Why Hitchens’ Razor is Bad Epistemology
Few modern slogans in popular atheism have the enduring appeal of Hitchens’ Razor: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. It is elegant and sharp. And it is an effective epistemic heuristic—a rough and dirty rule that gets things right often enough. So, at first glance, the razor looks like an epistemic principle for distinguishing rational belief from mere assertion. Unfortunately, despite its pith, if taken as an epistemic norm, it is garbage. This article is meant as a warning against taking Hitchens’ Razor too seriously, even while acknowledging that there are indeed cases where the lack of evidence is sufficient for rejecting something. Taken as a hard and fast epistemic rule, it fails for two reasons. I. Not All Rational Beliefs Require Evidence The first mistake is the assumption that every rational belief must be supported by evidence. That view is intuitively appealing—especially to empiricists—but it cannot be sustained without circularity. Start with a simple case: the belief, “I have a belief.” That belief is rational, and indeed undeniable, …
