Aoki
Hiroya Aoki
Professor: James
ARW section: AC
8, March 2007

Reaction to Meiland's "Why Reasons Matter"
Summary
In "Why Reasons Matter", Meiland argues that beliefs must have good reasons. Meiland explained five reasons why beliefs must have good reasons. First, He mentioned that we believea belief that is supported by good reasons.Second, beliefs that has good reasons help usto achieve our goals or to get along in the world. Third, basing beliefs on good reasons helps tomake us the persons that we want to be and to produce the comfortable society. Fourth, we hold true beliefs long. If a belief has no reason, we'll discard it easily. But, we'll continue tohold a belief if it has good reasons. Finally, we can understand beliefs better by examining reasons for those. Therefore, Meiland argues that beliefs must have good reasons.

Discussion
In "Why Reasons Matter", Meiland argues that beliefs must have good reasons. I focus on that we believe a belief that is supported by good reasons. I think it is true in three reasons.First, I never believe without the expained evidence or watching it. For example, I never believeghost because I have never seen it. Second, beliefs without good reason have no value.We can't use such beliefs because we can't judge whether beliefs is true or not. We never believe a belief that we can't use. Third, the college work ask us to examine reasons to supportbeliefs. we must find reasons to support beliefs in order to make people understand beliefs.Therefore, I agree Meiland's argument that we believe a belief that is supported by good reasons.

Work Cited
Meiland, Jack W. College Thinking: How To Get the Best Out of College. New York: AmericanLibrary, 1981. (The ELP Reader, 2007. 3-24)