forum for week of 19 September

Taken by itself, Clifford's statement "it is wrong always..." etc. is clearly pretty unremarkable, given, as you've all rightly pointed out, that we can't really define in such an abstract way what is or isn't "sufficient" evidence.

What's more important for the purposes of his essay, I think, is the reasoning which leads up to this quote. Why is it that "it is wrong always..." etc.? According to Clifford every belief, from the most significant to most insignificant, comes together to form a sort of patchwork which helps to orient ourselves in our daily lives. Many of these beliefs are socially-derived, and hence can be influenced by anyone inhabiting a given society. The following quote I think helps to clarify Clifford's views: "Every rustic," he writes, "who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race." Even the most insignificant beliefs of the most common person, according to Clifford, can have an effect on others, both through the belief itself and the maintenance of the "credulous character," and therefore, to perpetuate beliefs which "clog" the human race is in a sense to fail one's duty to humanity--the "universal duty of questioning all that we believe." 

What exactly is this "duty"? Clifford isn't clear in giving an answer, but he writes as if he means progress--both in terms of knowledge and in terms of morality. "Progress" is obviously a tricky idea in itself, so I won't try to go any deeper into it. I hope the above helps to make the quote a little clearer in its proper context. If we want to be criticizing Clifford, I think it makes more sense to look at his assertions concerning the extent to which our beliefs are socially-conditioned, and the idea of us having a "duty" towards humanity in our thinking. If these are both true, then it seems to me quite rational to believe that "it is wrong always..." etc., the slipperiness of the word "sufficient" notwithstanding.