Seeking literature on whether all beliefs should be justified

Question

This is more or less just a reference request.

Sometimes, when a belief is revealed to be unjustified, we should respond by either giving up that belief or at the very least, yielding a certain amount of confidence in it. For example, I initially thought I had work last Monday, but then when I found out it was President's Day, that undercut my justification and I promptly became skeptical.

But it seems like there are other times when the lack of justification shouldn't bother us. For example, I can't justify my belief in the inductive principle. But when I became aware of this lack of justification, it didn't shake my confidence in induction---not even a little bit. Moreover, it's hard to see why it should have shaken it.

So I am led to the following:

Question. Can you guys please point me to relevant literature by philosophers who take the view that justification is not always essential for beliefs to be acceptable (in some epistemic sense)?

I guess you could argue about whether the above examples really show what I want them to show, or whether my view is wrong for some other reason. But that's not really the purpose of this question. Rather, I'd like to know if there are any competent, respected philosophers who take a view like mine, and how they express it.

Thanks!

EDIT: When I talk about "justification" I may be using the word more broadly than perhaps I should. For instance, Plantinga thinks that some beliefs are basic in the sense that they are not inferred from other beliefs, but nevertheless he thinks that basic beliefs should have warrant, i.e. they should be properly basic. Maybe technically that doesn't count as justification, but it's still the sort of thing that I don't buy. I'd like to find a philosopher or two who agrees that we are within epistemic norms or rights, or something like that, to take certain beliefs on "faith alone," so to speak. Forgive the religious language, but that's the best way I know how to articulate it.

Answer 1

The most obvious book that comes to mind is :

Michael Williams, Groundless Belief, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, and Yale University Press, New Haven, 1977.

A useful article is :

Paul Horwich, 'Ungrounded Reason', The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 105, No. 9, Epistemic Norms. Part One (Sep., 2008), pp. 453-471.

Wittgenstein's On Certainty is also relevant : a guide to some key points is to be found in:

Dallas M. High, 'Wittgenstein on Doubting and Groundless Believing', Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 249-266.

Or in more detail :

Thomas Morawetz, Wittgenstein and Knowledge: The Importance of On Certainty, ISBN 10: 0855279575 / ISBN 13: 9780855279578. Published by Harvester Press, 1980.

Answer 2

Here is the question:

Can you guys please point me to relevant literature by philosophers who take the view that justification is not always essential for beliefs to be acceptable (in some epistemic sense)?

The "should" question whether beliefs should be justified raises the question of moral obligation. If one should do something or other, including justifying one's beliefs, to whom or what are we obligated to do so? It might be the government. It might be members of one's family or friends. It might be some deity.

If one is a theist, it is easy to identify this Who. It would be the God identified by that theism to Whom one is morally obligated. But if one is not a theist perhaps the largest entity, outside of oneself or one's acquaintances, one might be obligated to would be some government.

G. E. M. Anscombe discusses the theme of moral obligation in her paper, Modern Moral Philosophy. She questions not just a moral obligation to justify one's beliefs, but any moral obligation whatsoever.

Before one asks should one be morally obligated to justify one's beliefs, one needs to identify to whom or what one should be so obligated. Then one needs to question whether one should have such obligations at all especially if acknowledging such moral obligations makes matters worse than they would be without those obligations.

---

Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). Modern moral philosophy. Philosophy, 33(124), 1-19. https://www.pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/mmp.pdf