 In some places, Clifford seems simply to presume that epistemic duty is a species of ethical duty. That would make sense of why he thinks it just obvious that the shipowner is “equally guilty”—regardless of whether the ship sinks. Elsewhere Clifford defends (P2) by reference to our need to rely on the testimony of others in order to avoid significant harm and advance scientific progress. No belief is without effect, he claims: at the very least, believing on insufficient evidence (even with respect to an apparently very insignificant issue) is liable to lead to the lowering of epistemic standards in other more important contexts too. And that could, in turn, have bad moral consequences.