1: Beliefs, regardless of their importance, are always significant and leave a lasting effect on the person holding the belief and society as a whole.

2: Due to the fact that beliefs impact all of us, if one holds a false belief or does not question their own beliefs, it will negatively affect society.

3: The only way to avoid false/negative beliefs is to constantly remain skeptical and question everything we believe.

C: Therefore, it is our obligation as humans in a society to remain doubtful about what we believe and put every belief through extensive investigation and skepticism.

This argument is overall a strong argument with fair enough soundness and validity to regard it as such. Clifford clearly uses examples and reasoning to explain why beliefs are important to the individual, in that, regardless of if we act on our beliefs or not, he believes they will manifest in a different manner. Therefore, false or negative beliefs will, in the end, influence us and the world around us. However, he does not thoroughly explain why or how and individual and their beliefs must align with what is good for society. Why do people have an obligation to do good upon the world? And how does each individual understand that so-called duty? Is it necessary for us to uphold and execute this duty we have to ourselves and each other, for the good of humanity? Regardless of one’s own belief that doing good for humanity is an objectively necessary thing, Clifford does not sufficiently explain the necessity of this duty in his argument.

In addition, the idea that the solution to filtering out false beliefs is to remain critical is a believable statement. However, how can the individual’s influence on their vision of skepticism counter this? One person can believe that they have put their own beliefs through every form of questioning imaginable, and other individual could believe the same thing about their beliefs, and yet, they could not agree. Why? Because their levels of skepticism may be different. How can there be one right method of questioning one’s beliefs when everyone thinks differently? Yes, society has an overarching message of morality, but that also differs from country to country, city to city, person to person. Perhaps it is not Clifford’s point that everyone’s beliefs and questioning of such beliefs have to align, but rather, that we simply need to remain mindful, individually, to ensure that society is not affected, but it still begs the question of what is a right way to question beliefs.

There are not many fallacies, if any at all, in Clifford’s argument. Perhaps a fallacy of presumption, in that Clifford makes the conclusion that we have an obligation to do good for society, and that each of us have a similar method of questioning our belief systems.

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