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‘The ethics of belief’ and belief about ethics: William Kingdon Clifford at the Metaphysical Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2012

ROSE ANN CHRISTIAN
ROSE ANN CHRISTIAN
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, Maryland 21252, USA e-mail: rchristian@towson.edu
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Abstract

As a member of the Victorian-era Metaphysical Society, W. K. Clifford contributed to debate about the prospects for morality in the absence of religion. Clifford thought its chances good. He presented a paper offering a ‘scientific’ approach to moral theory. In my discussion, I explore his proposal, using it to gain interpretative leverage on a paper he delivered before the Society only a year later, ‘The ethics of belief’. I set aside the quarrel with religion so prominent in this influential essay and discount its evidentialist epistemology, the better to reveal it for what it is: a powerful exercise in moral suasion.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 357 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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