William James The Will To Believe Summary

William James’ “The Will to Believe”

William James wrote "The Will to Believe," an argument about the foundation of belief. James argued the notions of “genuine option” and “forced belief”. He claimed that each of us has options to believe; but some facts are forced beliefs. William James explained “religious hypotheses” and the notion of faith without cause.
In order to understand James’ theory we must first understand his language through which he explains his view. James defines hypothesis as an idea that is given as a probable belief. “Let us give the name of hypothesis to anything that may be proposed to our belief.” James believes that each situation may support one of the two hypotheses one being a “live hypothesis” is a proposal that is factual, and we are likely to believe, however a “dead hypothesis” is a proposal that is very difficult or impossible for us to believe.

James names the “decision between two hypotheses” “option”.

He explains that an option can be in many forms such as “living or dead, forced, or avoidable, and momentous or trivial”. A “living option” is a decision between two living hypotheses; a “dead option”, however, is a choice between two options that one of them is most likely dead. A” forced option” is a choice that we are forced to make, on the other had there are some decisions that we can avoid making which James calls “avoidable option”. James writes that when a “stakes are significant” one’s option becomes momentous, however when a decision can be undone it becomes a “trivial option”. Ultimately, James creates his most important option of all, an option that is live, forced, and momentous is a “genuine

option”.
James understand that in life, one may not be capable of recognizing a momentous situation or an unimportant one all the time. On occasions, some dead hypotheses could be inserted as living ones and, may be disguised as momentous options. James believes in these situations where our intelligence is unable to identify a “genuine option” we must use our emotions to make a decision. In other words, believing in a situation or circumstance can result in making it come true.
A crucial feature of momentous option is a situation in which one has control to impose an important decision that is already in place. Essentially each situation can become momentous, as it can be our “only opportunity”, and may not be experienced again. James relates this to ethics, morals, society, as ell as religion.
The genuine option theory relates only to individual conduct so the idea would be applicable to most things concerning psychological significance. James argues that reason is not necessarily the ultimate factor of our beliefs. The emotional aspect of our mind is partly responsible for the things we may or may not believe in. through will we determined what we believe and he things we choose not to believe are perhaps influence by a prior circumstance.
Agreeing that sometimes our beliefs are determined by factors other than reason, it remains to be asked whether this should be the case. Given that our will has a hand in our beliefs, are we required to accept this as an unavoidable part of life or should we fight it? James addresses this issue by suggesting that we each have two forms of responsibility one believing the truth and our other obligation is not believing the untrue facts. Given the nature of human condition, these responsibilities sometimes contradict one another. We have to have beliefs therefore we take chance and believe in facts that are yet to be proved, on the other hand we might sacrifice believing in the truth to avoid having false views.
James through Clifford points out that having a false belief is far worse than being unable to believe facts therefor he suggests that one must only believe in ideas that are supported by actual evidences. Since another individual might consider that failing to believe in truth is a greater crime, they might advise one to only believe in ideas that have not much. James considers this situation an emotional one, and because some decisions are emotional and inevitable due to human condition occasionally, it is acceptable to believe in illogical ideas.
This is where James introduces the “religious hypotheses” defining the term as a belief that everything eternal is better, and it is in our best interest to believe that best things are everlasting. James accepts that the evidence in “religious Hypotheses” is lacking reason and because of this insufficiency, the religious option is a living option. James claims that the religious option is momentous: if the religious hypothesis is true then there is significant advantage in believing it and a major risk is involved in failing to believe it. This a forced option as well, because there are no other option other than to believe or not to believe. Therefore, the “Religious Option” is a “genuine option” and, as such, it is acceptable that we willingly believe the Religious Hypothesis, and we do not have to wait for reasonable proof to make a decision to believe and we are allowed to let our emotional side choose for us.