 Clifford and Locke, as we have seen, claim that the issue of whether we have done our doxastic best is an epistemic one and also (given a few further premises) a moral one. James, on the other hand, focuses on the important role played by prudential value in the ethics of belief, saying in one passage that Clifford's Principle not only puts us at “risk of losing the truth” and thus of violating an epistemic norm, but that it articulates an “insane logic”—an “absurdity” that guarantees prudential disaster (1896, 25). The general idea is that if something is beneficial, and believing that p will help us achieve, acquire, or actualize that thing, then it is prima facie prudent for us to believe that p. This will be true even if we lack sufficient evidence for the belief that p, and even if we are aware of that lack.