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The will not to believe

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Cockayne_2018_Sophia_WNTB_AAM.pdf (562.5Kb)
Date
09/2019
Author
Cockayne, Joshua
Warman, Jack
Keywords
Atheism
Belief
Evidence
Fideism
James
B Philosophy (General)
Religious studies
Philosophy
T-NDAS
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Abstract
Is it permissible to believe that God does not exist if the evidence is inconclusive? In this paper, we give a new argument in support of atheistic belief modelled on William James’s The Will to Believe. According to James, if the evidence for a proposition, p, is ambiguous, and believing that p is a genuine option, then it can be permissible to let your passions decide. Typically, James’s argument has been used as a defence of passionally caused theistic belief. However, in the existing literature, little attention has been given to topic of passionally caused atheistic belief. Here, we give much needed attention to the issue of how areligious passions can justify atheistic belief. Following James, we argue that if atheism is a genuine option for an agent, it is permissible to believe that God does not exist based on her hopes, desires, wishes, or whatever passions incline her to disbelieve. After defending the coherence of passionally caused atheism, we go on to suggest why this position is a tenable one for the atheist to adopt.
Citation
Cockayne , J & Warman , J 2019 , ' The will not to believe ' , Sophia , vol. 58 , no. 3 , pp. 511-523 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-018-0689-y
Publication
Sophia
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-018-0689-y
ISSN
0038-1527
Type
Journal article
Rights
© Springer Nature B.V. 2018. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-018-0689-y
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/19091

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