Q&A: Choosing a Useful Belief
Choosing a Useful Belief
Question
Hi Michi. I wanted to ask what you think. Suppose that on a certain question, such as the survival of the soul after death, I don’t have enough proofs or reasons either way. And suppose that believing in the soul’s survival would make my life now better or more moral. Is it legitimate to choose one view from among the options based on practicality rather than on a logical conclusion? Is that possible? Is it intellectually honest?
Answer
In my view, absolutely not. That is pragmatism (a dirty word as far as I’m concerned). The fact that something is useful does not make it true. I also don’t understand how it would help you. If you have not been convinced that it is the truth, then how would adopting it for the sake of some outcome or another work? After all, you know that it is just an adoption for practical needs.
In Jewish law there is a similar mechanism: when you have a doubt between two possibilities and you choose the one that benefits you morally or prevents some kind of distress. But even there, you choose it as a possible course of action and do not claim that it is the truth. To claim that it is the truth is just idiotic, so intellectual dishonesty would actually be a compliment for that.
Discussion on Answer
I understood all of that, and I answered it.
Thank you for the reply.
I just want to sharpen the point. I’m not talking about adopting a view that I don’t believe in, but one that I’m uncertain about and for which I have no convincing proof on either side. Why not include in the set of considerations the implications of living in light of that view?
Of course, even after adopting the view, if you ask me whether I’m convinced that it is the truth, the answer would be no, but it is the view I chose to live by. (You can see this as a kind of personal policy, but it is not behavior that contradicts reality in my opinion, rather a decision on a question about which I have no reasoned decision.)