Should We Be Held Responsible for Our Beliefs?
The question “Should we be held responsible for our beliefs?” is extremely relevant today as we examine our past to create a better future. Individuals must be held accountable for their beliefs to promote the overall well-being of society. My argument is as follows:
Premises:
Beliefs inherently impact others regardless of whether they are voluntary or not
Someone who is held responsible for a belief will receive consequences relative to their society.
These consequences will be applied in a way that will promote well-being in that society.
We ought to promote well-being in our society.
Therefore, if we wish to promote wellbeing in our society, we should hold people responsible for their beliefs.
It is tempting to start by examining the nature of beliefs, what they are, how they are formed, and whether they are conscious or not, but I would argue that it is not relevant. The idea of responsibility implies the involvement of another party, meaning we have to examine beliefs about others. Therefore, the mere existence of belief, regardless of how it was formed, is enough to argue the responsibility it warrants. The important question is how do our beliefs impact others?
Simply, if someone impacts someone else they have affected that person. Actions can be impactful, meaning that through an action I can affect another person, altering their mental and physical state of being for better or worse. If I trip someone and they break their arm then my action has had an impact on them, in this case, a negative impact. Oppositely I could help someone who has been tripped get up and have an impact, this time positive. But are beliefs impactful? At first, the answer seems obvious. If my actions can be impactful and my beliefs inform those actions then my belief is impactful. However, we are not examining whether belief-predicated action is impactful but rather belief on its own. This is difficult because, in any practical sense, belief is not physical. I cannot trip you or carry you with the belief that playing the guitar is enjoyable.
In that case, let us first ask, can I be impacted by my own beliefs? Yes. If I believe that I can fly, and I jump off a tower and I cannot fly, then I will be severely injured and possibly dead, outcomes which both constitute an impact. However, I can be impacted mentally as well as physically. Say I believe that everyone immediately close to me, my friends and family, are government agents who will one day assassinate me. Presumably, I will go through life extremely paranoid and stressed most likely at great cost to my mental health. This would be an example of my beliefs having a negative mental impact on me. In short, if my beliefs inform my understanding of the world as well as my actions, and that understanding and those actions can impact me, then my beliefs can impact me.
Now let us apply that principle to others. For example, imagine someone believes their house has been robbed by aliens and attempts to articulate this belief to others. As they go around telling people this, people will most likely not believe them and they will be laughed at resulting in negative emotions such as hopelessness and despair. Now imagine that I, upon hearing their plight, believe their story and let them know such. They would be delighted to know that someone shares their beliefs. My belief has just impacted another person without the need for any action.
One could argue that since I had to tell the person that I believed them it was my action of telling them I believed them was the source of their joy rather than my belief. However, for one to be held responsible or not for their beliefs, those beliefs must first be transmitted. The only way to transmit belief is through an action such as speaking, writing, art, or some other communicative method. Therefore for belief to be impactful, we have to grant that certain actions merely serve as methods of transmitting belief rather than as independent facilities of impact. In summary, if my beliefs can impact myself, and through a transitory action my beliefs can be understood by another, then my beliefs can impact another person.
Now let us advance to premise two which states that a person who is held responsible for their beliefs will receive the appropriate consequences relative to the society in which they live. This premise examines what it means to be held responsible for something. Responsibility is “the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something”. If I kick a soccer ball through a window, then I am responsible for breaking that window. If I am then made to pay for a new window, then I am being held responsible. The distinction between being responsible and being held responsible is important in the context of this argument because quite simply, we are not asking if I am responsible for my beliefs, but rather should I be held responsible for them? To be held responsible for a belief is in short to endure the consequences of said belief.
The reason I specifically reference society is because the society one lives in will serve as the relative basis for how one will be held responsible for their beliefs. While arguably there are some universal rules/beliefs that wouldn't be tolerated in any society, theft or murder, for example, everything else is relative. Take tipping for example. Say I hold the belief that I shouldn't have to leave a tip whatsoever. If I held this belief in Japan, a country where tipping isn’t a custom, then I would face no negative repercussions.
Premise three expands on premise two with the idea that the consequences applied by a society for something of an outsider will serve to promote well-being within that society. Say for instance a toddler draws on the wall. The toddler has never before been told that drawing on the wall isn't allowed and therefore, as far as the toddler is concerned the wall is a completely acceptable place to draw. When the toddler goes to draw on the wall, they are acting by what they know to be true and right. However, in this particular household drawing on the wall is not permitted and so when the toddler went to draw on the wall, they were punished by their parents. It is fair to hold the toddler accountable for something they didn't know. After all, the toddler did not choose to not know he couldn't draw on the wall but rather he just didn't know. Even though the toddler acted in accordance with what they knew to be true and with complete innocence the parents would rather discipline the toddler unfairly in order to avoid a household plagued by crayon-covered walls. It may not be fair to hold someone responsible for acting on what they know, but if there is a discrepancy between what a person believes and what is generally accepted by others, then they have to be held accountable. If they aren't then, like the crayon-covered walls, what is deemed as socially unacceptable behavior will be permitted. And if they are permitted they will lead to harm within that society as they will contradict customs of that society, customs which would have generally evolved in the interest of those living there. More broadly, if someone's beliefs are considered immoral or harmful through consensus to either individuals or society, then those individuals should be held responsible for them. Everyone must be held responsible for exactly what they believe in case those beliefs harm others. I will be held just as responsible for my dislike of tomatoes as a pedophile will for their beliefs. However, I won't face the same consequences as a pedophile because generally, my beliefs on tomatoes are of little impact to others.
The final premise is relatively simple. It states that “we ought to promote well-being within our societies.” I use the word promote rather than maximize because I don't wish to make a utilitarian claim or any major claims about our moral imperatives for that matter. By promoting, I mean to set in place structures or systems to facilitate the general well-being of a population. It seems to me that “promoting well-being” is a relatively innocent and almost intuitive claim.
However, one could argue that a person's beliefs are highly personal and shouldn’t be subjected to what is largely subjective criticism. If I believe something but don't act on it, need I be held responsible for that belief? Some beliefs are so inherently harmful that even without action it will affect the well-being of others. The mere knowledge that someone holds white supremacist beliefs for example, even if they don't act on them, can still negatively impact others. In addition, while beliefs may be personal, actions are not. Now we are examining belief, not action, however, it is worth noting that most of the time, belief will manifest itself into action. If we let harmful beliefs, relative to our society, run rampant, then they will inevitably become actions that will have even more impact than pure belief. The only way to avoid this is to hold everyone responsible for what they believe.
For a society to function efficiently, it is borderline imperative that we be held responsible for our beliefs. Human societies are collective, groups of people with shared identities and motives, living together in relative harmony. These identities and motives are just another way of saying beliefs. As we have advanced as a species, we have become more tolerant of varying beliefs, but as societies, we still share many of the same fundamental beliefs. Being held responsible for our beliefs won't make us less tolerant of new ones, but rather help us navigate them, sorting through them for those we would deem acceptable. Say there exists a society in which all manner of belief is permitted with no restriction. Here, everyone has the right to believe what they like and the freedom to act according to those beliefs. Eventually, someone's beliefs will clash with the well-being of another: Pedophilia, antisemitism, racism, hatred towards people with orange hair, and so on. At that point, we have to weigh the cost of freedom in belief against the well-being of others. I argue that we have to preserve the well-being and happiness of a majority over complete freedom of belief.
