Disagreeing about how to disagree

Abstract

David Enoch’s excellent recent book, Taking Morality Seriously, provides a subtle, highly innovative, and stimulating set of arguments for ‘‘Robust Realism’’: the view that there are normative truths and facts, that such facts exist over and above any set of naturalistic facts, and that our claims about them ‘‘amount not just to an expression of any practical attitude, but to a representation of these normative truths and facts.’’ In this paper, we focus on the arguments Enoch gives to help along such a view in Chap. 2 of his book. Enoch’s arguments there are sometimes so complex and nuanced that we think the best way to convey his view is to initially present it in a very streamlined and simplified manner. Then we will introduce some of the complications that Enoch notes. After that, we will try to explain why we do not yet find Enoch’s arguments in Chap. 2 fully convincing. So, simplifying significantly, Enoch argues in Chap. 2 that it is typically normatively appropriate, when one is in a factual dispute with someone, to not compromise with that person but rather to stand one’s ground. Suppose I know the way to grandmother’s house better than you do. I am correct about how to get there and you are not, and I am also more justified in my opinion than you are. In such a case it seems that I ought not to (or am permitted not to) opt for a compromise where you decide this case and I decide the next, or where we flip a coin to decide which road we will take. But when we come to disputes concerning mere preferences, where there is no fact of the matter that we are disagreeing about, it is typically normatively