ABSTRACT
Inanimate objects can fulfil the first condition of having beliefs. The most important element in a belief is the disposition to act, externally and internally, on the proposition believed. So long as an organism does this, it will – given that its beliefs are true – be doing all that it can, so far as beliefs are concerned, to survive. A feeling of confidence, therefore, is a luxury though so long as one's beliefs are true, it is better to be confident of them than otherwise. Faith and belief in are sometimes supposed to be duties, or if not actually duties, something which we ought to have rather than lack, or which we ought to try to inculcate in others and foster in ourselves. The view that though factual beliefs are morally neutral, moral beliefs are not is not the view of the ordinary man. Some beliefs are alleged to be self-verifying.
