30.4: Belief without Justification

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William James was concerned that our pursuit of epistemic rigor was at times preventing us from accepting beliefs that would benefit us. This concern led him to argue that at times we would be justified in believing certain claims without adequate evidence. James argued that if we had a forced choice between two options, and the consequences of belief would be significant (he said momentous) then we would be justified in choosing to believe if we could. This way, at the very least we can reap the potentially beneficial consequences that we would be locked out of if we chose not to believe due to a lack of justification. James was primarily thinking about belief in the existence of God when he made this argument, but he also says it applies to slightly more mundane beliefs, like someone being a good person to marry. This is an interesting view, and one that has been discussed at length in the literature.

You can see how he managed to talk himself into this view, though. The explanation reflex is strong, and, in this case, it is accompanied by a fair amount of psychological accounting. Just think – there is a benefit you could have if you just ignored traditional standards of justification. As easy as it is to see why this view would seem appealing, it is also easy to see why it is problematic. One issue is, this type of thinking often requires that you ignore base rates. It might be that we can’t ever know for certain if God exists or that a person will make a good spouse, but that doesn’t mean that these things are literal coin flips. There might be really good underlying reasons that suggest that Marvin and Jenny Beth are unlikely to have a happy marriage. It would be absurd to ignore these factors and just choose to believe it will work out. At its heart, deciding to believe something without adequate evidence because of how you hope it will positively impact you is wishful thinking, and using the lack of absolute proof that you are wrong as evidence that you are justified is the appeal to ignorance fallacy.