Religious epistemology is interested in determining whether religious belief is rational. But the nature of rationality is a more general epistemological question. What does it mean to hold a rational belief? What conditions must be satisfied for any belief to qualify as rational? In each of the following cases, someone holds at least one belief that you must examine in terms of its rationality or irrationality. Examine the following cases and determine whether and why each case represents a case of a rational belief or one that is irrational.

1. The registrar's office tells Professor Getlucky that 11 out of the 12 students in his philosophy of human nature class are philosophy majors. Later that day, he meets a student named Karen, and she informs him that she is enrolled in his course. On the basis of this evidence, he draws the conclusion that Karen is a philosophy major. In fact, she is the one student in the class who is not a philosophy major.
2. Kramer is driving down the road to the market. He begins to smell a burning odor inside his car, but then it dissipates. He recalls that his car is overdue for a servicing and that his wife complained that the car was making strange noises when she went to the market the previous week. He concludes that there is something wrong with car. In fact, there is something wrong with it.
3. Lester the LSD freak dropped some acid after returning home from a Rolling Stones concert. Shortly thereafter, he believes that there are pink and black rabbits hopping around his living room. That's how things seem to him in his experience, so he believes it. (Of course, there are no rabbits in his living room)
4. After visiting his doctor, Kevin is correctly informed that he has cancer. He is shown the test results and the doctor explains to him the ramifications of his condition and what immediate treatment will be required. Kevin refuses to believe the doctor. He continues to believe I do not have cancer.
5. A group of three college kids are hiking in the woods of Maryland as part of a college film project to document a local witch legend. After going off the trail, they wander for hours through the woods unable to locate the original trail. The leader of the group, Heather, remains optimistic that they are going in the right direction, though they are several hours overdue from find either the original path or from reaching their destination. However, they do eventually end up at their destination though.

 

6. On Monday, John has eggs for breakfast. On Friday he recalls having had eggs for breakfast on Monday and so believes I had eggs for breakfast on Monday.
7. Mr. Hogan looks out the window in the morning. It seems to him that it is raining outside, so he forms the belief that it is raining outside.
8. Gary was born on May 11, 1961. Gary tells Mark that he was born on May 11, 1961. Mark believes that Gary was born on May 11, 1961.
9. Same as #8, but Gary was not born on May 11, 1961. He lied to Mark, but Mark believed him.
10. Peter is an extreme paranoid schizophrenic who, every night on his way home from work, fears that someone is following him home from work. On a particular occasion this belief is induced by his paranoia, but in fact someone is following him.
11. Emma is a member of a community in which it is common knowledge that the Midnight Enquirer is a newspaper devoted to fantastic, fabricated stories, and gossip with the goal of merely entertaining readers. One day Emma picks up an issue of the paper and reads a story that alleges that Bill Clinton is an alien from Alpha Centauri. Fascinated by UFOs and the prospects of a close encounter of the third kind, She believes this.
12. Fred contracts a form of local feline phobia syndrome. As a consequence he forms the belief that his cat Salem crawls to his face at night with the intent of killing him by fur suffocation, and that Salem conspires in this with the other cats in the neighborhood. He therefore concludes that not all cats are friendly creatures.
13. A friend of Lee suggests to him that his wife may be cheating on him. A bit carried away with his emotions, he carelessly collects evidence that ends up supporting his friend's testimony. Had he been more careful in his evidence gathering, the evidence would have supported a very different conclusion. But on the basis of the evidence that he has carelessly gathered, Lee believes that his wife is cheating on him. In fact, she is not.
14. Same as #13, only Lee's wife is cheating on him.