Abstract:
The purpose of this thesis is to defend the doctrine of fideism. It is accepted that religious faith-commitments are frequently ventured without sufficient evidence, and that such commitments require moral as well as epistemic justification. This thesis focuses in particular on the moral justification for religious faith-commitments. The thesis builds on the work of John Bishop, whose defence of supra-evidential fideism is inspired by the famous Will to Believe doctrine, articulated by William James. Bishop holds that as it stands, James's thesis is too permissive, and that a moral clause needs to be introduced which would restrict potential faith-commitments. The second chapter of this thesis will attempt to sketch out a comprehensive ethical theory to augment the James-inspired fideist thesis advanced by Bishop. The ethical theory I outline is based on James's own ethical theory, which I argue is heavily influenced by Humean ethics and should be counted as a moral sense theory. I also demonstrate the similarity between James's moral sense theory and various positions within contemporary cognitive psychology, particularly to those that posit the existence of a moral faculty. I also consider a number of contemporary objections to moral innatism. Once the meta-ethical issue has been settled, I outline how James's moral theory can function normatively, and show that it can appropriately restrict religious faith-ventures. In particular, it rules out strongly exclusivist and dogmatic faith ventures in addition to those faith ventures that breach correct morality. In the final chapter I consider possible arguments that would secure fideism as a preferable alternative to hard-line evidentialism, and conclude that we may have moral reasons for thinking that fideism is the superior thesis.