TOK Type Essay: What distinguishes a good justification from a bad one?

Justifications are facts, explanations, maybe reasons or circumstances that are able to defend a statement or a theory.  All of these factors are only created because of human nature and their will power to achieve knowledge, a justified true belief. In the novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe one is able to recognize a relevant number of situations where beliefs, theories and overall knowledge are put into controversy between two different groups of persons: the Igbo culture and the white men. These misunderstandings are mostly created due to several differences of opinions towards factors like religion and culture traditions. Nevertheless, one has to take into account that justification is never infallible; in fact reliability is what distinguishes a good justification from a bad one. With this in mind, taking Chinua Achebe’s novel as an example, what would distinguish a good justification from a bad one?

It is true that in order for someone to state that they know something, they must be able to justify their beliefs, which is exactly what is going to be explored throughout this essay. There is a big line between knowledge and belief, it is important for a human being to be able to recognize that believing something does not make it specifically true; truth is an independent factor from what anyone believes. The Igbo culture, as well as the white men culture used to be great believers of faith; they both had very concise ideas about their gods and in what they actually believed in. The difference between these two communities was that the Christian missionaries from the white men believed that they were morally superior to the Ibo people. They consistently tried to transform a completely different culture into something more “European”, in other words they entirely overlooked the cultural richness of the African’s. For them, Africa had always been and was still going to be the Dark Continent unless somebody came to “save” them.  What they didn’t take into account is that there was value in the African civilization right before the white men created a common belief that stated that its entire people needed to be “saved”. With this in mind, a question arises that states weather or not the white men were right, in what ways were their justifications true? The majority doesn’t change anything, even if everyone believes something to be true, it may still be false. This statement creates a lot of controversy around the world till these days because religion is really about having faith, nobody can either proof their beliefs in those contexts to be right or wrong. When one is able to believe in something, like the Christians in God or the Ibo people in the Oracle, they are accepting that it is true, that it exists. But the truth is, belief can only be categorized as knowledge if the belief is true and it has a reliable justification. Taking this into account, none of the cultures were either right or wrong, a none had the power of categorizing themselves as “better”.

In “Things Fall Apart” one can recognize two different beliefs about religion; the Ibo people believe that "there is one supreme god who made heaven and earth...[they]...call him Chukwu. He made all the world and the other gods" (Achebe Pg. 179) and although this may sound very similar to the Christian belief about the creation of the world, the missionaries still state that "the Ibo people worship false gods, gods of wood and stone" (Achebe Pg. 120).  The main issue with this types of prejudiced statements is that they are subjective; along with facts the white men is putting personal feelings and opinions into an argument, which ends up making the argument biased and not justifiable. Again, this justification is required when it comes to presenting true knowledge, the real difference between a good and a bad justification is mostly based on reliability. Achebe allows the reader to view the story from a slightly biased point of view supporting the African culture, one can tend to choose the Ibo culture as the victims and innocent’s of the story making an individual believe that they may justify their beliefs better than the white men. The truth is that this is not verifiable in any way, both communities have the same probability of being wrong or right regarding their cultural beliefs and there is always the possibility of every information being false no matter how reliable the source is. An important factor that must be taken into consideration in this specific case is that both claims are being justified mainly through perception. The problem with its reliability is that knowledge that is acquired from perception is only based by ones personal experiences and senses.  There is no difference of quality when comparing both of the cultures beliefs; religion will always be a non-justifiable type of knowledge, a factor based on faith rather than reliability.

More contrasts about how the people used to classify communities as the “good” and the “bad” ones in those times is shown through Reverend James Smith mentioning an extremely cold view about the Ibo people, “he saw things as black and white. And black was evil” (Achebe Pg. 184). Once again, one is able to see how the white man faithfully believes that he is for sure superior to the Ibo people and that their entire culture should be erased and finally rebuilt in order to achieve the Christian model. The missionaries especially enjoyed mentioning the benefits they were bringing to the foreign nation, the District Commissioner had also “already chosen the title of his book… The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” (Achebe Pg. 209). This only makes the reader question weather or not their actions were in fact benevolent and with the purpose of helping the country, or if they were just trying to colonize territory and gain resources.  With this in mind, from an analytical point of view the reader can recognize that by doing this, the white men is claiming their priorities and beliefs to have the best justifications. In contrast, from the point of view of Unoka, one is able to see how inclusively characters that appear very absent throughout the novel also show how important their beliefs in religion were, “he said sadly, “before I put any crop in the earth, I sacrifice a cock to Ani, the owner of all land. It is the law of our fathers. I also kill a cock at the shrine of Ifejioku, the god of yams. I clear the bush and set fire to it when it is dry. I sow the yams when the first rain has fallen, and stake them when the young tendrils appear…” (Achebe 3.6) This ritual is used to communicate respect to the gods of the earth, who have control and power over the success of the plantings, especially yams. Once again one is able to see to what extent they believe in some things although they cannot justify them to be truth, the Ibo culture as well as the missionaries build their beliefs up on two important factors: faith and trust.

Going back to the question about what really distinguishes a good justification from a bad one based on the Chinua Achebe’s novel and the interaction of the characters within “Things Fall Apart”, one has to always keep in mind that beliefs, claims, theories and even emotions can all be justified. The controversy comes when comparing whether or not it is a good or bad justification, which mainly depends on the reliability and the context of the topic.