DISAGREEMENT AND EASY BOOTSTRAPPING

Eyal Tal

doi:10.1017/epi.2018.55

Abstract

ABSTRACTShould conciliating with disagreeing peers be considered sufficient for reaching rational beliefs? Thomas Kelly argues that when taken this way, Conciliationism lets those who enter into a disagreement with an irrational belief reach a rational belief all too easily. Three kinds of responses defending Conciliationism are found in the literature. One response has it that conciliation is required only of agents who have a rational belief as they enter into a disagreement. This response yields a requirement that no one should follow. If the need to conciliate applies only to already rational agents, then an agent must conciliate only when her peer is the one irrational. A second response views conciliation as merely necessary for having a rational belief. This alone does little to address the central question of what is rational to believe when facing a disagreeing peer. Attempts to develop the response either reduce to the first response, or deem necessary an unnecessary doxastic revision, or imply that rational dilemmas obtain in cases where intuitively there are none. A third response tells us to weigh what our pre-disagreement evidence supports against the evidence from the disagreement itself. This invites epistemic akrasia.

Highlights

According to Conciliationism, one must revise one’s view upon meeting an epistemic peer who has a different view.[1]
Per Conciliationism, have the agent conciliate to some extent
While discussing a paradigmatic version of Conciliationism – the Equal Weight View – Brian Weatherson (Ms) proposes we restrict the view in order to sidestep Easy Bootstrapping argument (EB):[5]

Summary

The wide-scope response

Christensen (2011) offers a possible response to EB that seems to t well with the thought that conciliating is only necessary for believing rationally: 21 This objection may join Kelly’s EB in casting doubt on the naïve interpretation of Conciliationism. In its silence about which way of complying with the rule is rationally required in which situations, Wide-Scope Conciliationism leaves obscure how we should respond to a disagreeing peer It does not tell us who, if anyone, should satisfy the consequent and conciliate, and who should do something else.[25] Plausibly, when an agent is the irrational party, the only rational way for her to satisfy Wide-Scope Conciliationism would be to do something other than conciliate from her irrational credence. Any account that includes Wide-Scope Conciliationism must grant this, if the account is to avoid EB This leaves agents who have a rational credence as the only candidates for those who are rationally required to comply with rule by conciliating.

The dilemma response

The different ‘ought’ response