William James' Argument Against Evidence Critical Thinkings Example

I. State the argument
William James’s argument in the essay, ‘The Will to Believe’ invalidated the evidentialist’s approaches to religious belief. As a believer, James argued that it is the fundamental duty of every religious person to focus on the truth in the faith and avoid any falsehoods. James argued that in some instances it is both permissible and inevitable for the believers to have passion, be non-rational nature and stick to what one believes.

A. state your position

I concur with William James’s argument. A deeply religious person must be faithful, devoted and committed to the beliefs, hold onto the religious practices and doctrines even if there is insufficient physical evidence, since faith is a matter of conscious and personal decisions and relation with the deity. It is factual that other than via rationality, through human will, it is possible to conjure up beliefs in live hypothesis and other hypotheses, for example, by being prejudiced by the sentiments of the people around us.
II. Show the support for your position
I strongly understand the fact that there are some aspects of religious believes where sufficient evidence is not of a higher requirement. In such scenarios, the evidence of how truthful the faiths are, if they were truthful, is believed to become available only after there is belief in them. As such, taking time and postponing belief until there is sufficient evidence is contextually and logically self-defeating.
III. State objections to your position
Under ordinary circumstances, when a person’s faith is based upon insufficient and clumsy evidences, he or she is deemed irrational.

A. responds to these objections

The rationality comes about because when one belief is based upon adequate proof. Such rationality contributes to the search and quest for a true belief, as the belief itself may be true, however, when someone’s belief is based upon unsatisfactory evidence, he or she is viewed as violating the duty to elude false faiths and beliefs. This is because the person is deemed irrational and did not have to wait for the satisfactory evidence before having faith or believing in a religion.

B. show how the objections are weak

The objection is weak since pure reason cannot be used as the final and ultimate determinant of what one believes in. not everyone is rational and people have diverse levels of reasoning. There are non-intellectual aspects of human mind, such as emotions, feelings and desires that partly govern what one believes in.
C. show how your position is still strong
My position is still strong. As pointed out by James, a belief based upon deficient proof does not always entail a violation of the higher human duty to be truthful to God and avoid any aspects of false belief. My position is based on what James referred to as Truth independent argument. A belief must be based on the positive expectations and benefits one expects to gain whether such benefits are true or not. Generally, the truly religious individuals are deemed more happy and live more balanced lives. At the same time, the argument is not just based on the scientific evidential argument but on a logical and moral ground where everyone has a right to choose and decide what to believe is, the sufficiency of the evidence notwithstanding.
IV. Conclusion
Religious belief need not be purely based on rational deduced evidence. While such position maybe weak due to the ambiguities in the evidences and the fact that the faith has to be a forced option, the fact that one has a right of choice, peruse happiness individually and collectively make the agreement strong. As argued by James a belief in religion comes before the proof of its truth. Faith in a religion is justifiable for both rational and ordinary believers on the premise that the evidence is not based on proof but upon belief of the faithful.