It is vital that every belief is thoroughly explored and justified to avoid any future repercussions. Clifford provides two examples in which, regardless of the outcome, the party who creates a belief without exhaustive justification ends up at fault. You can apply the situations described in The Ethics of Belief to any case of belief and come to the conclusion that justification is of the utmost importance. Justifying beliefs is so important because even the smallest beliefs influence others in the community, add to the overall belief system, and alter the believer's moral compass in future decisions. Clifford believes that it is a moral requirement that beliefs be justified in order to minimize beliefs. possibility that a mistaken belief could influence other people. In the case of the shipowner, who sent his old emigrant ship to sea based solely on being able to quell his doubts, he killed every family in search of a better future. His unwarranted conviction had minimal effect on his business, but destroyed the lives of many families, due to his negligence in repairing the ship. Clifford argues that even if the ship had arrived safely, the shipowner is still guilty of failing to justify his belief because once an action occurred; it is “right or wrong forever” (Clifford). The only difference would be that he wouldn't discover his wrongdoings. His decision to convince himself that his ship would not fail him served two purposes: to save his business money and to put his mind at ease if anything happened to the people aboard his ship. In the second example, unjustified accusations against “individual citizens of higher position and character” (Clifford), damage their professional lives. The accusations... are at the heart of the card... they start from previous experiences and base future decisions on what they have experienced. When a person makes an unjustified decision, he unconsciously changes the way he sees future problems. If the decision is not based on truth, it allows them some unearned freedom to make bad decisions, as opposed to making good decisions. It is essential that every decision you make is justified in order to maintain your moral compass and make the right decisions when the choice is difficult. Clifford makes a very strong and valid argument to justify every decision, no matter how insignificant. Using his view of thought, it is easy to see why everyone has the moral right to justify decisions. Without society's cooperation in making every decision justified, it is useless to hold someone accountable for an immoral belief.