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Profiles in skepticism: Cicero
Skepticism and the ethics of belief
Regular readers of Figs in Winter know that I’m partial to Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman advocate, statesman, and philosopher who contributed so much to the understanding and popularization of philosophy in the ancient world. So he couldn’t possibly be missing from this short series on ancient skepticism.
There is one aspect in particular of Cicero’s philosophy, however, that is not widely appreciated even though it is arguably of fundamental importance, just as much now as it was in Cicero’s time: his contribution to the debate about the ethics of belief.
The debate is about whether it is ethical to hold beliefs when the evidence is shaky, not available, or even when such belief seem to go against the available evidence and arguments. It deeply connects two branches of philosophy usually seen as independent: ethics and epistemology. In modern times the discussion was framed by two important essays, one by the mathematician William K. Clifford, the other by the philosopher William James.
Clifford published his paper in 1877 in the Contemporary Review with the apt title “The Ethics of Belief.” He famously argued that “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.”
James on his part responded in 1896 by defending what he just as famously referred to as “the will to believe,” especially in the case of belief in god. According to James, under some circumstances it is permissible, or even obligatory, to form a belief even though we lack sufficient evidence for it. Such circumstances include situations in which it is important to arrive at a belief of some sort, for instance because whether one does or does not believe in god (allegedly) changes significantly one’s behavior in life.
J.P.F. Wynne, in chapter 7 of the highly recommended collection Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present (ed. by Diego Machuca and Baron Reed, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) makes an interesting argument to the effect that Cicero anticipated Clifford by 19 centuries or so.
To see why, we need to talk a little bit about Cicero’s philosophy and his allegiance to the so-called New or Skeptical Academy, a phase of Plato’s Academy that lasted from…
