Views on Disagreement: How Do We Know Who’s Right?
This essay was written as a final paper submission for PHIL342 – Epistemology. It explores a hypothetical scenario where two friends disagree, but in two separate context. In the first, the two friends disagree on how a bill is split, whereas in the second, the two friends disagree on a new anti-immigration law. Note that there are no references to real world scenarios, this is a hypothetical that is used to help us consider the literature.
We will attempt to consider disagreement in two scenarios: mathematics and politics. In the mathematics scenario, two friends decide to split a bill for a lunch they had together, and in calculating the amount they owe come to different answers, whereas the case of politics describes two friends having opposed political views. Naturally, the question that arises is as follows: how should disagreement in either instance be resolved in a manner that is epistemologically sound? This essay will attempt to tackle that question with the aid of noted literature. Note that in this text, we start by assuming that the two are epistemic peers, which usually means that they possess the same body of knowledge
First, we can begin by addressing the question of mathematics, what we shall call ‘Instance A’. In order to resolve this, we can refer to Richard Feldman’s “Reasonable Religious Disagreements”. Since the mathematics involved in Instance A is fairly standard and well-known arithmetic, we can reason that if the two friends were to follow the same steps of the calculation, they would arrive at the same number instead of two different ones. This tells us that the friends’ source of disagreement is in the steps they followed. Now, with the scenario provided and little other evidence, we can make a series of inferences as to the nature of the disagreement; perhaps one included the tip when splitting the bill, whereas the other assumed that their friend would pay it. Perhaps one of them assumed they would pay the cost of their individual meals, whereas the other split the bill evenly in two, irrespective of which meal cost more.
Setting these scenarios aside, the heart of the matter is that the two friends interpret the situation differently, thereby causing the disagreement they face. In this instance, Feldman would not defend either of their conclusion, as he would not consider it a “genuine disagreement”. Feldman’s own definition of the same is where both epistemic peers mean to convey the same message; there is no room for misinterpretation, as their words mean the same to both of them. Therefore, different interpretations cannot be considered genuine disagreements, and therefore can be set aside. It is also important to note that we assumed the two friends were epistemic peers, which leads us to further assume that neither of them is performing their calculations incorrectly. In other words, the disagreement on the price that each friend pays is not a genuine epistemic disagreement.
We can now move on to politics, which is arguably more contentious in the context of this paper. Unlike arithmetic, which deals solely in numbers and their properties, the word politics can mean the science of government, or can be used to refer to a person’s set of beliefs on political matters. Ultimately, a person’s political truth can largely be considered subjective, as for each person, their views on politics are almost certainly going to depend on their personal context: a European might have a very different perspective on American laws than an American would. Knowing fully well politics is subjective, we can try to apply Feldman’s ideas to the situation.
Consider the situation, which we shall explore in greater depth and call ‘Instance B’. Suppose Jim and Steve live in the fictional state of Utopia (we avoid referring to a real state as this discussion does not concern real politics). Utopia is governed by a party that recently proposed a series of laws to limit the number of immigrants allowed into the state. Jim is a firm proponent of these laws and believes strongly that they are laws that are in the best interest of the state and its people. Steve, on the other hand, is vocally opposed to these laws, believing that it the state would benefit from not enforcing this new law, hence their disagreement. Let us also consider that Jim has evidence in the form of statistics that show a loss of jobs due to immigration, while Steve has evidence in the form of statistics that show an overall growth in the economy due to the arrival of immigrants (we also assume Utopia is a singular sovereign entity, and for the sake of argument we will ignore any incidental factors).
Applying Feldman’s ideas, we now know that there is a genuine disagreement between two epistemic peers and let us allow that Jim and Steve share their evidence with one another and still disagree. If we were to account for the subjective nature of politics, we can simply end this discussion at the fact that they disagree, but Feldman would not permit that. His own thesis states that two epistemic peers cannot disagree if they have shared their evidence amongst one another, and it is certainly not possible for two peers to draw different conclusions from the same body of evidence. He cites his “uniqueness thesis”: a body of evidence can support at most one rational conclusion. If we consider Jim and Steve’s collective evidence a singular body, then we have to consider Feldman’s proposition.
It seems almost evident that Feldman’s uniqueness thesis simply does not apply in this instance. From their collective evidence, Jim is still fully capable of concluding that the state should enforce the laws, and Steve is likewise capable of coming to the opposite conclusion. The existence of either’s body of evidence need not preclude the other from existing, and thus Feldman’s uniqueness thesis need not apply. It is important for us to remember that when Feldman suggested this, he took the case of a detective attempting to implicate one of two culprits, an instance in which the uniqueness thesis can apply, but failed to generalize the thesis to situations such as these.
Once we cross the uniqueness thesis, we arrive at the point in Feldman’s thesis where he concedes that, if the disagreement still exists, one must either take a hardline stance or compromise. We cannot reasonably suggest a hardline stance, as we would need to label either Jim or Steve as unreasonable, and that we cannot do without further evidence, which cannot be explored as this is a hypothetical and not a case study. Compromise, on the other hand would require both parties to suspend judgement. We can consider this ‘Resolution 1’ to the disagreement: that Jim and Steve find a way to compromise with one another. However, we must consider that if both parties suspend judgement, it is a sort of infinite forestalling; suspension of judgement typically implies that both parties withhold a conclusion until further inquiry is complete, but as we’ve stated earlier, politics is subjective, and we have no guarantee that either party will ever find conclusive, reasonable evidence that one or the other is right. Suspending judgement is perhaps a solution, but a non-resolution.
At this juncture, we have found resolution to Instance A, and found a settlement, but not a resolution for Instance B. We can now try, basis further evidence to resolve Instance B.
We now turn to Thomas Kelly’s views in “The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement”, where Kelly suggests debating between the steadfast view and the conciliatory view. The steadfast view would mean that each party holds on to their belief despite disagreements, which would mean practically that Jim and Steve ignore each other’s viewpoints, so we turn to the conciliatory view. We try to apply the idea of symmetry, suggesting that both Jim and Steve give the other person’s viewpoint an equal amount of weight, but that is based on the weight of the evidence, and from this argument we can infer that attempting to assign that weight would mean misinterpretation of the evidence, so we rule it out.
We then consider Kelly’s arguments on higher-order evidence, in which they discuss that peer agreement or disagreement in itself may serve as a form of higher order evidence to supplement their peer’s beliefs – Jim and Steve can corroborate their beliefs with testimony from an epistemic peer. However, this would not convincingly apply to the situation between the two, as we could suppose that they may find any number of peers that they both consider reasonable, and either of those peers could lend weight to either side of the argument. Lets say that for n number of peers consulted, exactly half agree with Jim and the other half agree with Steve. However, we run into another diversion: either they stay steadfast in their views, or attempt to be conciliatory, which leads us to the symmetry problem all over again. Studying the remainder of Kelly’s arguments in this text, we find no conclusive resolution.
We can instead try the views of Adam Elga in “Reflection and Disagreement”, where he attempts to defend the Equal Weight View. In essence, this outlook suggests that neither party is more likely to be right than the other in an instance where they are both epistemic peers, thereby showing us that both ought to be considered equally. Considering this is the exact same as Kelly’s symmetry argument, we instead skip to a more refined idea. Elga contends that if one were to weigh the circumstances of their peer and find them equivalent to their own, only then could they consider them their epistemic peer. If we are to examine the disagreement between Jim and Steve, we are no doubt bound to find that both parties are in different circumstances themselves. Perhaps Jim is a victim of unemployment, while Steve himself is descended from a family of immigrants. Perhaps Jim and Steve occupy different income levels, or perhaps they grew up in vastly different neighborhoods. Elga brings a situation quite similar to this into his own discussion, naming Ann and Beth who disagree on abortion, and we use this to make an analogous inference on Elga’s contention. We can instead suggest that Jim and Steve are not peers at all due to their differing circumstances, and thus there exists no epistemic disagreement. Perhaps they disagree, and perhaps they view each other as peers, but epistemically speaking, there is once again, no such disagreement. Keep in mind, if we attempted to consider Jim and Steve as people of the same background, then we cannot consider them epistemic peers by virtue of Feldman’s criteria. Ultimately, this is the only way to epistemically resolve the argument.
As an essay in the exploration of viewpoints, this apparently leads us to the conclusion that we can reduce disagreements between peers in many ways to the fact that, given appropriate context, they are not peers at all. However, I like to think of it this way: every disagreement could in theory follow a similar path towards resolution as was done in this essay. By accounting for circumstance, evidence and deferring to a conciliatory viewpoint, many conflicts would find much quicker resolution, rather than adopting the steadfast view that forces us into recursive disagreement. There is also the question of identifying the opponent in the argument as an epistemic peer, which this essay has clearly shown to be detrimental to the resolution of a disagreement. Identifying them as such assumes that they have the same body of knowledge, which is not an assumption we can make lightly in most real-world scenarios. More often than not, our opponent may benefit more from education than we realize, and extending them grace may be far more conducive to finding resolution.
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Feldman, Richard (2006). Reasonable religious disagreements. In Louise Antony (ed.), Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life. Oxford University Press. pp. 194-214.
Elga, A. (2007). Reflection and Disagreement. Noûs, 41(3), 478–502. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4494542
Kelly, Thomas (2005). The epistemic significance of disagreement. In Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Volume 1. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 167-196.
