Do you see any fallacies in Clifford’s reasoning? Reconstruct one of his arguments in standard form. Then evaluate that argument for soundness and validity. What practical significance does Clifford’s thesis have?
I believe Clifford is using a slippery slope/false cause fallacy argument to try and get his point across.
- It is always wrong to believe something without having complete knowledge on that subject.
- Learn everything you can so you have power of knowledge and a sound belief.
- But if you don’t then you are wronging and hurting society.
- You are sinning against society and putting society back on the track to return to savagery.
I think Clifford’s argument has valid premises. It is good to seek as much knowledge as you can to make informed decisions. I do think he is right in the sense that when you have a great responsibility to not know all knowledge on a subject could greatly effect society. Like having a doctor that doesn’t know everything about heart surgery but then does a heart surgery and the person dies due to mistakes made during the surgery. I do think in this case the premises are valid because if the doctor had learned what he was supposed to then the person undergoing surgery might have survived.
But what I think makes Clifford’s conclusion unsound is that there are things that every human believes that they don’t have complete knowledge on that doesn’t hurt or demean society. A simple example of this in my opinion is I believe when I turn the key in my car it will turn on. I do not know all the reasons why or what goes into the car turning on just that it will when I do. According to Clifford I should not be turning the car on to operate it because I do not have all the knowledge on how it works so I am sinning against society. While knowledge is extremely good for the betterment of society and the safekeeping of those around us, it is not necessary that we have complete knowledge on all things in order for society to sustain its sanity and continue to operate as Clifford would infer.
bryanhorsting 