The epistemology of disagreement standardly divides conciliationist views from steadfast views. But both sorts of views are subject to counterexample—indeed, both sorts of views are subject to the same counterexample. After presenting this counterexample, I explore how the epistemology of disagreement should be reconceptualized in light of it.

I offer an epistemic framework for theorising about faith. I suggest that epistemic faith is a disposition to believe or infer according to particular methods, despite a kind of tendency to perceive an epistemic shortcoming in that method. Faith is unjustified, and issues into unjustified beliefs, when the apparent epistemic shortcomings are actual; it is justified when the epistemic worries are unfounded. Virtuous faith is central to a great deal of epistemology. A rational agent will manifest faith in their perceptual (...) abilities, in determining which experts and testifiers to trust, in their a priori reasoning, and in the epistemic capacities that are specific to their social environment. To ignore faith is to ignore a crucial element of our social and individualistic epistemic lives. One exercises faith when one forms beliefs despite a kind of apparent epistemic shortcoming, which may or may not correspond to a genuine weakness in evidential support. For example, standing on a bridge one knows to be safe, despite one's natural but irrational fear, can manifest a kind of epistemic faith. So too can forming perceptual beliefs, or engaging in logical inferences, despite lacking a dialectically satisfying response to skeptical arguments. The same goes for beliefs that are informed by one's ideological stance – these too count as manifestations of faith, and under some circumstances, such faith is epistemically appropriate. One upshot of my project will be that an intuitively appealing neutrality ideal for education and discourse is untenable. I'll conclude with some discussion of practical questions about whether, when, and why it can be worthwhile engaging seriously with people who have radically opposed views and frameworks. (shrink)

We explore the question of whether sustained rational disagreement is possible from a broadly Bayesian perspective. The setting is one where agents update on the same information, with special consideration being given to the case of uncertain information. The classical merging of opinions theorem of Blackwell and Dubins shows when updated beliefs come and stay closer for Bayesian conditioning. We extend this result to a type of Jeffrey conditioning where agents update on evidence that is uncertain but solid. However, merging (...) of beliefs does not generally hold for Jeffrey conditioning on evidence that is fluid. Several theorems on the asymptotic behavior of subjective probabilities are proven. Taken together they show that while a consensus nearly always emerges in important special cases, sustained rational disagreement can be expected in many other situations. (shrink)

InThe Methods of EthicsHenry Sidgwick argued against deontology and for consequentialism. More specifically, he stated four conditions for self-evident moral truth and argued that, whereas no deontological principles satisfy all four conditions, the principles that generate consequentialism do. This article argues that both his critique of deontology and his defence of consequentialism fail, largely for the same reason: that he did not clearly grasp the concept W. D. Ross later introduced of a prima facie duty or duty other things equal. (...) The moderate deontology Ross's concept allows avoids many of Sidgwick's objections. And Sidgwick's statements of his own axioms equivocate in exactly the same way for which he criticized deontological ones. Only if they are read as other things equal can they seem intuitive and earn widespread agreement; but that form is too weak to ground consequentialism. And in the form that does yield consequentialism they are neither intuitive nor widely accepted. Sidgwick's arguments against a rival view and for his own were, in multiple ways, unfair. (shrink)

Many views rely on the idea that it can never be rational to have high confidence in something like, “P, but my evidence doesn’t support P.” Call this idea the “Non-Akrasia Constraint”. Just as an akratic agent acts in a way she believes she ought not act, an epistemically akratic agent believes something that she believes is unsupported by her evidence. The Non-Akrasia Constraint says that ideally rational agents will never be epistemically akratic. In a number of recent papers, the (...) Non-Akrasia Constraint has been called into question. The goal of this paper is to defend it... for the most part. (shrink)

Richard Feldman has argued that in cases of religious disagreement between epistemic peers who have shared all relevant evidence, epistemic rationality requires suspense of judgment. I argue that Feldman’s postulation of completely shared evidence is unrealistic for the kinds of disputes he is considering, since different starting points will typically produce different assessments of what the evidence is and how it should be weighed. Feldman argues that there cannot be equally reasonable starting points, but his extension of the postulate of (...) completely shared evidence to evidence for starting points involves an illicit assimilation of ordinary cases of evidence assessment to cases in which substantial agreement about background assumptions is lacking. I also clarify why even if Feldman were correct about what epistemic norms require, his conclusion would not show that we should actually suspend judgment about religious or anti-religious truth claims. (shrink)

This paper offers a new account of the epistemic significance of disagreement which is grounded in two assumptions; that knowledge is the norm of belief and, that the safety condition is a necessary condition for knowledge. These assumptions motivate a modal definition of epistemic peerhood, which is much easier to operate on than the more traditional definitions of epistemic peerhood. The modal account of the epistemic significance of disagreement yields plausible results regarding cases of disagreement. Furthermore, it is able to (...) tap into the intuitions that have motivated the conformist and the nonconformist positions and it locates a fruitful middle-ground between these two conflicting positions. It will be shown that the conformist is correct in that cases of real peer disagreement force us to suspend our judgment. The reason for this is that in cases of real peer disagreement our beliefs fail to be safe. The nonconformist, on the other hand, is right in that disagreement in itself does not have any epistemic power. It is only by the grace of nature that we gain knowledge. The fact that someone disagrees with you does not mean that you do not have knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the relation between Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates, abatement cost analyses, and individual climate duties. I first highlight the stakes that SCC and abatement cost estimates potentially have for the content of individual duties to either pay the full or fair cost of their carbon emissions, or offset the volume of their emissions. I survey four methodological options (a minimalist approach, a precautionary approach, an averaging approach, and what I call a ‘sufficiency-bounded’ precautionary approach) (...) for conceptualizing the terrain of individual duties in light of SCC and abatement cost estimates that are both contentious and evolving. (shrink)

The authors argue in favor of the “nonconciliation” (or “steadfast”) position concerning the problem of peer disagreement. Throughout the paper they place heavy emphasis on matters of phenomenology—on how things seem epistemically with respect to the net import of one’s available evidence vis-à-vis the disputed claim p, and on how such phenomenology is affected by the awareness that an interlocutor whom one initially regards as an epistemic peer disagrees with oneself about p. Central to the argument is a nested goal/sub-goal (...) hierarchy that the authors claim is inherent to the structure of epistemically responsible belief-formation: pursuing true beliefs by pursuing beliefs that are objectively likely given one’s total available evidence; pursuing this sub-goal by pursuing beliefs that are likely true (given that evidence) relative to one’s own deep epistemic sensibility; and pursuing this sub-sub-goal by forming beliefs in accordance with one’s own all-in, ultima facie, epistemic seemings. (shrink)

Metacognitive mental states are mental states about mental states. For example, I may be uncertain whether my belief is correct. In social discourse, an interlocutor’s metacognitive certainty may constitute evidence about the reliability of their testimony. For example, if a speaker is certain that their belief is correct, then we may take this as evidence in favour of their belief, or its content. This paper argues that, if metacognitive certainty is genuine evidence, then it is disproportionate evidence for extreme beliefs. (...) In support of the argument, we report findings from five studies with different participant samples, designs, and measures. These studies show that, the more extreme an agent’s belief (positive or negative), the more certain they are about it, and vice versa. This relationship might contribute to moralism, virtue signalling, and polarisation, which in turn may be epistemically and morally problematic. Therefore, we caution against taking metacognitive certainty as genuine evidence. (shrink)

We argue that social deliberation may increase an agent’s confidence and credence under certain circumstances. An agent considers a proposition H and assigns a probability to it. However, she is not fully confident that she herself is reliable in this assignment. She then endorses H during deliberation with another person, expecting him to raise serious objections. To her surprise, however, the other person does not raise any objections to H. How should her attitudes toward H change? It seems plausible that (...) she should increase the credence she assigns to H and, at the same time, increase the reliability she assigns to herself concerning H. A Bayesian model helps us to investigate under what conditions, if any, this is rational. (shrink)

In this paper we propose and analyze a game-theoretic model of the epistemology of peer disagreement. In this model, the peers' rationality is evaluated in terms of their probability of ending the disagreement with a true belief. We find that different strategies---in particular, one based on the Steadfast View and one based on the Conciliatory View---are rational depending on the truth-sensitivity of the individuals involved in the disagreement. Interestingly, the Steadfast and the Conciliatory Views can even be rational simultaneously in (...) some circumstances. We tentatively provide some reasons to favor the Conciliatory View in such cases. We argue that the game-theoretic perspective is a fruitful one in this debate, and this fruitfulness has not been exhausted by the present paper. (shrink)

I advocate Time-Slice Rationality, the thesis that the relationship between two time-slices of the same person is not importantly different, for purposes of rational evaluation, from the relationship between time-slices of distinct persons. The locus of rationality, so to speak, is the time-slice rather than the temporally extended agent. This claim is motivated by consideration of puzzle cases for personal identity over time and by a very moderate form of internalism about rationality. Time-Slice Rationality conflicts with two proposed principles of (...) rationality, Conditionalization and Reflection. Conditionalization is a diachronic norm saying how your current degrees of belief should fit with your old ones, while Reflection is a norm enjoining you to defer to the degrees of belief that you expect to have in the future. But they are independently problematic and should be replaced by improved, time-slice-centric principles. Conditionalization should be replaced by a synchronic norm saying what degrees of belief you ought to have given your current evidence and Reflection should be replaced by a norm which instructs you to defer to the degrees of belief of agents you take to be experts. These replacement principles do all the work that the old principles were supposed to do while avoiding their problems. In this way, Time-Slice Rationality puts the theory of rationality on firmer foundations and yields better norms than alternative, non-time-slice-centric approaches. (shrink)

Humans typically display hindsight bias. They are more confident that the evidence available beforehand made some outcome probable when they know the outcome occurred than when they don't. There is broad consensus that hindsight bias is irrational, but this consensus is wrong. Hindsight bias is generally rationally permissible and sometimes rationally required. The fact that a given outcome occurred provides both evidence about what the total evidence available ex ante was, and also evidence about what that evidence supports. Even if (...) you in fact evaluate the ex ante evidence correctly, you should not be certain of this. Then, learning the outcome provides evidence that if you erred, you are more likely to have erred low rather than high in estimating the degree to which the ex ante evidence supported the hypothesis that that outcome would occur. (shrink)

Higher-order evidence is evidence about what is rational to think in light of your evidence. Many have argued that it is special – falling into its own evidential category, or leading to deviations from standard rational norms. But it is not. Given standard assumptions, almost all evidence is higher-order evidence.

This paper concerns would-be necessary connections between doxastic attitudes about the epistemic statuses of your doxastic attitudes, or ‘higher-order epistemic attitudes’, and the epistemic statuses of those doxastic attitudes. I will argue that, in some situations, it can be reasonable for a person to believe p and to suspend judgment about whether believing p is reasonable for her. This will set the stage for an account of the virtue of intellectual humility, on which humility is a matter of your higher-order (...) epistemic attitudes. Recent discussions in the epistemology of disagreement have assumed that the question of the proper response to disagreement about p concerns whether you ought to change your doxastic attitude towards p. My conclusion here suggests an alternative approach, on which the question of the proper response to disagreement about p concerns the proper doxastic attitude to adopt concerning the epistemic status of your doxastic attitude towards p.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.HIGHER-ORDER EPISTEMIC ATTITUDES AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITYVolume 9, Issue 3Allan HazlettDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.11Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. HIGHER-ORDER EPISTEMIC ATTITUDES AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITYVolume 9, Issue 3Allan HazlettDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.11Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. HIGHER-ORDER EPISTEMIC ATTITUDES AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITYVolume 9, Issue 3Allan HazlettDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.11Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

Most people not only think that it is possible for reasonable people to disagree, but that it is possible for people to recognize that they are parties to a reasonable disagreement. The aim of this paper is to explain how such mutually recognized reasonable disagreements are possible. I appeal to an which implies a form of relativism about reasonable belief, based on the idea that whether a belief is reasonable for a person can depend on the fact that she has (...) inherited a particular worldview from her community. (shrink)

This article introduces Metaphilosophy's special issue on metatheories of disagreement, with the aim of promoting discussion on the nature of disagreement on a metatheoretical level. The contributions to this issue cover the following key topics related to disagreement: faultless disagreement, metaontological disagreement, metalinguistic disagreement, responses to peer disagreement in philosophy, hinge epistemology and deep disagreement, disagreement asymmetry, factual and nonfactual disagreement, and defining disagreement or verbal dispute. This introduction also provides general background on four major topics in order to contextualize (...) the contributions to the special issue: first, the problem of characterizing the subject matter of disagreements; second, the most prominent accounts of deep disagreement, disagreement asymmetry and hinges; third, the notion of faultless disagreement; and finally, the problem of offering different approaches on what disagreements are. (shrink)

We use “I’ll be glad I did it” reasoning all the time. For example, last night I was trying to decide whether to work on this paper or go out to a movie. I realized that if I worked on the paper, then today I would be glad I did it. Whereas, if I went out to the movie, today I would regret it. This enabled me to see that I should work on the paper rather than going out to (...) a movie. This looks like excellent reasoning: Paper argument: 1. If I work on my paper, I’ll be glad I did it. 2. Therefore, I should work on my paper. When we’re having trouble making a big life decision, we often try to picture what will happen each way we might choose, and imagine how we’ll feel in that outcome. When choosing between two jobs, we might use this reasoning. Suppose you are choosing between two jobs and you know quite a lot about what the two jobs will be like. In one, you will make a lot of money but have to work eighty-hour weeks and see little of your family. In the other, you will make considerably less money—though enough to support yourself and your family. You’ll have much more time for your family. The money is attractive. But overall, you realize you’ll be glad to have the time with your family if you take the second job—you’ll be glad you made that choice. It seems this is a good way of realizing that you should take the second job. (shrink)

Deliberation is a standard procedure to make decisions in not too large groups. It has the advantage that the group members can learn from each other and that, at the end, often a consensus emerges that everybody endorses. But a deliberation procedure also has a number of disadvantages. E.g., what consensus is reached usually depends on the order in which the different group members speak. More specifically, the group member who speaks first often has an unproportionally high impact on the (...) final decision: She anchors the deliberation process. While the anchoring effect undoubtably appears in real deliberating groups, we ask whether it also appears in groups whose members are truth-seeking and rational in the sense that they take the information provided by their fellow group members properly into account by updating their beliefs according to plausible rules. To answer this question and to make some progress towards explaining the anchoring effect, a formal model is constructed and analyzed. Using this model, we study the anchoring effect in homogenous groups, for which we provide analytical results, and in inhomogeneous groups, for which we provide simulation results. (shrink)

To enhance the plausibility of naturalistic moral realism, David Copp develops an argument from epistemic defeaters aiming to show that strongly a priori synthetic moral truths do not exist. In making a case for the non-naturalistic position, I locate Copp’s account within the wider literature on peer disagreement; I identify key points of divergence between Copp’s doctrine and conciliatorist doctrines; I introduce the notion of ‘minimal moral competence’; I contend that some plausible benchmarks for minimal moral competence are grounded in (...) substantive moral considerations; and I discuss two forms of spinelessness that Copp’s moral naturalism could result in. (shrink)

The degree of doxastic revision required in response to evidence of disagreement is typically thought to be a function of our beliefs about (1) our interlocutor’s familiarity with the relevant evidence and arguments, and their intellectual capacities and virtues, relative to our own, or (2) the expected probability of our interlocutor being correct, conditional on our disagreeing. While these two factors are typically used interchangeably, I show that they have an inverse correlation in cases of disagreement about politically divisive propositions. (...) This presents us with a puzzle about the epistemic impact of disagreement in these cases. The most significant disagreements on (1) are the least significant disagreements on (2), and vice versa. I show that assessing the epistemic status of an interlocutor by reference to either (1) or (2) has uncomfortable consequences in these cases. I then argue that this puzzle cannot be escaped by claiming that we usually have dispute-independent reason to reject the significance of politically charged disagreement altogether. (shrink)

In this article we discuss what we call the deliberative division of epistemic labor. We present evidence that the human tendency to engage in motivated reasoning in defense of our beliefs can facilitate the occurrence of divisions of epistemic labor in deliberations among people who disagree. We further present evidence that these divisions of epistemic labor tend to promote beliefs that are better supported by the evidence. We show that promotion of these epistemic benefits stands in tension with what extant (...) theories in epistemology take rationality to require in cases of disagreement. We argue that the epistemic benefits that result from the deliberative division of epistemic labor can provide epistemic reason to maintain confidence in cases of disagreement. We then show that the deliberative division of epistemic labor constitutes a distinct kind of epistemic dependence. (shrink)

The Hong and Page ‘diversity trumps ability’ result has been used to argue for the more general claim that a diverse set of agents is epistemically superior to a comparable group of experts. Here we extend Hong and Page’s model to landscapes of different degrees of randomness and demonstrate the sensitivity of the ‘diversity trumps ability’ result. This analysis offers a more nuanced picture of how diversity, ability, and expertise may relate. Although models of this sort can indeed be suggestive (...) for diversity policies, we advise against interpreting such results overly broadly. (shrink)

We defend Uniqueness, the claim that given a body of total evidence, there is a uniquely rational doxastic state that it is rational for one to be in. Epistemic rationality doesn't give you any leeway in forming your beliefs. To this end, we bring in two metaepistemological pictures about the roles played by rational evaluations. Rational evaluative terms serve to guide our practices of deference to the opinions of others, and also to help us formulate contingency plans about what to (...) believe in various situations. We argue that Uniqueness vindicates these two roles for rational evaluations, while Permissivism clashes with them. (shrink)

Appeals to “being on the right side of history” or accusations of being on the wrong side of history are increasingly common on social media, in the media proper, and in the rhetoric of politics. One might well wonder, though, what the value is of invoking history in this manner. Is declaring who is on what side of history merely dramatic shorthand for one's being right and one's opponents wrong? Or is there something more to it than that? In this (...) paper, I argue that an appeal to being on the right side of history is best construed as an invocation of higher-order evidence. I do not deny that there are purely rhetorical, non-evidential uses of the right and wrong side of history, but the phrase can be construed in a more substantive manner. I use work on virtual epistemic elections to model these appeals to history. Zeroing in on the kind of higher-order evidence invoked helps us clarify the criterion for better or worse, more or less convincing appeals to it. (shrink)

Epistemologists who have studied disagreement have started to devote attention to the notion of epistemic standing. One feature of epistemic standing they have not drawn attention to is a distinction between what I call “broad” and “narrow” epistemic standing. Someone who is, say, your broad epistemic peer with respect to some topic is someone who is generally as familiar with and good at handling the evidence as you are. But someone who is your narrow epistemic peer with respect to that (...) topic is someone who is familiar with the evidence and as good at handling it as you are on that particular occasion. Thus, it’s possible for you to be my broad peer while also being my narrow inferior or superior. Attending to this distinction elicits different intuitions about some of the well-known cases in the epistemology of disagreement. Focusing on broad epistemic standing, which epistemologists have done, tends to yield conciliationist responses. But focusing on narrow epistemic standing, which epistemologists have not done, yields steadfast responses. The reason for this difference has to do with how we figure out someone’s broad or narrow epistemic standing: to determine her broad epistemic standing, you need to look at her epistemic traits and her familiarity with the evidence rather than to examine the evidence she gives. But to determine her narrow epistemic standing, you have to focus on her disclosed evidence rather than her epistemic traits or familiarity with the evidence. (shrink)

Epistemologists who have studied disagreement have started to devote attention to the notion of epistemic standing (i.e., epistemic peerhood, superiority, or inferiority). One feature of epistemic standing they have not drawn attention to is a distinction between what I call “broad” and “narrow” epistemic standing. Someone who is, say, your broad epistemic peer with respect to some topic is someone who is generally as familiar with and good at handling the evidence as you are. But someone who is your narrow (...) epistemic peer with respect to that topic is someone who is familiar with the evidence and as good at handling it as you are on that particular occasion. Thus, it’s possible for you to be my broad peer while also being my narrow inferior or superior. Attending to this distinction elicits different intuitions about some of the well-known cases in the epistemology of disagreement. Focusing on broad epistemic standing, which epistemologists have done, tends to yield conciliationist responses. But focusing on narrow epistemic standing, which epistemologists have not done, yields steadfast responses. The reason for this difference has to do with how we figure out someone’s broad or narrow epistemic standing: to determine her broad epistemic standing, you need to look at her epistemic traits and her familiarity with the evidence rather than to examine the evidence she gives. But to determine her narrow epistemic standing, you have to focus on her disclosed evidence rather than her epistemic traits or familiarity with the evidence. (shrink)

My aim is to discuss the impact of higher-order evidence on aesthetic appreciation. I suggest that this impact is different with respect to aesthetic beliefs and to aesthetic affective attitudes (such as enjoyment). More specifically, I defend the view that higher-order evidence questioning the reliability of one’s aesthetic beliefs can make it reasonable for one to revise those beliefs. Conversely, in line with a plausible account of emotions, aesthetic affective attitudes are not directly sensitive to this type of higher-order evidence; (...) they are sensitive only to those features of objects that make such attitudes (un)fitting. Thus, I argue, there are cases of non-defective recalcitrant aesthetic attitudes where the subject has both a non-defective, fitting aesthetic affective attitude and a reasonable belief questioning the fittingness of this attitude. I further discuss whether, in this type of case, the subject has decisive reasons to try to change her recalcitrant attitudes—say by trying to modify her aesthetic affective dispositions. My answer is negative. Even granting that subjects always have aesthetic reasons to try to avoid aesthetically unfitting attitudes, these can be outweighed by further reasons not to do so—perhaps including aesthetic reasons related to the construction of valuable aesthetic identities or to the value of aesthetic engagement. (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemic outcomes of following a belief-forming policy of inclusiveness under conditions in which one anticipates systematic disagreement with one’s interlocutors. These cases highlight the possibility of distinctly epistemic costs of inclusiveness, in the form of lost knowledge of or a diminishment in one’s rational confidence in a proposition. It is somewhat controversial whether following a policy of inclusiveness under such circumstances will have such costs; this will depend in part on the correct account of the epistemic (...) significance of disagreement (a topic over which there is some disagreement). After discussing this matter at some length, I conclude, tentatively, that inclusiveness under disagreement can have such epistemic costs. Still, I go on to argue, such costs by themselves would not rationalize substantial limitations on a broad policy of inclusiveness. Insofar as there are grounds for restricting how inclusive one should be in belief-formation, these grounds will not be epistemic, but instead will reflect the practical costs—the time, effort, and resource costs to the subject—of following such a policy. (shrink)

Conciliatory views of peer disagreement hold that when an agent encounters peer disagreement she should conciliate by adjusting her doxastic attitude towards that of her peer. In this paper I distinguish different ways conciliation can be understood and argue that the way conciliationism is typically understood violates the principle of commutativity of evidence. Commutativity of evidence holds that the order in which evidence is acquired should not influence what it is reasonable to believe based on that evidence. I argue that (...) when an agent encounters more than one peer, and applies the process of conciliation serially, the order she encounters the peers influences the resulting credence. I argue this is a problem for conciliatory views of disagreement, and suggest some responses available to advocates of conciliation. (shrink)

The externalist says that your evidence could fail to tell you what evidence you do or not do have. In that case, it could be rational for you to be uncertain about what your evidence is. This is a kind of uncertainty which orthodox Bayesian epistemology has difficulty modeling. For, if externalism is correct, then the orthodox Bayesian learning norms of conditionalization and reflection are inconsistent with each other. I recommend that an externalist Bayesian reject conditionalization. In its stead, I (...) provide a new theory of rational learning for the externalist. I defend this theory by arguing that its advice will be followed by anyone whose learning dispositions maximize expected accuracy. I then explore some of this theory’s consequences for the rationality of epistemic akrasia, peer disagreement, undercutting defeat, and uncertain evidence. (shrink)

Traditionally, an adequate strategy to deal with the tension between liberty and security has been toleration, for the latter allows the maximization of individual liberty without endangering security, since it embraces the limits set by the harm principle and the principle of self-defense of the liberal order. The area outside the boundary clearly requires repressive measures to protect the security and the rights of all. In this paper, we focus on the balance of liberty and security afforded by toleration, analyzing (...) how this strategy works in highly conflictual contexts and sorting out the different sets of reason that might motivate individual to assume a tolerant attitude. We contend that toleration represents a reliable political solution to conflicts potentially threatening social security when it is coupled with social tolerance. Hence, we examine the reasons the agents may have for endorsing toleration despite disagreement and disapproval. In the range of these reasons, we argue that the right reasons are those preserving the moral and epistemic integrity of the agent. The right reasons are however not accessible to everyone, as for example is the case with (non-violent) religious fundamentalists. Only prudential reasons for toleration seem to be available to them. And yet, we argue that an open and inclusive democracy should in principle be hospitable towards prudential and pragmatic reasons as well, which may potentially lay the grounds for future cooperation. We conclude therefore that the tolerant society has room for the fundamentalists, granted that they do not resort to violence. (shrink)

Consider two epistemic experts—for concreteness, let them be two weather forecasters. Suppose that you aren’t certain that they will issue identical forecasts, and you would like to proportion your degrees of belief to theirs in the following way: first, conditional on either’s forecast of rain being x, you’d like your own degree of belief in rain to be x. Secondly, conditional on them issuing different forecasts of rain, you’d like your own degree of belief in rain to be some weighted (...) average of the forecast of each. Finally, you’d like your degrees of belief to be given by an orthodox probability measure. Moderate ambitions, all. But you can’t always get what you want. (shrink)

Ignorance can excuse otherwise blameworthy action, but only if the ignorance itself is blameless. One way to avoid culpable ignorance is to pay attention when epistemic peers disagree. Expressed disagreements place an obligation on the agent to pay attention when an interlocutor disagrees, or risk culpable ignorance for which they might later be found blameworthy. Silence, on the other hand, is typically taken as assent. But in cases of suppressed disagreement, the silenced interlocutor has information that could save the agent (...) from ignorance in scenarios where that ignorance might lead to harmful action, and silence does not actually indicate assent. The problem is further complicated because the agent might not be aware of the fact that a silenced interlocutor has information that could prevent ignorance, and consequent harmful action. In this paper, I provide a new account of excuses from ignorance in situations of suppressed disagreement. I do this in the context of two cases; Kelly’s hypothetical case of the Tyrannical Dictator, and the real-world case of former South African President Thabo Mbeki and his AIDS denialist policies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. (shrink)

Many writers have recently argued that there is something distinctively problematic about sustaining moral beliefs on the basis of others’ moral views. Call this claim pessimism about moral deference. Pessimism about moral deference, if true, seems to provide an attractive way to argue for a bold conclusion about moral disagreement: moral disagreement generally does not require belief revision. Call this claim steadfastness about moral disagreement. Perhaps the most prominent recent discussion of the connection between moral deference and moral disagreement, due (...) to Alison Hills, uses pessimism about the former to argue for steadfastness about the latter. This paper reveals that this line of thinking, and others like it, are unsuccessful. There is no way to argue from a compelling version of pessimism about moral deference to the conclusion of steadfastness about moral disagreement. The most plausible versions of pessimism about moral deference have only very limited implications for moral disagreement. (shrink)

Call the following claim Asymmetry: rationality often requires a more steadfast response to pure moral disagreement than it does to otherwise analogous non-moral disagreement. This paper briefly motivates Asymmetry and explores its implications for meta-ethics. Some philosophers have thought that anti-realists are better-placed than realists to explain Asymmetry because, if anti-realism is true, disagreement cannot provide evidence against the reliability of one's thinking about objective moral facts. This paper argues that this simple diagnosis fails to support otherwise plausible anti-realisms. It (...) closes by discussing an alternative explanation for Asymmetry, which appeals to the moral importance of steadfastness. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an interest-relative theory of justification in order to answer the question, “How can I maintain that P when someone whom I consider to be my epistemic peer maintains that not-P?” The answer to this question cannot be determined by looking at evidence alone, I argue, since justification cannot be determined by looking at evidence alone. Rather, in order to determine whether a subject S is justified in believing that P at time t, we need to (...) assess her evidence in favour of P in proportion to her interest in P. Dans cet article, je développe sur la question de la justification une théorie reliée à l’intérêt afin de répondre à la question suivante : «comment puis-je affirmer que P quand quelqu’un que je considère comme mon homologue épistémique soutient que non-P?» Je soutiens que la réponse à cette question ne peut pas être déterminée à partir des seuls éléments de preuve, puisque la justification ne peut être déterminée en examinant les données seules. Au contraire, afin de déterminer si un sujet S est justifié à croire que P au temps t, nous devons évaluer son témoignage en faveur de P en proportion de son intérêt pour P. (shrink)

Philosophers often find themselves in disagreement with contemporary philosophers they know full well to be their epistemic superiors on the topics relevant to the disagreement. This looks epistemically irresponsible. I offer a detailed investigation of this problem of the reflective epistemic renegade. I argue that although in some cases the renegade is not epistemically blameworthy, and the renegade situation is significantly less common than most would think, in a troublesome number of cases in which the situation arises the renegade is (...) blameworthy in her disagreement with recognized epistemic superiors. I also offer some thoughts on what it would mean for philosophical practice for us to refrain from being renegades. Finally, I show how a new kind of radical skepticism emerges from modest theses regarding the renegade. (shrink)

Philosophers defend, and often believe, controversial philosophical claims. Since they aren’t clueless, they are usually aware that their views are controversial—on some occasions, the views are definitely in the minority amongst the relevant specialist-experts. In addition, most philosophers are aware that they are not God’s gift to philosophy, since they admit their ability to track truth in philosophy is not extraordinary compared to that of other philosophers. In this paper I argue that in many real-life cases, such beliefs in controversial (...) claims are irrational. This means that most philosophers have irrational philosophical beliefs. (shrink)

I argue for the following four theses: (1) The Dread Thesis: human beings should fear having false religious beliefs concerning some religious doctrines; (2) The Radical Uncertainty Thesis: we, namely most human beings in our culture at our time, are in a situation where we have to commit ourselves on the truth or falsity of some propositions of ultimate importance; (3) The Radical Choice Thesis: considerations of expected loss or gain do not always provide guidance as to how to commit (...) ourselves on matters of religious doctrine that are both radically uncertain and of ultimate importance; (4) The Scandal Thesis: radical choice on matters of ultimate importance is neither good nor inevitable, but due to the collective failure of philosophers of religion. Then I consider some inadequate responses: playing the faith card; contra-Pascalian decision theory; spiritual chauvinism; that faith presupposes uncertainty; the older pachyderm; irony, subjectivity, relativism and non-cognitivism; tainted truth; and muddling through. Finally I submit that the way forward is quite simply to become better philosophers. (shrink)

I argue that recognizing a distinct doxastic attitude called endorsement, along with the epistemic norms governing it, solves the self-undermining problem for conciliationism about disagreement. I provide a novel account of how the self-undermining problem works by pointing out the auxiliary assumptions the objection relies on. These assumptions include commitment to certain epistemic principles linking belief in a theory to following prescriptions of that theory. I then argue that we have independent reason to recognize the attitude of endorsement. Endorsement is (...) the attitude of resilient and committed advocacy which is appropriate for researchers to have toward their own theory. Recognizing the importance of endorsement, and of its resiliency, gives us reason to deny the epistemic principles that serve as auxiliary assumptions in the self-undermining objection. This defuses the objection, and provides additional support for the theory of endorsement. (shrink)

Advice is interesting because it is a relationship that is built upon two asymmetries. Advice concerns what the advisee ought to do. For that reason, considerations of autonomy suggest that the advisee has a greater claim on what matters in deliberation. However, the advisor is wiser than the advisee. That suggests that the advisor has a greater insight into what matters in deliberation. These are the asymmetry of autonomy and the asymmetry of wisdom. To account for both, I argue for (...) informed subjectivism. Informed subjectivism is the view that the quality of advice is determined by the likelihood that the advisee would consistently prefer acting on the advice to not acting the advice. The theory captures the asymmetry of autonomy by making the quality of advice based on the advisee’s judgment. It captures the asymmetry of wisdom by making the relevant judgments of the advisee be ones that are informed by experience. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate various possible (Bayesian) precisifications of the (somewhat vague) statements of “the equal weight view” (EWV) that have appeared in the recent literature on disagreement. We will show that the renditions of (EWV) that immediately suggest themselves are untenable from a Bayesian point of view. In the end, we will propose some tenable (but not necessarily desirable) interpretations of (EWV). Our aim here will not be to defend any particular Bayesian precisification of (EWV), but rather to (...) raise awareness about some of the difficulties inherent in formulating such precisifications. (shrink)

In philosophical thought experiments, as in ordinary discourse, our understanding of verbal case descriptions is enriched by automatic comprehension inferences. Such inferences have us routinely infer what else is also true of the cases described. We consider how such routine inferences from polysemous words can generate zombie intuitions: intuitions that are ‘killed’ (defeated) by contextual information but kept cognitively alive by the psycholinguistic phenomenon of linguistic salience bias. Extending ‘evidentiary’ experimental philosophy, this paper examines whether the ‘zombie argument’ against materialism (...) is built on zombie intuitions. We examine the hypothesis that contextually defeated stereotypical inferences from the noun ‘zombie’ influence intuitions about ‘philosophical zombies’. We document framing effects (‘zombie’ vs ‘duplicate’) predicted by the hypothesis. Findings undermine intuitions about the conceivability of ‘philosophical zombies’ and address the philosophical ‘hard problem of consciousness’. Findings support a deflationary response: The impression that principled obstacles prevent scientific explanation of how physical processes give rise to conscious experience is generated by philosophical arguments that rely on epistemically deficient intuitions. (shrink)

Can someone who suspends judgement about a certain proposition <p> be in a relational state of disagreement with someone who believes <p> as well as with some- one who disbelieves <p>? This paper argues for an af- firmative answer. It develops an account of the notions of suspended judgement and disagreement that explains how and why the suspender is in a relational state of disagreement with both the believer and the disbeliever about the very same proposition <p>. More specifically, the (...) paper first provides a characterisation of the norma- tive profile associated with the state of suspended judge- ment in terms of the set of normative commitments that it engenders in the context of inquiry. It then provides a characterisation of the notion of disagreement in terms the incompatibility between the sets of normative com- mitments characteristic of the three states in question— belief, disbelief, and suspension. (shrink)

There is a plurality of formal constraints for aggregating probabilities of a group of individuals. Different constraints characterise different families of aggregation rules. In this paper, we focus on the families of linear and geometric opinion pooling rules which consist in linear, respectively, geometric weighted averaging of the individuals’ probabilities. For these families, it is debated which weights exactly are to be chosen. By applying the results of the theory of meta-induction, we want to provide a general rationale, namely, optimality, (...) for choosing the weights in a success-based way by scoring rules. A major argument put forward against weighting by scoring is that these weights heavily depend on the chosen scoring rule. However, as we will show, the main condition for the optimality of meta-inductive weights is so general that it holds under most standard scoring rules, more precisely under all scoring rules that are based on a convex loss function. Therefore, whereas the exact choice of a scoring rule for weighted probability aggregation might depend on the respective purpose of such an aggregation, the epistemic rationale behind such a choice is generally valid. (shrink)

Evidentialism is the thesis that a person is justified in believing a proposition iff the person's evidence on balance supports that proposition. In discussing epistemological issues associated with disagreements among epistemic peers, some philosophers have endorsed principles that seem to run contrary to evidentialism, specifying how one should revise one's beliefs in light of disagreement. In this paper, I examine the connection between evidentialism and these principles. I argue that the puzzles about disagreement provide no reason to abandon evidentialism and (...) that there are no true general principles about justified responses to disagreement other than the general evidentialist principle. I then argue that the puzzles about disagreement are primarily puzzles about the evidential impact of higher - order evidence – evidence about the significance or existence of ordinary, or first- order, evidence. I conclude by arguing that such higher - order evidence can often have a profound effect on the justification of first- order beliefs. (shrink)