Belief and Knowledge (in Theory)
In the study of epistemology (theory of knowledge), the generally accepted definition of knowledge is “justified true belief.” That is, I know something if (a) I believe it, (b) it is true, and (c) I am somehow justified in believing it true. When you first encounter and consider the definition, that last component seems the trickiest: What counts as justification? What justifies my belief that the earth orbits the sun? Entire books have been written on the question of justification, but my focus today is different.
Many people – probably all of us – hold some beliefs that fall short of knowledge, believes we hold on faith and/or because we have made a decision to believe. What, though, about the opposite?
Is it possible to know something and yet find that same something impossible to believe? To see daily bits of reality as too insane to be true?
Okay, that’s one question, but now, for the moment, I want to set it aside and ask a different question about belief. I’ll come back to disbelief after a long detour….
Believing vs. Not Believing in Something,
Stated “Belief” vs. Actual Choice
Years ago I had a community college student, an older married woman, who “did not believe” in government programs. She acknowledged – believe me, I had not asked! – that she and her husband lived on unemployment and disability, but she insisted that they “did not believe” in such programs. She “believed” the programs were wrong and should not exist. She “believed” the money was “stolen” from taxpayers. And yet she was comfortable receiving money she considered “stolen.” It didn’t make sense to me.
I could not bring myself to press her on the question in class. I would have felt cruel to do so. And yet, all these years later, I still cannot make sense of her statement. When stated “belief” and personal choice are in stark contradiction, what sense can be made of the stated “belief”?
(Please forgive all the scare quotes in today’s post. I can’t see a way to omit them.)
When people call themselves “pro-life” because they oppose abortion yet are unconcerned with higher sepsis rates in places where medical personnel are afraid to intervene during a miscarriage for fear of going to jail, I feel a similar disconnect. Sepsis, when not treated in a timely manner, can result in the inability of a woman to have children in future--or even in her death! Do these women’s deaths not matter? Is their future fertility something for others to sacrifice? I hear no concern, either, about the risks to a woman’s life if an ectopic pregnancy cannot be terminated by abortion, if a nonviable fetus must not be removed, etc., etc.
What is “pro-life” in this? To me it looks more like an exaggerated and misplaced concern for fertilized eggs and a complete lack of concern for the lives of women and girls in dangerous situations. To “believe” in life and choose to risk the lives of others is, as I see it, a blatant contradiction. And yes, it would be different to me if these people simply chose to put their own lives at risk, but none of the male “pro-lifers” will ever have to face that challenge.
Many abortion opponents in recent elections have been single-issue voters, and they were one block of voters (among others) that helped to elect (assuming votes were accurately cast and counted) a man three times divorced and six times bankrupt … who mocked a disabled reporter, made numerous vulgar remarks about women, boasted that he could shoot someone in the street and not go to jail for it … who was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying his business records … who railed against “criminals” and bragged about supporting police and then, almost the minute he got into the Oval Office, issued full commutations and pardons to everyone convicted in the violent insurrection of January 6, 2021 (which he fomented), including those who had most violently attacked the police guarding Congress that day. He was probably right about being able to shoot someone in the street and not go to jail, because these single-issue voters were certainly willing to overlook everything else for his promise to oppose abortion.
(Actually, his “promise” was not always clear, and he is not, in generally, very good at keeping promises or honoring contracts, although he does, much more consistently, follow through when he makes threats. But it isn’t the word of an established liar that concerns me today. It’s the people who call themselves “pro-life” that I don’t understand.)
One anti-abortion friend told me that lowering abortion numbers with education and contraception was not enough: Only the goal of zero abortions is acceptable, nothing less. How does my friend square his obviously unreachable ideal (zero) with the obvious fact that more girls and women will die, once again as in the past, of unsafe, illegal abortions if no exceptions whatsoever are to be made to a total ban? Again, these lives that will surely be lost seem to count as nothing. Pro-life? Hardly. More like pro-punishment.
Let’s be clear about something. No one “believes” in abortion. Unlike economic safety nets such as unemployment insurance and disability payments for those unable to work, abortion isn’t something anyone wants. Only a worse alternative makes it something a woman ever chooses. Because sometimes, more often than oversimplified, hypothetical dilemma problems acknowledge, life presents us with situations in which there is no choice that does not involve loss and/or regret.
I suppose my student and her husband--that couple living on disability and unemployment checks--felt the choice they made, while bad, was not as bad as allowing themselves to become homeless and starving to death, and if my student had put it that way, I would agree. It’s that framing of “believing” and “not believing” that troubles me, that business of absolute right vs. absolute wrong, such that a person can apparently feel in the right while doing what s/he thinks is wrong.
Does it make sense to you?
If I say I believe in charity and yet live like a miser, how is my belief demonstrated, and how can it be called a belief at all? If I speak in favor of nonviolence and live a violent life…? If I vocally advocate free speech and seek to shut down voices that do not echo my own…? If I talk “law and order” but flout the law at every turn…? If I call myself a truth-teller and utter nothing but falsehood, bearing false witness right and left…?
By their fruits shall you know them.
I know it’s true, and yet –
Circling back around to my opening, I return to another troubling question: Can I know something and yet find it impossible to believe? Obviously, if I can, the traditional definition of knowledge is false, since the first component of the definition is belief. These times we are living through, however, strain credulity. Day after day, events occur to which I can only respond with horrified disbelief. This cannot be happening in my country. And yet it is. I know it is.
