Bertrand Russell quote: “The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.”

“Evidence of justice and law will make but a small impression on such a man, while evidence of goodness will make a prodigious impression upon him.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

The Nature, Importance and Liberties of Belief (1873)
Context: A man who has a mere factual nature; a man who perceives without much power of reflection; a man who sees only facts, cannot come to any such judgment of truths as the man, higher than he, who not only perceives facts, but has also, by his mental constitution, the power to reason upon them, and to deduce the generic from the specific — that is, the principle from the facts. If it be investigation into the nature of truth as it is contained in the Word of God, a man's moral disposition will color his beliefs. If one, for instance, be largely conscientious, and endowed with small benevolence, the nature of his mind will make him sensitive to those representations of Scripture which depict God as standing upon law; as maintaining righteousness; as being good and just, rather than benevolent and sympathetic. If, on the other hand, a man be himself kind and benevolent, and if he have little conscientiousness, then the elements of sympathy will predominate in the God that he depicts, and the elements which tend towards legality will be comparatively wanting in him. Evidence of justice and law will make but a small impression on such a man, while evidence of goodness will make a prodigious impression upon him.

“Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill-founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.”

Willard van Orman Quine Two Dogmas of Empiricism

"Two dogmas of Empiricism"
From a Logical Point of View: Nine Logico-Philosophical Essays (1953)

“Confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book I, Ch. 14
Attributed
Variant: Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

“It has nothing to do with belief. It's a fact. It's the truth! As a scientist, I know it's true because science is based on skepticism. We consider all possibilities equally and decide on facts based on what stands up to empirical evidence. Which is how I know that you gomers are absolutely and totally wrong.”

Orl Unho (1976)

Sex Ed (2005)

“The whole of moral philosophy, as it is now widely taught, rests on a contrast between statements of fact and evaluations. … If a man is given good evidence for a factual conclusion he cannot just refuse to accept the conclusion on the ground that in his scheme of things this evidence is not evidence at all. With evaluations, however, it is different. An evaluation is not connected logically with the factual statements on which it is based.”

Philippa Foot (1920–2010) British philosopher

"Moral Beliefs"

“A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.”

David Hume book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Section X: Of Miracles; Part I. 87
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Context: In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

“Expect not… that efforts for the moral regeneration of man can be immediately crowned with success; operations upon masses are ever slow in progress, and their effects distant.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

“The disparagement of empirical evidence in favor of a metaphysical world of illusion has its origin in the conflict between the emancipated individual of bourgeois society and his fate within that society.”

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) German philosopher and sociologist

Source: "The Latest Attack on Metaphysics" (1937), p. 138.

“Some people like to talk of intuition as a way of knowing truth; that gut reactions are as good as evidence based facts. It’s a really silly way of thinking…”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

“A very eminent writer has observed, that "the conversion of the Gentile world, whether we consider the difficulties attending it, the opposition made to it, the wonderful work wrought to accomplish it, or the happy effects and consequences of it, may be considered as a more illustrious evidence of God's power, than even our Saviour's miracles of casting out devils, healing the sick, and raising the dead." Indeed, a miracle said to have been wrought without any attending circumstances to justify such an exertion of divine power, could not easily be rendered credible; and our author's argument proves no more. If it were related, that about 1700 years ago, a man was raised from the dead, without its answering any other end than that of restoring him to life, Iconfess that no degree of evidence could induce me tobelieve it; but if the moral government of God appeared in that event, and there were circumstances attending it which could not be accounted for by any human means, the fact becomes credible. When two extraordinary events are thus connected, the proof of one established the truth of the other. Our author has reasoned upon the fact as standing alone, in which case it would not be easy to disprove some of his reasoning; but the fact should be considered in a moral view - as connected with the establishment of a pure religion, and it then becomes credible. In the proof of any circumstance, we must consider every principle which tends to establish it; whereas our author, by considering the case of a man said to have been raised from the dead, simpli in a physical point of view, without any reference to a moral end, endavours to show that it cannot be rendered credible; and, from such principles, we may admit his conclusions without affecting the credibility of Christianity. The general principle on which he establishes his argument, is not the great foundation upon which the evidence of Christianity rests. He says, "Notestimony can be sufficient to establish a miracle, unless it be of such a kind, that the falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endavours to prove." Now this reasoning, at furthest, can only be admitted in those cases where the fact has nothing but testimony to establish it. But the proofs of Christianity do not rest simply upon the testimony of its first promulgators, and that of those who were affterwards the instruments of communicating it; but they rest principally upon the acknowledged and very extraordinary affects which were produced by the preaching of a few unlearned, obscure persons, who taught "Christ crucified;" and it is upon these indisuptable matters of ffact which we reason; and when the effects are totally unaccountable upon any principle which we can collect from the operation of human means, we must either admit miracles, or admit an effect without an adequate cause. Also, when the proof of any position depends upon arguments drawn from various sources, all concutring to establish its turh, to select some one circumstance, and atrempt to show that that alone is not sufficient to render the fact credible, and thence infer that it is not ture, is a conclusion not to be admitted. But it is thus that our author has endavoured to destroy the credibiliry of Christianity, the evidences of which depend upon a great variety of circumstances and facts which are indisputably true, all cooperating to confirm its truth; but an examination of these falls not whithin the plan here proposed. He rests all his arguments upon the extraordinary nature of the fact, considered alone by itself; for a common fact, with the same evidence, would immediately be admitted. I have endavoured to show, that the extraordinary nature, as much as the mosst common events are necessary to fulfill the usual dispensations of Providence, and therefore the Deity was then direted by the same motive as in a more ordinary case, that of affording us such assitance as our moral condition renders necessary. In the establishment of a pur religion, the proof of its divine origin may require some very extraordinary circumstances which may never afterwards be requisite, and accordingly we find that they have not happened. Here is therefore a perfect concistencty in the operation of the Deity, in his moral government, and not a violation of the laws of nature: Secondly, the fact is immediately connected with others which are indisputably true, and which, without the supossition of the truth of that fact, would be, at least, equally miraculous. Thus I conceive the reasoning of our author to be totally inconclusive; and the argumentss which have been employed to prove the fallacy of his conclusions, appear at the same time, fully to justify our belief in, and prove the moral certainty of, our holy religion.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 27; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA262," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 262-263

“The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.”

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