The you-just-believe-that-because challenge is meant to make us suspicious of our beliefs, to motivate us to reduce our confidence, or even abandon them completely. But what exactly does this challenge amount to? The fact that I have my particular beliefs as a result of growing up in a certain community is just a boring psychological fact about me and is not, in itself, evidence for or against anything so grand as the existence of God. So, you might wonder, if these psychological facts about us are not themselves evidence for or against our worldview, why would learning them motivate any of us to reduce our confidence in such matters?<\/p>\n
The method<\/em> of believing whatever one\u2019s social surroundings tell one to believe is not reliable. So, when I learn about the social influences on my belief, I learn that I\u2019ve formed my beliefs using an unreliable method. If it turns out that my thermometer produces its readings using an unreliable mechanism, I cease to trust the thermometer. Similarly, learning that my beliefs were produced by an unreliable process means that I should cease to trust them too.<\/p>\n But in the hypothetical example, do I really hold that my<\/em> beliefs were formed by an unreliable mechanism? I might think as follows: \u2018I formed my atheistic beliefs as a result of growing up in my<\/em> particular community, not as a result of growing up in some community or another<\/em>. The fact that there are a bunch of communities out there that inculcate their members with false beliefs doesn\u2019t mean that my community does. So I deny that my beliefs were formed by an unreliable method. Luckily for me, they were formed by an extremely reliable method: they are the result of growing up among intelligent well-informed people with a sensible worldview.\u2019<\/p>\n The thermometer analogy, then, is inapt. Learning that I would have believed differently if I\u2019d been raised by a different community is not like learning that my<\/em> thermometer is unreliable. It\u2019s more like learning that my thermometer came from a store that sells a large number of unreliable thermometers. But the fact that the store sells unreliable thermometers doesn\u2019t mean I shouldn\u2019t trust the readings of my particular thermometer. After all, I might have excellent reasons to think that I got lucky and bought one of the few reliable ones.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something fishy about the \u2018I got lucky\u2019 response because I would think the very same thing<\/em> if I were raised in a community that I take to believe falsehoods. If I\u2019m an atheist, I might think: \u2018Luckily, I was raised by people who are well-educated, take science seriously, and aren\u2019t in the grip of old-fashioned religious dogma.\u2019 But if I were a theist, I would think something along the lines of: \u2018If I\u2019d been raised among arrogant people who believe that there is nothing greater than themselves, I might never have personally experienced God\u2019s grace, and would have ended up with a completely distorted view of reality.\u2019 The fact that the \u2018I got lucky\u2019 response is a response anyone<\/em> could give seems to undermine its legitimacy.<\/p>\n D<\/span>espite the apparent fishiness of the \u2018I got lucky\u2019 response in the case of religious belief, this response is perfectly sensible in other cases. Return to the thermometers. Suppose that, when I was looking for a thermometer, I knew very little about the different types and picked a random one off the shelf. After learning that the store sells many unreliable thermometers, I get worried and do some serious research. I discover that the particular thermometer I bought is produced by a reputable company whose thermometers are extraordinarily reliable. There\u2019s nothing wrong with thinking: \u2018How lucky I am to have ended up with this<\/em> excellent thermometer!\u2019<\/p>\n What\u2019s the difference? Why does it seem perfectly reasonable to think I got lucky about the thermometer I bought but not to think that I got lucky with the community I was raised in? Here\u2019s the answer: my belief that the community I was raised in is a reliable one is itself<\/em>, plausibly, a result of growing up in that community. If I don\u2019t take for granted the beliefs that my community instilled in me, then I\u2019ll find that I have no particular reason to think that my community is more reliable than others. If we\u2019re evaluating the reliability of some belief-forming method, we can\u2019t use beliefs that are the result of that very method in support of that method\u2019s reliability.<\/p>\n So, if we ought to abandon our socially influenced beliefs, it is for the following reason: deliberation about whether to maintain or abandon a belief, or set of beliefs, due to the worries about how the beliefs were formed must be conducted from a perspective that doesn\u2019t rely on the beliefs in question. Here\u2019s another way of putting the point: when we\u2019re concerned about some belief we have, and are wondering whether to give it up, we\u2019re engaged in doubt. When we doubt, we set aside some belief or cluster of beliefs, and we wonder whether the beliefs in question can be recovered from a perspective that doesn\u2019t rely on those beliefs. Sometimes, we learn that they can be recovered once they\u2019ve been subject to doubt, and other times we learn that they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n What\u2019s worrisome about the realization that our moral, religious and political beliefs are heavily socially influenced is that many ways of recovering belief from doubt are not available to us in this case. We can\u2019t make use of ordinary arguments in support of these beliefs because, in the perspective of doubt, the legitimacy of those very arguments is being questioned: after all, we are imagining that we find the arguments for our view more compelling than the arguments for alternative views as a result of the very social influences with which we\u2019re concerned. In the perspective of doubt, we also can\u2019t take the fact that we believe what we do as evidence for the belief\u2019s truth, because we know that we believe what we do simply because we were raised in a certain environment, and the fact that we were raised here rather than there is no good reason to think that our beliefs are the correct ones.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to realize that the concern about beliefs being socially influenced is worrisome only<\/em> if we\u2019re deliberating about whether to maintain belief from the perspective of doubt. For recall that the facts about how my particular beliefs were caused are not, in themselves, evidence for or against any particular religious, moral or political outlook. So if you were thinking about whether to abandon your beliefs from a perspective in which you\u2019re willing to make use of all of the reasoning and arguments that you normally use, you would simply think that you got lucky \u2013 just as you might have got lucky buying a particular thermometer, or reaching the train moments before it shuts its doors, or striking up a conversation on an airplane with someone who ends up being the love of your life.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no general problem with thinking that we\u2019ve been lucky \u2013 sometimes we are. The worry is just that, from the perspective of doubt,<\/em> we don\u2019t have the resources to justify the claim that we\u2019ve been lucky. What\u2019s needed to support such a belief is part of what\u2019s being questioned. Miriam Schoenfield<\/p>\n![\"Aeon](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/metrics.aeon.co\/count\/cf6284e9-e1cb-47ad-85c7-e7734dd85329.gif?resize=1%2C1&ssl=1\")
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