So I hold X…Y…Z beliefs. How would I justify holding those beliefs?
Belief X is the belief in GOD. Now how would I justify such a belief?
Well, everyone believes in god. UH no, not everyone believes in god.
The belief in God is the only way to understand the universe.
UH no, there are dozens if not more ways to understand the universe
outside of a belief in god. One might say, God is the answer to all the
questions. UH no, there are many answers depending on the questions.
It is rare that there is only one answer to one question. Most questions have
many different answers. Some of course better then other answers, but still
many answers are available for one single question. What time is it? That
question depends upon where you are. Here in California, it is 9:30 in the morning.
Where you are changes the answer.
I hold belief Y…which is the belief in Liberalism. I believe in liberalism
and that it is the best way into the future. How can I justify that belief?
I can say that Liberalism best matches what we know about human beings.
I can raise my arguments and you can raise your arguments. We may never
have an answer because the answer requires a value judgement.
You judge by some chosen standard that the question is answered this way…
I say Barry Bonds is one of the top 5 best baseball players of all time…
and the stats support my assertion. But you may state as part of your
argument, that Bonds “juiced” and that disqualifies him from any debate
about the top 5 best baseball players. Your statement however is a value
judgement. You use some other standard outside of stats to determine
his top 5 status. Now it is said that Babe Ruth was the greatest player of
his time, but and this is important to note, that blacks were not
allowed in the MLB at that time. It was white players only and so,
we are unable to correctly judge who was the greatest player of his time
because of the prejudice of the time. In fact an argument can be made
for a black player named Oscar Charleston to be the best player of that era.
So any answer on this type of question depends upon the criteria used.
So by cherry picking the criteria used, one can make the case that
IQ45 is the best president of all time. Of course, the truth is he is the
worst president of all time.
But that is the point of value judgements. It can be used to justified
anything depending on the criteria used. How you judge something is
just as important as why you are judging something. And that leads us
back to beliefs. Our belief system is a value judgement system.
What values are we judging and why those values. Is the most
important value of the president, honesty? Then Jimmy Carter becomes
the best president of all time. Is the value used for president character,
then we might suggest Carter or maybe Lincoln. The value itself
determines our understanding of the best president. Even the word
“best” can be understood in terms of what criteria we used to decide
what the word “best” means.
It is my belief that much of our judgements made like best president
or best ball player depends upon the criteria used and that is nothing
more then a decision on values. what value or values do we use to make
our judgements upon.
so the question of our beliefs is really a question of what values
are we using.
If I hold these beliefs, what values am I employing?
Kropotkin