Man's most valuable trait is a judicial sense of what not to believe.
Euripides
Applying radical skepticism to Belief Conservation in the next section , Morris reemploys Bertrand Russel's Five Minute Hypothesis. The Five Minute Hypothesis counts as proposition P. Would it be rational to take the cognitive stance of believing this outrageous proposition? To do so would require the denial of a great number of our previous beliefs, there is no independent positive reason to deny those previous beliefs, and we have no compelling reason to affirm as belief, this absurd hypothesis. By application of The Principle of Belief Conservation to the Five Minute Hypothesis, it is most rational to not believe the Five Minute Hypothesis. *L*
Nor is it rational to take the cognitive stance of suspension of belief because to do so "would require doubting, or remaining undecided about, a great number of our previous beliefs, all those beliefs that require it being false." Moreover, we have no independent positive reason to become doubtful of all those previous beliefs, and there is no compelling reason to suspend judgement over the Five Minute Hypothesis. Thus it is most rational not to take the cognitive stance.
Because it is most rational not to believe or withhold judgement on the Five Minute Hypothesis, it is therefore most reasonable to disbelieve it. Application of this reasoning to all other wild propositions yields the same outcome of disbelief. The author then turns to source skepticism applied to The Principle of Belief Conservation.
The source skeptic's question of how we are sure of our sense experience, memory, or testimony ever being reliable cannot be well answered. There isn't a "single piece of untainted evidence" for the certainty "we have that any of our basic sources of belief are ever reliable connections to reality."(p.74)Given the proposition that:
Our basic belief-forming mechanisms are some times reliable,
The Principle of Belief Conservation shows that the most rational stance is one of belief.
Thus, radical and source skepticism
Can't bully us away from our most basic beliefs. But it can show us that we hold them rationally without proof or evidence, which in itself is a startling revelation, for which we should be grateful. It should make us think. And it will. (p.75)
Morris then reveals The basic status of belief conservation. It captures "a fundamental way in which all rational people think." It is how we respond to the skeptic. We know The Principle of Belief Conservation to be true in itself because, unlike evidentialism, it passes its own test.
We accept it without proof. We accept it without independent evidence that it is true. Aned we are rational in so doing. There is no independent standard of rationality that can condem or call into question this principle. Nonetheless, we accept it without any further independent support. It is just true. We just believe it. It is not bad on any deeper beliefs. It itself is basic. (p. 75)
The Principle of Belief Conservation is "a basic belief," which can be used to justify other beliefs but has itself no further independent justification. One finds that one believes it, and that it would be impossible not to believe. That is not in itself proof of its truth, but it is true.
Morris then lists four propositions that the Principle indicates are rational to believe, even without direct evidence of proof:
1. Sense experience is sometimes reliable.
2. Memory is sometimes reliable.
3. Testimony is sometimes reliable.
4. Our basic belief-forming mechanisms are sometimes reliable.
It is reasonable to think the Principle of Belief Conservation to be true, but then classical evidentialism is false because The Principle justifies the rationalism of believing things "that are neither self-evident, nor evident to the senses, nor evidentially supported or inferable from propositions that fall into those categories." (p.76)
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