Epistomolgy of Religious Belief
*Painful truth or Blissful ignorance?
Is truth intrinsically valuable or only a means to other goods?
Happiness without knowledge is ignorance: Knowledge cannot promise happiness
Libertarian view of Doxastic Responsibility:
-You can believe what you want to believe (beliefs are private)
-no belief is immoral
Truth or happiness-as achieved by a liberal arts education
-freedom
-free will
Religious belief
Pojman-Faith + Reason
1.Irrationalist- Can be used by either religious view: Faith is contrary to reason
religious-> faith without justification is not rational
atheist- faith is irrational
2.Transrationalist- Faith is above and beyond reason
3.Commensuralist (strong and weak)- Faith + reason are compatible (Pojman's view)
Religion is a special case of theory(god, meaning of life, philosophy, spiritual realm) building
-not different in kind from philosophy, science, politics, morality
Pojman- Soft perspectiveism- People who hold various theories are in some sense locked into them, but can change views through interaction with others' views
Hard perspectivism-People are locked into their own views, argument is futile. (the way people behave -> forms beliefs)
Pojman- Coach example- Biased -> every call against his team is bad -or-
be objective/impartial-> give the same call any spectator would, even if his wife bet her life savings on the game (aim for this)
Pojman- people should act according to soft perspectivism