Note: This is a pre-refereed version of the paper that is forthcoming in The Philosophical Quarterly. Please cite the final version (which contains substantial changes). Abstract: "Conciliationism" is the view that disagreement with qualified disputants gives us a powerful reason for doubting our disputed views, a reason that will often be sufficient to defeat what would otherwise be strong evidential justification for our position. Conciliationism is disputed by many qualified philosophers, a fact that has led many to conclude that conciliationism is self-defeating. After examining one prominent response to this challenge and finding it wanting, I develop a fresh approach to the problem. I identify two levels at which one may show epistemic deference-the level of one's credences and the level of one's reasoning-and show that in disagreements over conciliationism, deference at one level results in non-deference at the other. A conciliatory commitment to epistemic deference therefore does not provide a rational reason to reduce confidence in conciliationism when it is disputed. After presenting the positive case for "resolute conciliationism," I address two objections.
We offer a new argument in favor of metanormative contextualism, the thesis that the semantic value of a normative 'ought' claim of the form 'S ought to Φ' depends on the value of one or more parameters whose values vary in a way that is determined by the context of utterance. The debate over this contextualist thesis has centered on cases that involve 'ought' claims made in the face of uncertainty regarding certain descriptive facts. Contextualists, relativists, and invariantists all have plausible ways of explaining these cases, and one could reasonably judge the debate between these views to be a stalemate. We argue that this stalemate can be broken by shifting focus to a case that involves normative uncertainty rather than descriptive uncertainty. While relativist and invariantist rivals of contextualism can give plausible accounts of the descriptive uncertainty cases, only contextualism can provide a plausible account of the normative uncertainty case.
The striking extent of religious disagreement suggests that religious conviction is very often the result of processes that do not reliably produce true beliefs. For this reason, many have argued that the only rational response to religious disagreement is to adopt a religious skepticism that eschews confident religious belief. This book contests this conclusion, explaining how it could be rational to maintain confident religious (or irreligious) belief even in the face of persistent disagreement. Part I argues against the commitment to rigorous epistemic impartiality that underlies the case for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism, while also critiquing highly sanguine approaches to disagreement that allow for an unproblematic privileging of one’s first-person perspective. According to the position defended in part I, justified confidence in the face of religious disagreement is likely to require that one have rational insight into reasons that favor one’s outlook. It is argued that many of the rational insights that are crucial to assessing religious outlooks are not achievable through analytical reasoning but only through having the right sort of emotional experiences. Part II considers the implications for religious commitment of accepting the impartiality requirement favored by “disagreement skeptics.” Challenges are raised to the assumption that a commitment to rigorous epistemic impartiality rules out confident religious belief. But it is further argued that such a commitment would likely make it irrational to pursue one’s favored form of religious life and might lead to normative uncertainty that would prevent rational engagement in any religious or irreligious way of life whatsoever.
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