James reminds his reader, pragmatic belief is not simply wild-eyed believing “what you know ain't true” (1896, 29). Pragmatists also typically require the existence of some sort of exigency or “passional” interest on the part of the subject that makes suspension of belief in that context impossible (or at least exceedingly ill-advised). We saw earlier how James defines a “genuine option” in an effort to specify these conditions.

The emphasis on the “primacy of the practical” in James was clearly anticipated by earlier ethicists of belief. Blaise Pascal famously argues in the Pensées that wager-like reasoning should lead us to set the goal of believing in God; thus his focus tends to be less on the moral or epistemic and more on the prudential motives for belief (Pascal 1670, Hájek 2003, Jordan 2006; see also the entries on Pascal , Pascal's Wager , and pragmatic arguments and belief in God ). For Immanuel Kant, by contrast, considerations that can justify belief (or faith) in the absence of sufficient theoretical evidence are typically (though not exclusively) moral . If, for instance, there is no sufficient evidence one way or the other for a certain proposition p (the proposition, say, that the human will is incompatibilistically free), and if one has set a moral end that requires one to take a stand on the truth of p , and if any evidence that one does have points in the direction of the truth of p , then one is permitted (and sometimes even required) to take p to be true. This ‘taking-to-be-true’ (German: ‘ Fürwahrhalten ’) is thereby justified on “moral” rather than “theoretical” grounds, and it counts as “belief” ( Glaube ) or “acceptance” ( Annehmung ) rather than “knowledge” ( Wissen ) (Kant 1781/1787, Chignell 2007).

A convenient label that captures both broadly pragmatist and broadly Kantian theories is Practical Non-Evidentialism , where the pragmatic/prudential and the moral are the two main species of “practical” value (for more on moral reasons for belief and whether they count as evidence see Pace 2010; for a survey of the debate about pragmatic reasons for belief see Reisner 2017).

Conservatism (sometimes also called dogmatism , though the latter is usually thought to be a view about perceptual belief in particular; see Pryor 2000, White 2006) is the view that one is prima facie justified in believing that p if in fact one does believe that p (Harman 1986, Owens 2000). Another version of it says that one is prima facie justified in believing that p if it seems to one that p is true (Huemer 2007a) or at least perceptually seems to one that p is true (Pryor 2000). In order to be all things considered justified on either of these conservatisms, one must be aware of no undefeated defeaters for p . But the absence of undefeated defeaters for p , even if one is aware of it, is not positive evidence for p , and any “impulsional” urge towards p or seeming that p is true is not the kind of evidence that Evidentialists think we should seek (see Conee and Feldman 2004, ch. 3; for impulsional evidence see Plantinga 1993, 192). So on at least most accounts of what “evidence” is, conservatism is an important kind of Non-Evidentialism according to which some justified beliefs—the immediately justified ones—are not based on sufficient evidence.

Conservatism is regarded by some philosophers as a useful tool against skepticism (Christensen 1994, Huemer 2007a), and its “dogmatic” flavor is sometimes made more palatable by combining it with various moderate or localized Evidentialisms. Thus, for example, conservatism about beliefs that go into the foundation of our knowledge structure (including beliefs about basic mathematical or moral truths) might very naturally be combined with a kind of Evidentialism about beliefs that are not in the foundation (for more on foundationalism in epistemology, see foundationalist theories of epistemic justification ).

Note that conservatives need not say that any of the beliefs we have are infallible or incapable of being undermined. Indeed, they might be quite open to the fallibilist thought that our current justified beliefs can be defeated (either rebutted or undercut) by new evidence. So the view doesn't promote belief that is “dogmatic” or “conservative”in some disparaging sense: it says merely that some beliefs that we have, or some “impelling” beliefs, needn't be based on positive evidential (or practical) support in order to be justified (Harman 1986, Lycan 1988, Chisholm 1989, McGrath 2007).

A third Non-Evidentialist position in the ethics of belief, similar to but distinct from dogmatism, is sometimes called fideism , though it needn't have anything to do with religious doctrine in particular. According to the fideist, we can legitimately hold propositions on faith without having any evidence for them, without feeling impelled towards them, and even in the face of strong evidence against them (note that this is just one way of defining “fideism,” see the entry on fideism for others). Someone might hold on the basis of faith, for instance, that there has been at least one bodily resurrection at some point in the past, even though he has never witnessed such a thing first-hand, and his best scientific, testimonial, and everyday inductive evidence constitutes a powerful case against it.

Fideism of this radical sort is not itself required by most religions, but is typically associated with religious thinkers like Tertullian in the ancient period (perhaps unfairly: see Sider 1980), and Kierkegaard (1846) in the modern (also perhaps unfairly: see Evans 1998). Apart from wearing its irrationality on its sleeve, fideism is vulnerable to psychological objections about the lack of direct control over belief. If belief just is an attitude that necessarily responds to perceived evidence with a positive ‘direction of fit,’ it is hard to see how a well-functioning subject could believe that p in the face of strong evidence that not-p . Consider someone who has normal sensory faculties and who, despite strong perceptual and testimonial evidence to the contrary, repeatedly declares—without claiming to have any hidden evidence—that there is, say, a huge abyss opening up in front of him. It would take a very long time for us to become convinced that he really believes that there is an abyss in front of him. But if, in the end, we are convinced by his actions and speech that he has this belief, and we know that his sensory faculties are functioning properly, then we will probably think the belief is the product of an undesirable and partly involuntary state such as self-deception, wish-fulfillment, or paranoia. We won't think that he has simply chosen to believe.

A more moderate sort of fideism would say that we are permitted to form a “faith”-based belief only if the evidence regarding the proposition in question is not compelling either way, or is absent altogether. Only under those circumstances can we (directly or indirectly) make a “leap of faith” into belief (Adams 1987). Typically, however, those who have recommended “leaps of faith” have cited pragmatic or moral grounds for those leaps, and so given the taxonomy we have so far, they would ultimately count as practical non-Evidentialists rather than bona fide fideists.

If, on the other hand, the claim is that in the complete absence of practical or theoretical reasons in favor, a subject is still permitted to adopt a certain belief, then the view seems to have abandoned aspirations to developing a principled position, and is no longer obviously an “ethics” of belief. This is not a knockdown argument against that kind of fideism, of course: it may be that such a fideist can give reasons to think that trying to formulate an ethics of belief is an ill-conceived project in the first place.

A final alternative for the fideist is to admit that he is not really focused on belief at all, but is rather trying to make room for another kind of positive propositional attitude that is not guided by evidence. Many philosophers and religious people who embrace the fideist label construe “faith” (Latin: fides ) as something different from belief—hope, perhaps, or something like “acceptance” (see §7 and the entry on fideism ). On such a conception, faith that p might very well be able rationally to co-exist in the same psychology with a lot of evidence for not-p .

7. The ethics of acceptance

This last point shows that Evidentialism about belief—even of a strict and uncompromising sort—can be combined with Non-Evidentialism about some other positive, categorical propositional attitudes in order to make it seem less stern (see Audi 2008a for a list of possible meanings of “faith”). Perhaps the most prominent candidate here is acceptance conceived as a positive categorical attitude towards a proposition that is by definition voluntary and figures significantly in our deliberation, action, argumentation, and assertion. Some philosophers focus on the role that acceptance plays in scientific inquiry, theory-construction, and decision theory (van Fraasen 1984, Stalnaker 1987, Cohen 1992). Others focus on the role that it plays in ethical, juridical, religious, and everyday contexts (Bratman 1992, Cohen 1992, Alston 1996, Audi 2008a). A warning is in order here: acceptance is typically a technical notion and characterizations of its nature and ethics differ radically in the literature. There is also some dispute about whether acceptance is able to play the various roles that its advocates intend (Radford 1990, Maher 1990, Moore 1994).

The ethicist of belief who wants to soften or supplement her view by appealing to some notion of permissible acceptance would need to say what acceptance is, how the two sorts of attitude differ, what sorts of norms govern each, and how they interact in a single subject. One of the main advantages of a hybrid view like this is that acceptance is usually taken to be by definition voluntary, and thus it is much easier to see how a genuine “ethics” (complete with praise and blame ascriptions) could be built around it. As we saw earlier, a notion of acceptance (as “faith”) is the sort of thing that a fideist might want to appeal to against those who say that one can't just decide to believe that p in the face of strong opposing evidence. A moderate fideist, by contrast, might argue that we are only permitted to accept that p if we lack strong evidence about p either way. This is still consistent with our having weak evidence for not-p , and even a (weakly held) belief that not-p .

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Benton, Matthew, Knowledge Norms , entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Ethics of Belief , PhilPapers site, maintained by Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, University of Aarhus.

basing relation, epistemic | evidence | fideism | justification, epistemic: foundationalist theories of | knowledge, value of | language of thought hypothesis | materialism: eliminative | Pascal, Blaise | Pascal’s wager | pragmatic arguments and belief in God | pragmatism | self-deception

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Marian David and Avishai Margalit for discussion, and Robert Audi, Anthony Booth, Rik Peels, Lu Teng, Nico Silins, and René van Woudenberg for helpful comments on earlier drafts. He also thanks Noam Weinreich for his help with updating the 2016 version of the entry and generating the bibliography.

He also thanks Cambridge University Press for permission to re-use a few paragraphs from his portion of the essay “The Ethics of Religious Belief: A Recent History,” in (Dole and Chignell 2005).

Copyright © 2018 by Andrew Chignell < chignell @ princeton . edu >

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Environment

What actually is a belief and why is it so hard to change, beliefs evolved as energy-saving shortcuts. restructuring them is costly..

Posted October 7, 2018 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

“For some of our most important beliefs, we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs. Considering how little we know, the confidence we have in our beliefs is preposterous—and it is also essential.” — 2002 Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman 1

Beliefs are a slippery concept. What actually are they? Philosophy has long struggled to define them. 2 In this post-truth and ideologically polarized world, we need a better understanding of beliefs. As a psychiatrist, my job frequently involves identifying distorted beliefs, understanding how they formed, and helping people to learn to be more skeptical of their own beliefs.

Let’s consider a helpful evolutionary framework for making more coherent sense of what beliefs really are, and why mistaken beliefs can sometimes be so hard to change. Then we’ll talk about how to gain a more accurate grasp of reality, and how, ultimately, to advance society.

Beliefs as energy-saving shortcuts in modeling and predicting the environment 3

Beliefs are our brain’s way of making sense of and navigating our complex world. They are mental representations of the ways our brains expect things in our environment to behave, and how things should be related to each other—the patterns our brain expects the world to conform to. Beliefs are templates for efficient learning and are often essential for survival.

The brain is an energy-expensive organ, so it had to evolve energy-conserving efficiencies. As a prediction machine, it must take shortcuts for pattern recognition as it processes the vast amounts of information received from the environment by its sense organ outgrowths. Beliefs allow the brain to distill complex information, enabling it to quickly categorize and evaluate information and to jump to conclusions. For example, beliefs are often concerned with understanding the causes of things: If ‘b’ closely followed ‘a’, then ‘a’ might be assumed to have been the cause of ‘b’.

These shortcuts to interpreting and predicting our world often involve connecting dots and filling in gaps, making extrapolations and assumptions based on incomplete information and based on similarity to previously recognized patterns. In jumping to conclusions, our brains have a preference for familiar conclusions over unfamiliar ones. Thus, our brains are prone to error, sometimes seeing patterns where there are none. This may or may not be subsequently identified and corrected by error-detection mechanisms. It’s a trade-off between efficiency and accuracy.

In its need for economy and efficiency of energy consumption, the default tendency of the brain is to fit new information into its existing framework for understanding the world, rather than repeatedly reconstructing that framework from scratch.

Seeing is believing

It seems likely that the processes in the brain involved in abstract belief formation evolved from simpler processes involved in interpreting sensory perception .

Since we experience the external world entirely through our senses, we find it hard to accept that these perceptions are sometimes subjectively distorted and that they are not necessarily reliable experiences of objective reality. People tend to trust their physical senses and to believe their perceptions even when they are hallucinating and no matter how bizarre their perceptual distortions. People will layer explanations on top of their perception of reality to explain away contradictions.

We give our subjective experience too much credence, and so too our beliefs. We will more readily explain away evidence that contradicts our cherished belief by expanding and elaborating that belief with additional layers of distorted explanation, rather than abandoning it or fundamentally restructuring it.

Homeostasis — maintaining stability

Primitive nervous systems evolved in simple organisms in part to serve the function of homeostasis—a dynamic physiological state of equilibrium or stability, a steady state of internal conditions. Homeostasis is structured around a natural resistance to change, following the same principle as a thermostat.

The lower, primitive parts of our human brains maintain homeostasis of breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, energy balance (via appetite ) and a variety of endocrine processes. So too, beliefs preserve a kind of cognitive homeostasis—a stable, familiar approach to processing information about our world.

We should expect that the homeostatic function that defined primitive brains would likely have been preserved as an organizing principle in the evolution of more complex brains. Certainly, complex brains are geared toward reacting, learning and adapting, but just like primitive brain functions, these adaptations are ultimately in the service of maintaining homeostasis in an ever-changing environment.

Radically restructuring our belief system and creating a new worldview engages parts of the brain involved in higher reasoning processes and computation, and is consequently more effortful, time- and energy-consuming. The brain often cannot afford such an investment. This would explain why, when we experience cognitive dissonance , it is easier to resolve this discomfort by doubling down on our existing belief system—ignoring or explaining away the challenging, contradictory information.

A consistent sense of self, and personal investment in one’s beliefs

Another important factor accounting for resistance to changing our beliefs is the way our beliefs are so often intertwined with how we define ourselves as people—our self-concept . Indeed, beliefs are associated with a part of the brain integrally involved in self-representation—the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. 4 We want to feel that we are consistent, with our behavior aligning with our beliefs. We constantly try to rationalize our own actions and beliefs, and try to preserve a consistent self-image. It’s embarrassing and quite often costly in a variety of ways to admit that we are fundamentally wrong.

In many cases, people have a lot invested personally in their belief system. They may have staked their reputation on a particular belief. Not infrequently, people structure their whole lives around a belief. And this investment may go far beyond a sense of self, extending to large material and financial investments or a life’s career . A change of belief for such a person would obviously involve a monumental upheaval and may entail intolerable personal losses.

No wonder it’s so hard to change our cherished and entrenched beliefs.

The social dimension of belief

A lot of our belief framework is learned at an early age from parents and other adult authority figures. Many human beliefs are the cumulative products of millennia of human culture. Children are strongly predisposed to believe their parents, and, as adults, we are inclined to believe authorities.

It's not surprising that our brains have evolved to more readily believe things told to us than to be skeptical. This makes evolutionary sense as a strategy for efficient learning from parents, and as a social, tribal species it promotes group cohesion.

People can be swayed by persuasive individuals or compelling ideas to override and reject their previously received authority. Sometimes, this is rational. But sometimes, it is not—people are susceptible to influence by charismatic ideologues and by social movements. Especially when these offer new attachments and new self-identities imbued with more powerful affiliation, validation, esteem and sense of purpose than the individual previously had in their life.

Science and the excitement of proving ourselves wrong

Science values the changing of minds through disproving previously held beliefs and challenging received authority with new evidence. This is in sharp contrast to faith (not just religious faith). Faith is far more natural and intuitive to the human brain than is science. Science requires training. It is a disciplined method that tries to systematically overcome or bypass our intuitions and cognitive biases and follow the evidence regardless of our prior beliefs, expectations, preferences or personal investment.

The increasing application of the scientific method in the last four centuries ushered in unprecedented, accelerating progress in humanity’s quest to understand the nature of reality and vast improvements in quality of life. Discovering just how mistaken we collectively were about so many things has been the key to sensational societal progress. 5

Imagine if each of us as individuals could cultivate a scientific attitude of rigorous critical thinking and curiosity in our personal lives, and could experience an exhilarated feeling of discovery whenever we find we have been wrong about something important. Perhaps it’s time to stop talking admiringly about faith and belief as if these were virtues.

Faith is based on belief without evidence, whereas science is based on evidence without belief .

1. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow , New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, p. 209.

2. See for example Schwitzgebel, Eric, "Belief", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/belief/

3. Parts of this article are taken from: Ralph Lewis, Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even If The Universe Doesn’t (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2018). The book is a deeper dive into questions of purpose, meaning and morality in a random, purposeless, godless universe. Among other topics, the book discusses in more depth the psychology of belief, developing an understanding motivated by respectful curiosity as to how and why humans are predisposed to religious belief. The book provides an accessible understanding of the counter-intuitive scientific insights that have led today’s scientists to confidently state that the universe, life and human consciousness are the wondrous products of fundamentally random, unguided processes rather than the creation of an intelligent designer.

See this YouTube video link for an engaging Power Point presentation in which Dr. Lewis explains how a family health crisis focused him on coming to terms with the outsized role of randomness in life, and to wrestle with the question of whether the scientific worldview of a fundamentally random universe is nihilistic. He summarizes how science has come to view the universe and absolutely everything in it as the product of entirely spontaneous, unguided processes, and why this is actually a highly motivating realization for humankind. Or see this link for a very brief video providing a synopsis of the book.

[CLICK 'MORE' TO VIEW FOOTNOTES 4-5]

4. Harris, S., et al., The neural correlates of religious and nonreligious belief. PLoS One, 2009. 4(10): p. e0007272; Harris, S., S.A. Sheth, and M.S. Cohen, Functional neuroimaging of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. Ann Neurol, 2008. 63(2): p. 141-7. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is also involved in emotional associations, reward, and goal-driven behavior.

5. Democracy also loosely employs the scientific method of conjecture and criticism. Each election platform is an hypothesis, each elected government an experiment, subjected to the peer review process of a free press and the next election. The combination of science and democracy has been the key to human progress. To be sure, this progress has not been smooth or without calamitous derailments in modern history. But the overall trend over time has been definitively and spectacularly positive, and it is indisputably the most successful system humans have invented to date.

Ralph Lewis, M.D. , is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and a consultant at the Odette Cancer Centre in Toronto.

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161 Belief Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on belief, ✍️ belief essay topics for college, 👍 good belief research topics & essay examples, 📌 easy belief essay topics, 🎓 most interesting belief research titles, 💡 simple belief essay ideas, ❓ belief systems research questions.

• Religion as a Belief System: What Is It?
• James Fowler’s Six Stages of Faith
• Faith and Reason: Critical Analysis of Faith
• A Belief in Helping Strangers
• Faith Healing in Bioethics, Its Pros and Cons
• Obedience in Faith in the Story of Abraham
• The Influence of Faith and Reason on a Person
• Childhood Obesity Study and Health Belief Model A field experiment will be used in the research to identify the impact of a healthy lifestyle intervention on children diagnosed with obesity.
• Faith, Doubt, and Religious Vision in the ‘Uphill’ Poem According to Christina Rossetti’s poem titled “uphill”, it is evident that she doubts if one time the faithfulness will have everlasting rest.
• Theological Reasoning as a Basis for Faith Theological reasoning strives to pose questions and answer them in terms of sacred theology. Meaning, essences, causes, distinctions, and so on compose the core of reason.
• Selflessness in Islamic Belief and Practice The paper argues zakat is a way to connect with God because is an expression of love and submission to Allah showing that a Muslim values faith more than material possessions.
• A Belief System From Personal Point of View This paper discusses how one’s beliefs make up a religious belief system, how one acquires it, the benefits and disadvantages of having a particular religious belief system.
• A Statement and Defense of Faith in Literature Everyone has faith – from the irrational religious zealot to the fervent philosopher and the meticulous scientist.
• Collaborating Community Nursing and Faith-Based Nursing The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate community nursing collaboration with faith-based nursing. Faith-based nursing is delivered by various religious or faith-based organizations.
• “Night” by Elie Wiesel and His Faith in God Night is a story by Elie Wiesel in which the writer accounts for the horrible experience he had with his farther during the time of Holocaust.
• Importance of Having Faith for People Faith starts small and inside a person and can take many forms, it is important for human interaction and maintaining motivation, but it does not have to be religious.
• Baha’i Faith as a Global Religion The article is devoted to Baha’i Faith: the history of origin, essence, basic values, and uniqueness of this religion are discussed.
• Rastafarianism Belief System, Sacredness, Rituals Rastafarianism is a religion that even though not as old as Christianity, it has many followers around the world.
• Explaining James’s Statement “Faith Without Works Is Dead” The paper states that Paul emphasizes the justification with God apart from the works of Law, whereas James argues that believers’ actions should support the true living faith.
• Aspects of Faith Stages Development There are four stages of adulthood related to faith that can occur: Synthetic-Conventional, Individuative-Reflective, Conjunctive, and Universalizing faith.
• Philosophy: A Change in a Personal Belief Everyone in the world is changing, as well as acquiring new knowledge, being convinced or questioning certain concepts, believing, hoping, or doubting.
• The Christian Faith and Its Advantages The paper states that the Christian faith emphasizes the importance of peace and readiness to forgive, critical for the modern world.
• Faith Factor and Mental Health in Young People The necessity to appeal to the emotional state of the patient often serves as the justification for introducing the concept of faith into the process of therapy.
• My Testimony of Faith: Dialogue with an Atheist The controversy about God’s existence between atheists and those who believe in the reasonability of religion lasts for hundreds of years
• Elie Wiesel’s “Night” – Eliezer’s Faith in God The Elie Wiesel’s story “Night” reminisces Jews’ suffering during the holocaust. The book reflects what happened in Germany and its colonies during the Nazi era.
• Birth Control and Christian Faith The Catholic church, and faith as a whole, does not have a solid definitive stance on birth control, as it is determined on the basis of intent.
• Peculiarities of Religious Belief in Theology The intended audience is theologians and religious communities as well as all people interested in the issue of belief.
• The Social Aspects Affecting Faith Ringgold’s Art Faith Ringgold is one of the most well-known representatives of the modern African American creative community.
• “The Ethics of Belief” by William Clifford In the essay “Ethics of Belief”, William Clifford argues that no one, choosing what to believe, can be free from the opinions of others.
• The Role of Faith in Social Work Social workers integrate faith in their profession using models like the latent and coping integration frameworks.
• Elie Wiesel and His Faith in God in the Book Night In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer’s faith in God was something beyond question. He spent time in devotion to God. He frequently prayed to Him and at times he even cried.
• Poverty, Faith, and Justice: ”Liberating God of Life” by Elizabeth Johnson “Liberating God of Life Context: Wretched Poverty” by Johnson constructs that the main goal of human beings is to combat structural violence toward the poor.
• Religious Prejudice in “Defender of the Faith” by Roth The article is an analysis of the issues raised by Philip Roth in his novel Defender of the Faith: Anti-Semitism and Religious Prejudice.
• Faith and Science: Did Darwin Kill God? Did Darwin Kill God?, a documentary movie by Dr. Conor Cunningham, professor of the University of Nottingham, correlates with the classic definition of God.
• Religion and Belief: Comprehensive Review The study of these phenomena is crucial for understanding the peculiarities of the society, its background, current context, and further tendencies of development.
• Philosophy About the Soul and Fundamental Belief Axiology concerns the origin of values, their place in everyday life, the relationship of various matters with each other, social and cultural factors, and personality structure.
• Muslim Faith and Healthcare Relationship This paper discusses the relationship between the Muslim faith and health care. Cultural backgrounds have a significant effect on a person’s attitudes toward health care.
• Religion: Jain Belief and Practice in South Asia This paper will focus on the historical development of Jain belief and practice in South Asia. The paper will also delve into the three Jainism doctrines.
• Job’s Story: Demonstration of Suffering and Faith The story of Job in the Book of Job is a prime biblical reflection on the concept of suffering and the test of faith.
• The Complementary Nature of Faith and Reason This article explores the relationship between faith and reason and argues that while they cannot be derived from each other, they complement each other in decision-making.
• Religion and Faith for a Better World Religion and faith make a very pivotal aspect within the social setting because of the significant influence it has on the well-being and existence of individuals.
• “Twentieth Century Crisis of Belief” by Marheine This work briefly describes the article “Twentieth-Century Crisis of Belief”, draws attention to the main issues raised in it, and appeals to the problems of today.
• Religious Faith During the Era of Francois Voltaire Voltaire was born in the final years of the seventeenth century and died a decade before the beginning of the French Revolution.
• Eliezer’s Faith Struggle in “Night” by Wiesel Wiesel’s novel “Night” demonstrates Eliezer’s experience and struggle with faith as an example of how the majority of the Jews felt during the holocaust.
• People’s Belief in God in Wiesel’s Novel “Night” Eliezer Wiesel, in his novel Night, succeeded in exposing the illusionary essence of people’s belief in God as an omnipotent entity that is supposed to be taking care of them.
• Mary Rowlandson’s Story as a Faith Narrative Rowlandson’s story is a faith narrative that celebrates God’s will and desire for everything and emphasizes the importance of belief and purity, which is rewarded by God’s favor.
• Faith in “The Hollow Men” and “The Funeral Blues” The current essay is dedicated to the analysis of the theme of faith in Thomas Stearns Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” and Wystan Hugh Auden’s “The Funeral Blues.”
• Eliezer’s Struggle to Keep His Faith in God Elie’s journey did lead him to doubting the concept of faith and the quest ended up with the reconciliation with Elie’s own religious beliefs and his final commitment to God.
• Elie Wiesel’s The Night – Faith in God Literature Analysis In his book Night, Elie Wiesel explores a variety of themes. One of them is the attempts of a person to reconcile one’s experiences with the belief in God.
• Scientific Worldview, Faith, and Reason Comparison There is a group of people who argue that science is just a myth and, like other religious doctrines, it is based on faith.
• Faith Integration Into Business Administration Programs Christians can trust that God will give us the strength to persevere and the courage to take risks. Faith integration is a key part of MBA success.
• Faith Integration: Bible With Apocrypha Religion is an instrumental component of any society that shapes almost every aspect of human life, including business activities.
• Soulful Reflections: Dickinson and Herbert’s Metaphysical Poetry on Life and Faith Many famous writers have put their lives into their characters, not to forget their character traits but also to show their lives through the eyes of others.
• The Core of Christian Belief: Where Is Jesus? The Creeds not only teach Christians that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and a divine man but also propose the meaning of authentic kingship or leadership.
• Faith Integration in 1 Peter 1:13-21 Message 1 Peter 1:13-21 is a compelling message that was written to the Gentile Christians that were being persecuted which remind them that God had chosen them.
• Terrorism: The Faith-Based Discourses Although there are many discourses regarding the role of God and religion in terrorism, there are some similarities in what Falwell, the Jewish extremists, and Sayyid Qutb believe.
• The Faith of the Mongols and Other Conquered Tribes Throughout the thirteenth century, the Mongols of Central Asia marched across much of Eurasia, bringing ruin and chaos in their wake.
• Spirituality, Faith, and Placebo Effects on Health This paper strives to define spirituality, religious faith, placebos, and their anticipated health benefits for patients suffering from various diseases.
• Creative Layering of Belief in Southern Bénin This paper will analyze African religions and spirituality, emphasizing the Benin culture in West Africa. he spirits are believed to be the sole healers and they answer prayers.
• “Faith, Truth, and Tolerance in America” by Edward Moore Kennedy This research paper examines the key points of the speech “Faith, Truth, and Tolerance in America” by Edward Moore Kennedy.
• The Book “The Future of Faith” by Harvey Cox The book “The Future of Faith,” authored by Harvey Cox, presents an interesting insight into the historical changes taking place in religion, specifically spirituality.
• “The Articles of 21st-Century Faith”: Reimagining the Definition of Religion “The Articles of 21st-century Faith” attempts to reimagine the definition of religion to fit realistic expectations set by an increasingly atheistic society.
• Which Belief Was the First: An Eternal Debate In his study, Akbar extensively compares Islamic and Zoroastrian teachings and points out substantial similarities, especially about the afterlife and the journey of a human soul.
• Improving Students’ Knowledge of Catholic Faith The research question of this article is how American Catholic youth’s lack of knowledge of their faiths can be amended.
• Idolatry in Peru and Eradication of Faith This paper provides a personal opinion on the extirpation of idolatry in Peru and conclusions on measures taken by the Holy Church against the traditions of these communities.
• Religious Beliefs: Reasons Behind the Faith Religious beliefs and the reasons behind them are very personal matters, and different people are likely to offer varying accounts and testimonies of faith.
• Is Religious Belief Anti-Scientific Religious belief and science have always been on opposite sides. This conflict had its roots in the Middle Ages when the Catholic Church persecuted Galileo.
• “Propositional Faith: What it is and What it is Not” Article Review Daniel Howard-Snyder dedicates his article “Propositional faith: What it is and what it is not” to the topic of faith.
• Manifestations of Faith in 16th-Century Writers’ Famous Works The works by John Donne, William Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe were examined in this essay and compared based on writers’ attitudes towards the topic of faith.
• Overview of Abolitionism: Afire with Faith Although abolitionist societies were scattered across the North, they were not “tiny”, and still had great importance in terms of advocating for an immediate end to slavery
• Belief Systems in Projecting the Future The article argues in the context of communication, belief systems can have a critical influence on critical steps of encoding and decoding.
• The Psychology of Faith in False Sources This report refutes the plausibility of false medical claims throughout the pandemic by critically analyzing its components.
• Terror and Religious Belief System Contemporary fourth wave terrorists justify their use of violence through the theological and moral teachings taken from their chosen religious belief system.
• Implications of Faith and Leadership in a Real-Life Experience Nurses focus on the physiological, psychosocial, as well as spiritual aspects of persons during times of illness and in good health.
• Bad Faith Law Suit: Activities of a Claim Representative In case of a lawsuit of bad faith against an insured, a claim representative would be expected to perform some specific activities to make the lawsuit successful.
• Faith Integration in the “I Am Legend” Film In “I Am Legend” the media clip is expressive, and, at the same time, it makes me think about some aspects of the medical personnel work.
• Teaching the Faith Forming the Faithful The book under analysis called Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful is dedicated to discussing the current environment in terms of people’s affiliation to church.
• “Night” by Elie Wiesel: Struggle to Keep Faith in God Sort of a “shipwreck of faith”, this is what has happened to the author of “Night” book, laureate of the Nobel Prize, Elie Wiesel.
• Political History. Crisis of Belief in Different Works This essay attempts to clarify and assess the diverging views by different authors on how a crisis of belief elicits mixed reactions.
• Is Belief in God Rational: Discussion This paper seeks to examine not the existence of God or negation, but whether man’s belief in god is rational and based on sound logic and deductive reasoning.
• Socrates’ Belief About the Pursuit of Truths From Plato’s dialogues, we have known Socrates to be a person who contributed greatly to the field of ethics and the Socratic critical method of inquiry for seeking the truth.
• Book Divided by Faith by Michael Emerson Review The writers of the book have been able to expound on the relationship between the White evangelicalism and Black evangelicalism.
• The Problem of Faith in Parables by Kafka and Nietzsche The essay reveals the main themes of allegorical readings – Law and God, discusses that that the characters are tested by the problem of faith.
• Evidentialism as a Problematic Aspect of Faith The issue of the dogmatic nature of religion is a common point. While some people are willing to accept religious principles unwaveringly, others seek to question these postulates.
• Religious Website “Faith Communities Today” This paper will give a summary on a religious website on Faith Communities Today, which provides essential information on a variety of issues in regard to congregational life in the USA.
• The Path to Salvation: Faith, Grace and Spirit over Flesh The question of how one may be purified and allowed into the realm of heaven haunts many Christians. The answer becomes quite clear once one considers some of the passages from St. Paul’s writing.
• The Belief Bias and Cognitive Sciences This paper is concerned with the way cognitive sciences scholars, in particular, Keith Stanovich, view the belief bias and its components.
• Patient Faith Diversity in Healthcare Practices Providers in healthcare practice should know the behavioral patterns of patients, especially as concerns their faith.
• Collaboration Between Faith-Based and Community Nurses Faith-based communities have developed the concepts of health and healing that are consistent with the principles of nursing.
• Healing by Faith Ethics and Organ Transplantation This paper examines the issue if the healing by faith over proven medical methods is ethical with regards to the eight-year-old boy in need of an organ transplant.
• Lesley Dill’s Exhibition “Faith & the Devil” This is a review of an exhibition, Faith & the Devil by Lesley Dill. It explores the struggle between good and evil forces and shows the complexity of such an attempt in human mind.
• The Faith in God in Night by Elie Wiesel Night by Elie Wiesel speaks of the way Eliezer changes and how his faith in God is tested. It will be a good idea to take a look back at the original Biblical story.
• Classical Christianity: Faith, Beliefs, and Practices Classical Christianity connects between the present and the past thus permitting continuity in faith, beliefs, and practices.
• Is Belief in God Rational? One of the main epistemological dilemmas, which continues to be faced by philosophers/theologians, is whether one’s belief in God can be considered rationally justified.
• Christian Doctrines Are Not Crucial for Faith and Belief
• The Belief and Attitude Toward New Technology
• Time, History, and Belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico
• The True Belief Theory of Knowledge
• The Role and Significance of the Belief in Karma and Samsara in the Hindu Religion
• Religion and Belief Systems in Australia
• Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete
• Truth, Belief, and the Holy Bible
• Confucius and Laozi Have Differing Belief in Reaching the Way
• Gandhi’s Actions Were Based on the Belief of the Truth Force
• Belief Systems: Self-Uniqueness Meets Religion
• Belief: Things Fall Apart and Chinua Achebe
• Comparing the Christian and the Buddhist Belief Structure
• Humanism and Christian Belief: Change in the 15th Century
• Christian Religious Belief and the Grieving Process in Teenagers
• Belief and Doubt and Modern Mind Religion
• Difference Between Belief and Truth
• Plato Has Justified True Belief and the Gettier Problem Argumentative Essays Example
• Oedipus the King: Examples of Sophocles’ Belief and Fate
• Health and Society: The Health Belief Model
• Why the Distinction Between Knowledge and Belief Might Matter
• Gattaca Supports the Belief That Human Flaws Are Preferable to a Genetically Engineered Existence
• Belief Systems Analysis: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
• Chinese Belief Systems, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism
• Christian Faith and the Belief in the Divine
• Roman Catholic Church’s Belief on in Vitro Fertilisation
• Belief and Higher-Order Belief in the Centipede Games: An Experimental Investigation
• The Health Belief Model Is an Individual
• Christian Belief About Suffering, Death, and Resurrection
• Health Belief System Theory and Community Assessment
• Blind Faith and False Belief: An Examination of the Development of The
• Belief Systems and the Spiritual Side of Their Cultures
• Belief and Knowledge According to Plato
• The Ancient Egyptian and Roman Religious and Belief Systems Within Their Cultures
• Catholic Belief About the Eucharist
• Common Belief, Contested Meanings: Development and Faith-Based Organisational Culture
• John Locke’s Belief That People Are Born With Rights
• Belief Systems Characteristics: Islam and Hinduism
• Can Children Understand False Beliefs Before the Age of Four?
• Conservative Belief and Rationality
• Difference Between Belief and Knowledge
• Biblical Foundation Martyrs Belief in God Theology Religion
• Are Chinese Belief Systems Considered Religion or Philosophy?
• What Is the Difference Between the Belief System of Islam and Christianity?
• How Can Belief Systems Be Shattered Through the Inspiring Story of Esperanza?
• Does the Media Support a Belief in God?
• What Are the Ancient Beliefs in Astronomy?
• Are There Belief Contradictions Between Transcendentalists and Dissenters?
• How Do Belief Systems Affect Politics?
• Why Is It Important to Respect Others Beliefs?
• Is There a Relationship Between Faith and Belief?
• Do Buddhism and Hinduism Share a Belief That Life Suffering Is Caused by Desire?
• How Does Cultural Adaptation Influence Professional Belief?
• What Is the Belief of Many Ancient Astronomers During the Golden Age of the Astronomy?
• How Did the Belief in Vitalism End?
• Why Can There Never Be Any Justification for a Belief?
• What Is the Relationship Between Individual Belief and Performance in Parapsychological Phenomena?
• How Could Existentialism Affect One’s Belief in God?
• Does Religious Belief Connect Humans With Nature?
• What Are the Issues of Belief System?
• How Successful Have Psychological Approaches Been in Accounting for Religious Belief and Experience?
• Does Superstitious Belief Influence People’s Perspective?
• How Have the Belief Systems of the Modern World Helped Determine the Policies and Politics of Today?
• What Does the Evidence Reveal About Belief in the Afterlife in the New Kingdom of Egypt?
• How Do Values Belief Systems and Experience Affect Working Practice?
• When Does Your Belief Become the Truth?
• How Would Religious People Explain Why Their Belief in Life After Death Is Important?

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This essay topic collection was updated on January 5, 2024 .

Cultural Belief System: Experiences and Traditions Essay

Every culture is constituted of many factors such as belief systems. The belief systems are made of the values and individual attitudes expressed within a community based on experiences and traditions.

In most communities, the belief systems form the basis for validity of governance systems in the community as well as the acceptable laws governing behavior in the society. The belief systems are expressed in the day to day life of such communities through behavior, language, religious beliefs, norms and roles accorded to different gender among others (Gamman, pg. 73).

Many ancient world cultures and civilizations reflect cultural belief systems in almost all features of their lifestyles such as the social order, legal systems, labor division and specialization and even in various artistic expressions such as architecture, painting, sculpture and literature (Nagle, pg.5). In the 11 th and 12 th century cultural belief systems were developed in Europe.

The high medieval Europe defined women’s’ roles in relation to those of the men. The woman’s role was set as that of marriage and child bearing. The social order established the men’s roles to run businesses and the political systems of the community. The women who would not commit themselves to marriage pursued religious paths and served as spiritual advisors, writers and counselors (World History Project, para.8).

The communities also established stable political systems under holy roman emperors. The communities believed in supernatural dynasty and the political leaders were regarded as God’s chosen.

The Christian beliefs was an integral societal component and a strong Slavic Christian culture was established f rom the 10 th century and was so strong as to survive the Mongol conquest. The laws governing the communities borrowed heavily from the belief in Christianity and a strong bond of relationship existed between the political class and the church (World History Project, para.10).

The belief systems of these communities were also expressed in artistic expressions. The religious inclination to Christianity was reflected in literature and arts. Religious literature dominated with handwritten manuscripts of sermons, saints’ bibliographies, miracle stories.

Most of these were originally written in Latin the dominant language of the time but with increased demand for the literature translations into English, German, French and Portuguese were done. Artistic expressions of their beliefs were manifested through decorations and paintings.

Portraits of Jesus, the Christian messiah and other saints of the time as well as religious symbols such as vines, beasts, vessels and plants reflected the peoples’ religious beliefs (World History Project, para.8).

The architecture of the day also reflected their belief in the roman guided Christian beliefs. Under the influence of religious and secular forces, the Romanesque style became dominant. The style was characterized by large cathedrals, with solid religious stone carvings. The integration of the gothic styles in the 12 th century revolutionized the architectural designs to create a sense of a heavenly aura in the buildings.

The music was another artistic method of expressing the society’s believes since to a large extent it reflected biblical stories and excerpts as well as worshiping the heavenly God the community believed in (World History Project, para.18).

The ancient European community belief system seems inclined towards religion to a large extent. The secular elements common especially among the urbanites and the emergence of more intellectually driven innovations resulted in animosity between the conservative Christian community that dominated Europe and the urban society (World History Project, Para. 17). This indicates the significant role a belief system plays in shaping all other cultural features in a community.

Works Cited

Gamman, John. Overcoming Obstacles in Environmental Policymaking: Creating Partnerships Through Mediation. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 1994.

Nagle, Brendan. The Ancient World: A Social and Cultural History . New York: Prentice Hall, 2010.

World History Project. The Dynamic Culture of the middle Ages . 2007. Web.

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Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

World Religions Overview Essay

The Movement of Religion and Ecology: Emerging Field and Dynamic Force

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, Yale University

Originally published in the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology

As many United Nations reports attest, we humans are destroying the life-support systems of the Earth at an alarming rate. Ecosystems are being degraded by rapid industrialization and relentless development. The data keeps pouring in that we are altering the climate and toxifying the air, water, and soil of the planet so that the health of humans and other species is at risk. Indeed, the Swedish scientist, Johan Rockstrom, and his colleagues, are examining which planetary boundaries are being exceeded. (Rockstrom and Klum, 2015)

The explosion of population from 3 billion in 1960 to more then 7 billion currently and the subsequent demands on the natural world seem to be on an unsustainable course. The demands include meeting basic human needs of a majority of the world’s people, but also feeding the insatiable desire for goods and comfort spread by the allure of materialism. The first is often called sustainable development; the second is unsustainable consumption. The challenge of rapid economic growth and consumption has brought on destabilizing climate change. This is coming into full focus in alarming ways including increased floods and hurricanes, droughts and famine, rising seas and warming oceans.

Can we turn our course to avert disaster? There are several indications that this may still be possible. On September 25, 2015 after the Pope addressed the UN General Assembly, 195 member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). On December 12, 2015 these same members states endorsed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Both of these are important indications of potential reversal. The Climate Agreement emerged from the dedicated work of governments and civil society along with business partners. The leadership of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, and many others was indispensable.

One of the inspirations for the Climate Agreement and for the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals was the release of the Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si’ in June 2015. The encyclical encouraged the moral forces of concern for both the environment and people to be joined in “integral ecology”.  “The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor” are now linked as was not fully visible before. (Boff, 1997 and in the encyclical) Many religious and environmental communities are embracing this integrated perspective and will, no doubt, foster it going forward. The question is how can the world religions contribute more effectively to this renewed ethical momentum for change. For example, what will be their long-term response to population growth? As this is addressed in the article by Robert Wyman and Guigui Yao, we will not take it up here. Instead, we will consider some of the challenges and possibilities amid the dream of progress and the lure of consumption.

Challenges: The Dream of Progress and the Religion of Consumption

Consumption appears to have become an ideology or quasi-religion, not only in the West but also around the world. Faith in economic growth drives both producers and consumers. The dream of progress is becoming a distorted one. This convergence of our unlimited demands with an unquestioned faith in economic progress raises questions about the roles of religions in encouraging, discouraging, or ignoring our dominant drive toward appropriately satisfying material needs or inappropriately indulging material desires. Integral ecology supports the former and critiques the latter.

Moreover, a consumerist ideology depends upon and simultaneously contributes to a worldview based on the instrumental rationality of the human. That is, the assumption for decision-making is that all choices are equally clear and measurable. Market based metrics such as price, utility, or efficiency are dominant. This can result in utilitarian views of a forest as so much board feet or simply as a mechanistic complex of ecosystems that provide services to the human.

One long-term effect of this is that the individual human decision-maker is further distanced from nature because nature is reduced to measurable entities for profit or use. From this perspective we humans may be isolated in our perceived uniqueness as something apart from the biological web of life. In this context, humans do not seek identity and meaning in the numinous beauty of the world, nor do they experience themselves as dependent on a complex of life-supporting interactions of air, water, and soil. Rather, this logic sees humans as independent, rational decision-makers who find their meaning and identity in systems of management that now attempt to co-opt the language of conservation and environmental concern. Happiness is derived from simply creating and having more material goods. This perspective reflects a reading of our current geological period as human induced by our growth as a species that is now controlling the planet. This current era is being called the “Anthropocene” because of our effect on the planet in contrast to the prior 12,000 year epoch known as the Holocene.

This human capacity to imagine and implement a utilitarian-based worldview regarding nature has undermined many of the ancient insights of the world’s religious and spiritual traditions. For example, some religions, attracted by the individualistic orientations of market rationalism and short-term benefits of social improvement, seized upon material accumulation as containing divine sanction. Thus, Max Weber identified the rise of Protestantism with an ethos of inspirited work and accumulated capital.

Weber also identified the growing disenchantment from the world of nature with the rise of global capitalism. Karl Marx recognized the “metabolic rift” in which human labor and nature become alienated from cycles of renewal. The earlier mystique of creation was lost. Wonder, beauty, and imagination as ways of knowing were gradually superseded by the analytical reductionism of modernity such that technological and economic entrancement have become key inspirations of progress.

Challenges: Religions Fostering Anthropocentrism

This modern, instrumental view of matter as primarily for human use arises in part from a dualistic Western philosophical view of mind and matter. Adapted into Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious perspectives, this dualism associates mind with the soul as a transcendent spiritual entity given sovereignty and dominion over matter. Mind is often valued primarily for its rationality in contrast to a lifeless world. At the same time we ensure our radical discontinuity from it.

Interestingly, views of the uniqueness of the human bring many traditional religious perspectives into sync with modern instrumental rationalism. In Western religious traditions, for example, the human is seen as an exclusively gifted creature with a transcendent soul that manifests the divine image and likeness. Consequently, this soul should be liberated from the material world. In many contemporary reductionist perspectives (philosophical and scientific) the human with rational mind and technical prowess stands as the pinnacle of evolution. Ironically, religions emphasizing the uniqueness of the human as the image of God meet market-driven applied science and technology precisely at this point of the special nature of the human to justify exploitation of the natural world. Anthropocentrism in various forms, religious, philosophical, scientific, and economic, has led, perhaps inadvertently, to the dominance of humans in this modern period, now called the Anthropocene. (It can be said that certain strands of the South Asian religions have emphasized the importance of humans escaping from nature into transcendent liberation. However, such forms of radical dualism are not central to the East Asian traditions or indigenous traditions.)

From the standpoint of rational analysis, many values embedded in religions, such as a sense of the sacred, the intrinsic value of place, the spiritual dimension of the human, moral concern for nature, and care for future generations, are incommensurate with an objectified monetized worldview as they not quantifiable. Thus, they are often ignored as externalities, or overridden by more pragmatic profit-driven considerations. Contemporary nation-states in league with transnational corporations have seized upon this individualistic, property-based, use-analysis to promote national sovereignty, security, and development exclusively for humans.

Possibilities: Systems Science

Yet, even within the realm of so-called scientific, rational thought, there is not a uniform approach. Resistance to the easy marriage of reductionist science and instrumental rationality comes from what is called systems science and new ecoogy. By this we refer to a movement within empirical, experimental science of exploring the interaction of nature and society as complex dynamic systems. This approach stresses both analysis and synthesis – the empirical act of observation, as well as placement of the focus of study within the context of a larger whole. Systems science resists the temptation to take the micro, empirical, reductive act as the complete description of a thing, but opens analysis to the large interactive web of life to which we belong, from ecosystems to the biosphere. There are numerous examples of this holistic perspective in various branches of ecology. And this includes overcoming the nature-human divide. (Schmitz 2016) Aldo Leopold understood this holistic interconnection well when he wrote: “We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” (Leopold, 1966)

Collaboration of Science and Religion

Within this inclusive framework, scientists have been moving for some time beyond simply distanced observations to engaged concern. The Pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si , has elevated the level of visibility and efficacy of this conversation between science and religion as perhaps never before on a global level. Similarly, many other statements from the world religions are linking the wellbeing of people and the planet for a flourishing future. For example, the World Council of Churches has been working for four decades to join humans and nature in their program on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation.

Many scientists such as Thomas Lovejoy, E.O. Wilson, Jane Lubchenco, Peter Raven, and Ursula Goodenough recognize the importance of religious and cultural values when discussing solutions to environmental challenges. Other scientists such as Paul Ehrlich and Donald Kennedy have called for major studies of human behavior and values in relation to environmental issues. ( Science , July 2005) This has morphed into the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere. (mahb.standford.edu). Since 2009 the Ecological Society of America has established an Earth Stewardship Initiative with yearly panels and publications.  Many environmental studies programs are now seeking to incorporate these broader ethical and behavioral approaches into the curriculum.

Possibilities: Extinction and Religious Response

The stakes are high, however, and the path toward limiting ourselves within planetary boundaries is not smooth. Scientists are now reporting that because of the population explosion, our consuming habits, and our market drive for resources, we are living in the midst of a mass extinction period. This period represents the largest loss of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago when the Cenozoic period began. In other words, we are shutting down life systems on the planet and causing the end of this large-scale geological era with little awareness of what we are doing or its consequences.

As the cultural historian Thomas Berry observed some years ago, we are making macrophase changes on the planet with microphase wisdom. Indeed, some people worry that these rapid changes have outstripped the capacity of our religions, ethics, and spiritualities to meet the complex challenges we are facing.

The question arises whether the wisdom traditions of the human community, embedded in institutional religions and beyond, can embrace integral ecology at the level needed? Can the religions provide leadership into a synergistic era of human-Earth relations characterized by empathy, regeneration, and resilience? Or are religions themselves the wellspring of those exclusivist perspectives in which human societies disconnect themselves from other groups and from the natural world? Are religions caught in their own meditative promises of transcendent peace and redemptive bliss in paradisal abandon? Or does their drive for exclusive salvation or truth claims cause them to try to overcome or convert the Other?

Authors in this volume are exploring these issues within religious and spiritual communities regarding the appropriate responses of the human to our multiple environmental and social challenges. What forms of symbolic visioning and ethical imagining can call forth a transformation of consciousness and conscience for our Earth community? Can religions and spiritualites provide vision and inspiration for grounding and guiding mutually enhancing human-Earth relations? Have we arrived at a point where we realize that more scientific statistics on environmental problems, more legislation, policy or regulation, and more economic analysis, while necessary, are no longer sufficient for the large-scale social transformations needed? This is where the world religions, despite their limitations, surely have something to contribute.

Such a perspective includes ethics, practices, and spiritualities from the world’s cultures that may or may not be connected with institutional forms of religion. Thus spiritual ecology and nature religions are an important part of the discussions and are represented in this volume. Our own efforts have focused on the world religions and indigenous traditions. Our decade long training in graduate school and our years of living and traveling throughout Asia and the West gave us an early appreciation for religions as dynamic, diverse, living traditions. We are keenly aware of the multiple forms of syncretism and hybridization in the world religions and spiritualties. We have witnessed how they are far from monolithic or impervious to change in our travels to more than 60 countries.

Problems and Promise of Religions

Several qualifications regarding the various roles of religion should thus be noted. First, we do not wish to suggest here that any one religious tradition has a privileged ecological perspective. Rather, multiple interreligious perspectives may be the most helpful in identifying the contributions of the world religions to the flourishing of life.

We also acknowledge that there is frequently a disjunction between principles and practices: ecologically sensitive ideas in religions are not always evident in environmental practices in particular civilizations. Many civilizations have overused their environments, with or without religious sanction.

Finally, we are keenly aware that religions have all too frequently contributed to tensions and conflict among various groups, both historically and at present. Dogmatic rigidity, inflexible claims of truth, and misuse of institutional and communal power by religions have led to tragic consequences in many parts of the globe.

Nonetheless, while religions have often preserved traditional ways, they have also provoked social change. They can be limiting but also liberating in their outlooks. In the twentieth century, for example, religious leaders and theologians helped to give birth to progressive movements such as civil rights for minorities, social justice for the poor, and liberation for women.  Although the world religions have been slow to respond to our current environmental crises, their moral authority and their institutional power may help effect a change in attitudes, practices, and public policies. Now the challenge is a broadening of their ethical perspectives.

Traditionally the religions developed ethics for homicide, suicide, and genocide. Currently they need to respond to biocide, ecocide, and geocide. (Berry, 2009)

Retrieval, Reevaluation, Reconstruction

There is an inevitable disjunction between the examination of historical religious traditions in all of their diversity and complexity and the application of teachings, ethics, or practices to contemporary situations. While religions have always been involved in meeting contemporary challenges over the centuries, it is clear that the global environmental crisis is larger and more complex than anything in recorded human history. Thus, a simple application of traditional ideas to contemporary problems is unlikely to be either possible or adequate. In order to address ecological problems properly, religious and spiritual leaders, laypersons and academics have to be in dialogue with scientists, environmentalists, economists, businesspeople, politicians, and educators. Hence the articles in this volume are from various key sectors.

With these qualifications in mind we can then identify three methodological approaches that appear in the still emerging study of religion and ecology. These are retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction. Retrieval involves the scholarly investigation of scriptural and commentarial sources in order to clarify religious perspectives regarding human-Earth relations. This requires that historical and textual studies uncover resources latent within the tradition. In addition, retrieval can identify ethical codes and ritual customs of the tradition in order to discover how these teachings were put into practice. Traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) is an important part of this for all the world religions, especially indigenous traditions.

With reevaluation, traditional teachings are evaluated with regard to their relevance to contemporary circumstances. Are the ideas, teachings, or ethics present in these traditions appropriate for shaping more ecologically sensitive attitudes and sustainable practices? Reevaluation also questions ideas that may lead to inappropriate environmental practices. For example, are certain religious tendencies reflective of otherworldly or world-denying orientations that are not helpful in relation to pressing ecological issues? It asks as well whether the material world of nature has been devalued by a particular religion and whether a model of ethics focusing solely on human interactions is adequate to address environmental problems.

Finally, reconstruction suggests ways that religious traditions might adapt their teachings to current circumstances in new and creative ways. These may result in new syntheses or in creative modifications of traditional ideas and practices to suit modern modes of expression. This is the most challenging aspect of the emerging field of religion and ecology and requires sensitivity to who is speaking about a tradition in the process of reevaluation and reconstruction. Postcolonial critics have appropriately highlighted the complex issues surrounding the problem of who is representing or interpreting a religious tradition or even what constitutes that tradition. Nonetheless, practitioners and leaders of particular religions are finding grounds for creative dialogue with scholars of religions in these various phases of interpretation.

Religious Ecologies and Religious Cosmologies

As part of the retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction of religions we would identify “religious ecologies” and “religious cosmologies” as ways that religions have functioned in the past and can still function at present. Religious ecologies are ways of orienting and grounding whereby humans undertake specific practices of nurturing and transforming self and community in a particular cosmological context that regards nature as inherently valuable. Through cosmological stories humans narrate and experience the larger matrix of mystery in which life arises, unfolds, and flourishes. These are what we call religious cosmologies. These two, namely religious ecologies and religious cosmologies, can be distinguished but not separated. Together they provide a context for navigating life’s challenges and affirming the rich spiritual value of human-Earth relations.

Human communities until the modern period sensed themselves as grounded in and dependent on the natural world. Thus, even when the forces of nature were overwhelming, the regenerative capacity of the natural world opened a way forward. Humans experienced the processes of the natural world as interrelated, both practically and symbolically. These understandings were expressed in traditional environmental knowledge, namely, in hunting and agricultural practices such as the appropriate use of plants, animals, and land. Such knowledge was integrated in symbolic language and practical norms, such as prohibitions, taboos, and limitations on ecosystems’ usage. All this was based in an understanding of nature as the source of nurturance and kinship. The Lakota people still speak of “all my relations” as an expression of this kinship. Such perspectives will need to be incorporated into strategies to solve environmental problems. Humans are part of nature and their cultural and religious values are critical dimensions of the discussion.

Multidisciplinary approaches: Environmental Humanities

We are recognizing, then, that the environmental crisis is multifaceted and requires multidisciplinary approaches. As this book indicates, the insights of scientific modes of analytical and synthetic knowing are indispensable for understanding and responding to our contemporary environmental crisis. So also, we need new technologies such as industrial ecology, green chemistry, and renewable energy. Clearly ecological economics is critical along with green governance and legal policies as articles in this volume illustrate.

In this context it is important to recognize different ways of knowing that are manifest in the humanities, such as artistic expressions, historical perspectives, philosophical inquiry, and religious understandings. These honor emotional intelligence, affective insight, ethical valuing, and spiritual awakening.

Environmental humanities is a growing and diverse area of study within humanistic disciplines. In the last several decades, new academic courses and programs, research journals and monographs, have blossomed. This broad-based inquiry has sparked creative investigation into multiple ways, historically and at present, of understanding and interacting with nature, constructing cultures, developing communities, raising food, and exchanging goods. 

It is helpful to see the field of religion and ecology as part of this larger emergence of environmental humanities. While it can be said that environmental history, literature, and philosophy are some four decades old, the field of religions and ecology began some two decades ago. It was preceded, however, by work among various scholars, particularly Christian theologians. Some eco-feminists theologians, such as Rosemary Ruether and Sallie McFague, Mary Daly, and Ivone Gebara led the way.

The Emerging Field of Religion and Ecology

An effort to identify and to map religiously diverse attitudes and practices toward nature was the focus of a three-year international conference series on world religions and ecology. Organized by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, ten conferences were held at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions from 1996-1998 that resulted in a ten volume book series (1997-2004). Over 800 scholars of religion and environmentalists participated. The director of the Center, Larry Sullivan, gave space and staff for the conferences. He chose to limit their scope to the world religions and indigenous religions rather than “nature religions”, such as wicca or paganism, which the organizers had hoped to include.

Culminating conferences were held in fall 1998 at Harvard and in New York at the United Nations and the American Museum of Natural History where 1000 people attended and Bill Moyers presided. At the UN conference Tucker and Grim founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology, which is now located at Yale. They organized a dozen more conferences and created an electronic newsletter that is now sent to over 12,000 people around the world. In addition, they developed a major website for research, education, and outreach in this area (fore.yale.edu). The conferences, books, website, and newsletter have assisted in the emergence of a new field of study in religion and ecology. Many people have helped in this process including Whitney Bauman and Sam Mickey who are now moving the field toward discussing the need for planetary ethics. A Canadian Forum on Religion and Ecology was established in 2002, a European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment was formed in 2005, and a Forum on Religion and Ecology @ Monash in Australia in 2011.

Courses on this topic are now offered in numerous colleges and universities across North America and in other parts of the world. A Green Seminary Initiative has arisen to help educate seminarians. Within the American Academy of Religion there is a vibrant group focused on scholarship and teaching in this area. A peer-reviewed journal, Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology , is celebrating its 25 th year of publication. Another journal has been publishing since 2007, the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture . A two volume Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature edited by Bron Taylor has helped shape the discussions, as has the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture he founded. Clearly this broad field of study will continue to expand as the environmental crisis grows in complexity and requires increasingly creative interdisciplinary responses.

The work in religion and ecology rests in an intersection between the academic field within education and the dynamic force within society. This is why we see our work not so much as activist, but rather as “engaged scholarship” for the flourishing of our shared planetary life. This is part of a broader integration taking place to link concerns for both people and the planet. This has been fostered in part by the twenty-volume Ecology and Justice Series from Orbis Books and with the work of John Cobb, Larry Rasmussen, Dieter Hessel, Heather Eaton, Cynthia Moe-Loebeda, and others. The Papal Encyclical is now highlighting this linkage of eco-justice as indispensable for an integral ecology.

The Dynamic Force of Religious Environmentalism

All of these religious traditions, then, are groping to find the languages, symbols, rituals, and ethics for sustaining both ecosystems and humans. Clearly there are obstacles to religions moving into their ecological, eco-justice, and planetary phases. The religions are themselves challenged by their own bilingual languages, namely, their languages of transcendence, enlightenment, and salvation; and their languages of immanence, sacredness of Earth, and respect for nature. Yet, as the field of religion and ecology has developed within academia, so has the force of religious environmentalism emerged around the planet. Roger Gottlieb documents this in his book A Greener Faith . (Gottlieb 2006) The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew held international symposia on “Religion, Science and the Environment” focused on water issues (1995-2009) that we attended. He has made influential statements on this issue for 20 years. The Parliament of World Religions has included panels on this topic since 1998 and most expansively in 2015. Since 1995 the UK based Alliance of Religion and Conservation (ARC), led by Martin Palmer, has been doing significant work with religious communities around under the patronage of Prince Philip.

These efforts are recovering a sense of place, which is especially clear in the environmental resilience and regeneration practices of indigenous peoples. It is also evident in valuing the sacred pilgrimage places in the Abrahamic traditions (Jerusalem, Rome, and Mecca) both historically and now ecologically. So also East Asia and South Asia attention to sacred mountains, caves, and other pilgrimage sites stands in marked contrast to massive pollution.

In many settings around the world religious practitioners are drawing together religious ways of respecting place, land, and life with understanding of environmental science and the needs of local communities. There have been official letters by Catholic Bishops in the Philippines and in Alberta, Canada alarmed by the oppressive social conditions and ecological disasters caused by extractive industries. Catholic nuns and laity in North America, Australia, England, and Ireland sponsor educational programs and conservation plans drawing on the eco-spiritual vision of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme. Also inspired by Berry and Swimme, Paul Winter’s Solstice celebrations and Earth Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York Winter have been taking place for three decades.

Even in the industrial growth that grips China, there are calls from many in politics, academia, and NGOs to draw on Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist perspectives for environmental change. In 2008 we met with Pan Yue, the Deputy Minister of the Environment, who has studied these traditions and sees them as critical to Chinese environmental ethics. In India, Hinduism is faced with the challenge of clean up of sacred rivers, such as the Ganges and the Yamuna. To this end in 2010 with Hindu scholars, David Haberman and Christopher Chapple, we organized a conference of scientists and religious leaders in Delhi and Vrindavan to address the pollution of the Yamuna.

Many religious groups are focused on climate change and energy issues. For example, InterFaith Power and Light and GreenFaith are encouraging religious communities to reduce their carbon footprint. Earth Ministry in Seattle is leading protests against oil pipelines and terminals. The Evangelical Environmental Network and other denominations are emphasizing climate change as a moral issue that is disproportionately affecting the poor. In Canada and the US the Indigenous Environmental Network is speaking out regarding damage caused by resource extraction, pipelines, and dumping on First Peoples’ Reserves and beyond. All of the religions now have statements on climate change as a moral issue and they were strongly represented in the People’s Climate March in September 2015. Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, published the first collection of articles on religion and climate change from two conferences we organized there. (Tucker & Grim, 2001)

Striking examples of religion and ecology have occurred in the Islamic world. In June 2001 and May 2005 the Islamic Republic of Iran led by President Khatami and the United Nations Environment Programme sponsored conferences in Tehran that we attended. They were focused on Islamic principles and practices for environmental protection. The Iranian Constitution identifies Islamic values for ecology and threatens legal sanctions. One of the earliest spokespersons for religion and ecology is the Iranian scholar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Fazlun Khalid in the UK founded the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science. In Indonesia in 2014 a fatwa was issued declaring that killing an endangered species is prohibited.

These examples illustrate ways in which an emerging alliance of religion and ecology is occurring around the planet. These traditional values within the religions now cause them to awaken to environmental crises in ways that are strikingly different from science or policy. But they may find interdisciplinary ground for dialogue in concerns for eco-justice, sustainability, and cultural motivations for transformation. The difficulty, of course, is that the religions are often preoccupied with narrow sectarian interests. However, many people, including the Pope, are calling on the religions to go beyond these interests and become a moral leaven for change.

Renewal Through Laudato Si’

Pope Francis is highlighting an integral ecology that brings together concern for humans and the Earth. He makes it clear that the environment can no longer be seen as only an issue for scientific experts, or environmental groups, or government agencies alone. Rather, he invites all people, programs and institutions to realize these are complicated environmental and social problems that require integrated solutions beyond a “technocratic paradigm” that values an easy fix. Within this integrated framework, he urges bold new solutions.

In this context Francis suggests that ecology, economics, and equity are intertwined. Healthy ecosystems depend on a just economy that results in equity. Endangering ecosystems with an exploitative economic system is causing immense human suffering and inequity. In particular, the poor and most vulnerable are threatened by climate change, although they are not the major cause of the climate problem. He acknowledges the need for believers and non-believers alike to help renew the vitality of Earth’s ecosystems and expand systemic efforts for equity.

In short, he is calling for “ecological conversion” from within all the world religions. He is making visible an emerging worldwide phenomenon of the force of religious environmentalism on the ground, as well as the field of religion and ecology in academia developing new ecotheologies and ecojustice ethics. This diverse movement is evoking a change of mind and heart, consciousness and conscience. Its expression will be seen more fully in the years to come.

The challenge of the contemporary call for ecological renewal cannot be ignored by the religions. Nor can it be answered simply from out of doctrine, dogma, scripture, devotion, ritual, belief, or prayer. It cannot be addressed by any of these well-trod paths of religious expression alone. Yet, like so much of our human cultures and institutions the religions are necessary for our way forward yet not sufficient in themselves for the transformation needed.  The roles of the religions cannot be exported from outside their horizons.  Thus, the individual religions must explain and transform themselves if they are willing to enter into this period of environmental engagement that is upon us. If the religions can participate in this creativity they may again empower humans to embrace values that sustain life and contribute to a vibrant Earth community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berry, Thomas. 2009. The Sacred Universe: Earth Spirituality and Religion in the 21st Century (New York: Columbia University Press).

Boff, Leonardo. 1997. Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books).

Gottlieb, Roger. 2006. A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planetary Future . (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Grim, John and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds. 2014. Ecology and Religion. (Washington, DC: Island Press).

Leopold, Aldo. 1966. A Sand County Almanac . (Oxford University Press).

Rockstrom, Johan and Mattias Klum. 2015. Big World, Small Planet: Abundance Within Planetary Boundaries . (New Haven: Yale University Press)

Schmitz, Oswald. 2016. The New Ecology: Science for a Sustainable World. (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Taylor, Bron, ed. 2008. Encyclopedia of Religion, Nature, and Culture. (London: Bloomsbury).

Tucker, Mary Evelyn. 2004. Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter their Ecological Phase . (Chicago: Open Court).

Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. 2001 Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change? Daedalus Vol. 130, No.4.

Header photo: ARC procession to UN Faith in Future Meeting, Bristol, UK

The Influence of Scientology: Evaluations of its Cult Status and Broader Societal Impacts

This essay about the Church of Scientology examines its complex role in society and the controversies surrounding its practices. It discusses Scientology’s integration of various spiritual and psychotherapeutic elements, the church’s legal status, and its influence in the entertainment industry. The text also addresses criticisms of the church’s cult-like behaviors and its involvement in social programs, highlighting the ongoing debates about religious freedom and the nature of belief systems.

How it works

The Church of Scientology, established by L. Ron Hubbard in 1952, has always occupied a contentious niche in cultural and religious studies due to its unconventional practices and the scrutiny it faces from both critics and the media. As a belief system, Scientology integrates aspects of Eastern and Western spiritualities, along with methodologies reminiscent of psychotherapeutic practices, presented in a lexicon distinctly its own. At the heart of its doctrine is the notion of the “thetan” or spiritual essence, which believers aim to understand and purify through various levels of spiritual enlightenment.

Scientology’s practices, especially the auditing sessions designed to cleanse individuals of negative, subconscious impressions, are a cornerstone of its path to spiritual clarity. These sessions use an E-meter to measure the spiritual wellbeing of a participant, helping them advance toward a state known as “Clear.” Despite these seemingly benign spiritual goals, the church is often criticized for what some describe as cult-like behaviors, including intense secrecy, exorbitant financial demands, and harsh penalties for dissent within its ranks.

The church’s status as a recognized religion in the United States, affirmed after a prolonged struggle with the IRS that culminated in 1993, stands in stark contrast to its reception in several other countries where it faces significant opposition and is not granted the same legal protections. This dichotomy highlights the varying degrees to which societies perceive and define religious legitimacy and the potential overlap with cultic characteristics.

Scientology’s societal impact is notably pronounced in the entertainment industry, where it has successfully attracted and retained celebrity followers who bring visibility and a measure of legitimacy to the organization. However, this visibility is a double-edged sword, attracting both interest and criticism. The church’s policy of “Fair Game” to deal with critics and defectors has been particularly controversial, involving aggressive legal and social campaigns against those it views as enemies.

The church also asserts itself in social domains traditionally dominated by secular institutions, such as drug rehabilitation, education, and criminal rehabilitation, through its affiliated programs. These initiatives, however, have been met with skepticism over their methods and efficacy, further fueling debates over the church’s role in non-religious spheres.

In conclusion, Scientology’s classification as a cult is heavily influenced by one’s definition of the term and varies widely across different legal and social contexts. Its impact on society is multifaceted, influencing areas like media, culture, law, and public health. The ongoing dialogue about Scientology reflects broader questions about the rights of religious organizations, the nature of belief systems, and the protections afforded to individuals under the guise of religious freedom.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Influence of Scientology: Evaluations of Its Cult Status and Broader Societal Impacts . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-influence-of-scientology-evaluations-of-its-cult-status-and-broader-societal-impacts/ [Accessed: 15 May. 2024]

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"The Influence of Scientology: Evaluations of Its Cult Status and Broader Societal Impacts," PapersOwl.com , 12-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-influence-of-scientology-evaluations-of-its-cult-status-and-broader-societal-impacts/. [Accessed: 15-May-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Influence of Scientology: Evaluations of Its Cult Status and Broader Societal Impacts . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-influence-of-scientology-evaluations-of-its-cult-status-and-broader-societal-impacts/ [Accessed: 15-May-2024]

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