A Normative Theory of Disagreement

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Expressivists have trouble accounting for disagreement. If ethical or other normative judgments are desire-like rather than belief-like, it is puzzling why we think people often disagree in those domains. While previous expressivists have proposed only straightforwardly descriptive conditions under which disagreement occurs, we argue that disagreement itself should be understood normatively: two or more people disagree just in case their diverging attitudes imply, given a common project of theirs, that at least one of them has reason to change his or her mind.

Disagreement without belief

“…One obvious way to do so would be to show that there is no unified theory of disagreement that can accommodate both belief and non‐belief disagreement. In fact, in “A Normative Theory of Disagreement” (Bex‐Priestley and Shemmer 2017) we initially argue along this very line; we show that certain theories of disagreement are inadequate because they treat these two types of disagreement as having little in common. But not all theories of disagreement are thus disunified.…”

“…Subjective reasons can come apart from objective reasons, and the fact that a proposition is false is an objective reason not to believe it even if we would not be at fault for doing so. (For more details on this issue and a discussion of potential objections, see Bex‐Priestley and Shemmer 2017, 204 and § 6.) The three conditions are met.…”

“…Whereas conflicting beliefs cannot both be true, conflicting desires cannot both be satisfied, and this is what grounds disagreement. The problems with this view have been exposed in detail elsewhere (Ridge 2013; 2014; Bex‐Priestley and Shemmer 2017), but since this theory has been influential for several philosophers, including Simon Blackburn (1998, 69) and Stephen Finlay (2014, chap. 8; 2017, 193), it is worth briefly rehearsing them.…”

“…In section 4 we examine several existing theories of disagreement that either naturally predict disagreements without belief or can be amended to do so, and argue they fail to match up with intuitions. Finally, in section 5 we argue our normative theory of disagreement (Bex‐Priestley and Shemmer 2017) succeeds where the others have failed. This is the theory that people disagree if and only if they share a common project and, given the standards of their project, the divergence of their attitudes implies at least one of them has reason to change their attitude.…”

The Right Argument from Moral Disagreement

“…This is an implication that I have rejected. More recently, Bex‐Priestley and Shemmer (2017) have held that parties genuinely disagree when at least one has a reason to change his mind, given a common project. I once again believe that our case is a counterexample, the project of living peaceably together giving neither party a reason to change her mind, because both frameworks facilitate that project.…”