Genuine Disagreements Research Articles

On What Grounds? A Pilot Study of References Used in Clinical Ethics Consultation and Education.

In accordance with standards published by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH), ethics consultants are expected to provide recommendations that align with scholarly literature, professional society statements, law, and policy. However, there are no studies to date that characterize the specific references that ethics consultants and educators use to inform their work. To address this gap, a convenience sample of clinical ethics consultants and educators was surveyed online through two major listservs for clinical ethics, the ASBH Clinical Ethics Consultation Affinity Group (CECAG) and the Association of Bioethics Program Directors (ABPD). Ninety-five ethics consultants and/or educators with diverse educational background, credentials, and experience provided responses. In total, 451 references, 315 of which were unique, were reported. These references were broken into 6 categories after analysis: bioethics literature (divided into articles and books), professional society documents (divided into professional society statements and codes of ethics), federal/state/uniform/case law, hospital/health system policies, official religious teachings, and other. We found extensive variation and minimal overlap in the references respondents used for ethics consultation and education, even when referring to the same topics. Future research directions should include conducting more systematic efforts to characterize the references used by ethics consultants across the US; determining whether demographic characteristics of consultants influence the references used; and ascertaining whether the variation in references used reflects genuine disagreements in consultants' and educators' bioethical analysis or recommendations.

Reasonable Disagreement and Metalinguistic Negotiation

AbstractThis paper defends a particular view of explaining reasonable disagreement: the Conceptual View. The Conceptual View is the idea that reasonable disagreements are caused by differences in the way reasonable people use concepts in a cognitive process to make moral and political judgements. But, that type of explanation is caught between either an explanatory weakness or an unparsimonious and potentially self‐undermining theory of concepts. When faced with deep disagreements, theories on the Conceptual View either do not have the resources to explain them, or can only explain them by committing to a completely new theory of concepts where all moral and political concepts are a unique type of concept. This paper shows how the Conceptual View can avoid this dilemma by adopting what I dub the ‘Metalinguistic Strategy’ for explaining reasonable disagreement. The Metalinguistic Strategy uses recent innovations in the philosophy of language on metalinguistic negotiation to explain reasonable disagreements whether they be ordinary or deep disagreements as genuine disagreements whilst maintaining our ordinary ideas about concepts.

О квазифидеизме и рациональности религиозных убеждений

According to D. Pritchard’s quasi-fideism, fundamental religious beliefs are Wittgensteinian hinge propositions (beliefs). However, interpretation of the hinge propositions is not unambiguous. For Pritchard, they are «arational visceral commitments». For D. Moyal-Sharrock, they are animal certainties. For A. Coliva, they are rules having propositional content which plays the role of a norm. Our interpretation of hinge propositions is close to that of A. Coliva, except for a few important points. We rather agree with Wittgenstein’s liberal view of hinges. For us they are Wittgensteinian rules (norms) governing language games within a form of life. In the light of our interpretation of hinge propositions we consider the question of the rationality of religious beliefs, analyze Pritchard’s quasi-fideism and the problem of deep disagreements. Deep disagreements are disagreements that are hard to resolve in a rational way. There are different views on their nature. We treat deep disagreements as disagreements that are based on «hinge disagreements», that is, disagreements between incompatible or contradictory hinge beliefs (norms) or beliefs that are playing the hinge role but may not be hinges (if they are false). We argue that deep disagreements can in principle be resolved. Our view avoids relativism. Religious disagreements are usually considered as deep disagreements. We claim that if there is a religious form of life in the sense of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, then there are also religious hinge propositions. Deep disagreements between the theist and the atheist are genuine disagreements in the sense that only one side is right. And there are reasons to believe that they can be rationally resolved.

Sly Pete in Dynamic Semantics

In ‘Sly Pete’ or ‘standoff’ cases, reasonable speakers accept incompatible conditionals, and communicate them successfully to a trusting hearer. This paper uses the framework of dynamic semantics to offer a new model of the conversational dynamics at play in standoffs, and to articulate several puzzles posed by such cases. The paper resolves these puzzles by embracing a dynamic semantics for conditionals, according to which indicative conditionals require that their antecedents are possible in their local context, and update this body of information by eliminating the possibilities where the antecedent is true and the consequent is false. In this way, the dynamic analysis draws on insights from the material conditional and contextualist analyses, while explaining how standoffs are genuine disagreements.

Moral Relativism, Metalinguistic Negotiation, and the Epistemic Significance of Disagreement

Although moral relativists often appeal to cases of apparent moral disagreement between members of different communities to motivate their view, accounting for these exchanges as evincing genuine disagreements constitutes a challenge to the coherence of moral relativism. While many moral relativists acknowledge this problem, attempts to solve it so far have been wanting. In response, moral relativists either give up the claim that there can be moral disagreement between members of different communities or end up with a view on which these disagreements have no “epistemic significance” because they are always faultless. This paper introduces an alternative strategy: accounting for disagreement in terms of “metalinguistic negotiation”. It argues that this strategy constitutes a better solution to the challenge disagreement poses for moral relativists because it leads to a nuanced understanding of the epistemic significance of moral disagreement between members of different communities. The upshot is a novel account of disagreement for moral relativists that has consequences for how moral relativism should be understood.

Why Populists Do Well on Social Networks

A link between populism and social media is often suspected. This paper spells out a set of possible mechanisms underpinning this link: that social media changes the communication structure of the public sphere, making it harder for citizens to obtain evidence that refutes populist assumptions. By developing a model of the public sphere, four core functions of the public sphere are identified: exposing citizens to diverse information, promoting equality of deliberative opportunity, creating deliberative transparency, and producing common knowledge. A wellworking public sphere allows citizens to learn that there are genuine disagreements among citizens that are held in good faith. Social media makes it harder to gain this insight, opening the door for populist ideology.

What are the debates on same-sex marriage and on the recognition of transwomen as women about? On anti-descriptivism and revisionary analysis

ABSTRACT In recent years, debates on same-sex marriage and the recognition of transwomen as women have been raging. These debates often seem to revolve around the meaning of, respectively, the word ‘marriage’ and ‘woman’. That such debates should take place might be puzzling. It seems that if debates on gay and transgender rights revolve around the meaning of these words, then those in favor of same-sex marriage and of the recognition of transwomen as women have no room left to maneuver. However, prima facie, the pro – and anti-, in both cases, have genuine disagreements over the meaning of these words: though the analyses of revisionary theorists are revisionary, they are analyses. Sally Haslanger and other philosophers in her wake have appealed to an anti-descriptivist externalist view of meaning to provide the conceptual foundations of this practice of revisionary theorizing: revisionary analyses bring to light what, unbeknownst to us, these words mean. In this paper, I argue that a descriptivist externalist view should be preferred instead. My argument rests on the thesis that what is contested in these debates is the (descriptive) meaning of the words ‘marriage’ and ‘women’ as used in the law.

Bridging a Divide: A Faith-Based Perspective on Anti-Discrimination Law

Abstract High-profile litigation in various jurisdictions has drawn attention to situations where conflict arises between the requirements of anti-discrimination law and the religious beliefs and practices of individuals and organizations. Although these disputes reflect genuine disagreements, this article argues that, in addition to litigation, other facets of the relationship between faith and anti-discrimination law need to be considered. Taking Catholic Social Teaching as a case study, the article explores anti-discrimination law through a theological lens. In this example, it identifies significant common ground where religious beliefs are congruent with anti-discrimination law, even if areas of divergence are also present. The article concludes that further exploration of law and theology could make a contribution to fostering a more constructive relationship between faith and anti-discrimination law.

Disciplinary differences between cognitive psychology and mathematics education: A developmental disconnection syndrome. Reflections on 'Challenges in Mathematical Cognition' by Alcock et al. (2016)

As the participants in this collaborative exercise who are mathematics education researchers espouse a cognitive perspective, it is not surprising that there were few genuine disagreements between them and the psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists during the process of generating a consensual research agenda. In contrast, the prototypical mathematics education researcher will mostly likely find the resulting list of priority open questions to be overly restrictive in its scope of topics to be studied, highly biased toward quantitative methods, and extremely narrow in its disciplinary perspectives. It is argued here that the fundamental disconnects between the epistemological foundations, theoretical perspectives, and methodological predilections of cognitive psychologists and mainstream mathematics education researchers preclude the prospect of future productive collaborative efforts between these fields. [Commentary on: Alcock, L., Ansari, D., Batchelor, S., Bisson, M.-J., De Smedt, B., Gilmore, C., . . . Weber, K. (2016). Challenges in mathematical cognition: A collaboratively-derived research agenda. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 2, 20-41. doi:10.5964/jnc.v2i1.10]

Did the Zurich Consensus create the possibility of future dialogue with Wittenberg?

The question considered here will be whether the Zurich Consensus represent Calvin's unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the churches of Wittenberg, Strasburg, Geneva, and Zurich. Calvin expressed the hope throughout his ministry that the divisions in the evangelical movement could be overcome, and claimed to be willing to do all he could to insure that this might happen. He was convinced that the proper way to respond to genuine disagreements between servants of the gospel was not to engage in contentious disputation, but rather to pursue open-ended dialogue in pursuit of the truth. There is no doubt that Calvin followed his proposed method of dialogue in arriving at the consensus between the churches of Geneva and Zurich embodied in the Zurich Consensus. This discussion will show that by this time, Calvin seems to exclude the possibility of any future accord with Wittenberg by both the contentious way the Consensus is formulated and his interactions with Wittenberg theologians.

There Are No Genuine Disagreements about Funniness

I argue that there are no genuine disagreements about whether something is funny. My argument rests largely on the premise that something is funny only if someone experiences it as funny. The bulk of this paper is spent supporting this premise, primarily through an analysis of the meaning of “funniness.” The rest of the paper is spent demonstrating how my conclusion follows from this premise.

There Are No Genuine Disagreements about Funniness

There Are No Genuine Disagreements about Funniness

Abstract S1-10: Disparities in the estimates of benefits and harms from mammography: Are the numbers really different?

Abstract It is generally accepted that screening with mammography prevents deaths from breast cancer, although debate continues about the absolute size of the mortality benefit, and the concomitant risks associated with screening. A number of recent observational studies have claimed to find low rates of benefit in terms of reducing mortality rates or late stage disease, and high rates of overdiagnosis, defined as the diagnosis by screening of cancer which would not have been diagnosed in the patient's lifetime if screening had not taken place. These publications have achieved a high profile in the mass media and stimulated further debate. We review the apparent disparities between different reviews of the effects of mammography screening on mortality from breast cancer and on overdiagnosis. The four major reviews are the UK Independent Review, the Nordic Cochrane review, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) review, and the EUROSCREEN review. The estimated number needed to screen/invite to prevent one death from breast cancer ranges from 111 to 2000, almost a 20-fold range. The estimated number required varies by age group, whether the intervention described is actual screening or invitation to screening, follow-up time and other factors. To assess whether these represent genuine disagreements or whether the differences are mainly due to such factors as follow-up time and target population, we converted all four to pertain to the same scenario as used in the UK Independent Review, that is to the effect of screening for 20 years from age 50 to 69 on breast cancer mortality in ages 55-79, in a UK population. When all four reviews are converted to the UK review scenario, the range of absolute benefits is now only 2.5-fold rather than 20-fold. Thus, the differences between the reviews with respect to the absolute breast cancer mortality reduction are almost entirely due to expressing the same basic result relative to different denominators, choice of population mortality rates, etc. Thus, the so-called controversy over the benefit of mammography screening as estimated from the trials is largely contrived. When expressed relative to the same denominator, with the same screening and follow-up periods, and using the same absolute mortality rates, absolute benefit estimates are all of the same order of magnitude, and all indicate a substantial reduction in breast cancer mortality with screening. While there are genuine disagreements about overdiagnosis, methods which adjust for lead time and underlying incidence trends yield estimates which are modest and are outweighed by the mortality benefit. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr S1-10.

Real and artificial controversies in breast cancer screening

SUMMARY We review the apparent disparities between different reviews of the effects of mammographic screening on mortality from breast cancer and overdiagnosis. When results of each review are expressed with respect to a common population and a common baseline, all find a substantial mortality benefit and variation among estimates is minor. There are genuine disagreements about overdiagnosis, but methods that take account of lead time and underlying incidence trends yield estimates of overdiagnosis that are modest and are outweighed by the mortality benefit. There is potential for individualized screening regimens, particularly with respect to breast density.

DWORKIN'S INTERPRETIVISM AND THE PRAGMATICS OF LEGAL DISPUTES

One of Ronald Dworkin's most distinctive claims in legal philosophy is thatlawis aninterpretative concept, a special kind of concept whose correct application depends neither on fixed criteria nor on an instance-identifying decision procedure but rather on the normative or evaluative facts that best justify the total set of practices in which that concept is used. The main argument that Dworkin gives for interpretivism about some concept—law, among many others—is a disagreement-based argument. We argue here that Dworkin's disagreement-based argument relies on a mistaken premise about the nature of disagreement. We propose an alternative analysis of the type of dispute—what we call “seeming variation cases”—that Dworkin uses to motivate the idea of interpretative concepts. We begin by observing that genuine disagreements can be expressed via a range of linguistic mechanisms, many of which do not require that speakers literally assert and deny one and the same proposition. We focus in particular on what we call “metalinguistic negotiations,” disputes in which speakers do not express the same concepts by their words but rather negotiate how words should be used and thereby negotiate which of a range of competing concepts should be used in that context. We claim that this view has quite general theoretical advantages over Dworkin's interpretivism about seeming variation cases and about the relevant class of legal disputes in particular. This paper thus has two interlocking goals: (1) to undermine one of Dworkin's core arguments for interpretivism, and (2) to provide the foundations for a noninterpretivist alternative account of an important class of legal disputes.

Hart's Expressivism and His Benthamite Project

The paper argues that H.L.A. Hart conceived internal legal statements as normative statements, and more particularly that he developed an expressivist analysis of internal legal statements that bears strong influences of his predecessors and contemporaries who advocated expressivist analyses of ethical statements. It also takes up Ronald Dworkin’s influential criticism of Hart’s legal theory, according to which Hart cannot account for some genuine legal disagreements. Dworkin’s criticism is founded on a mischaracterization of Hart’s analysis as a descriptivist analysis of the sort that both G.E. Moore and the early emotivists criticized. In his expressivist analysis Hart had an account of internal legal statements that was designed to explain normative disagreements.

Cognition at the heart of human interaction

Sometimes it is thought that there are serious differences between theories of discourse that turn on the role of cognition in the theory. This is largely a misconception: for example, with its emphasis on participants’ own understandings, its principles of recipient design and projection, Conversation Analysis is hardly anti-cognitive. If there are genuine disagreements they rather concern a preference for ‘lean’ versus ‘rich’ metalanguages and different methodologies. The possession of a multi-levelled model, separating out what the individual brings to interaction from the emergent properties of interaction, would make it easier to resolve some of these issues. Meanwhile, these squabbles on the margins distract us from a much more central and more interesting issue: is there a very special cognition-for-interaction, which underlies and underpins all language and discourse? Prime facie evidence suggests that there is, and different approaches can contribute to our understanding of it.

Analyzing Consistency of Experts' Judgments—Case of Assessing Forest Biodiversity

Abstract Incorporation of biodiversity considerations into forest planning requires methods for the operationalization of biodiversity and for the quantification of expert judgments concerning the future implications of alternative forest management plans. Applying expert knowledge in numerical decision support most probably involves much uncertainty. To reduce biases, the use of several independent experts seems advisable. However, the experts may disagree, and it is not always clear whether this is due to genuine disagreements, or because of misunderstandings or other errors that may occur in the elicitation process. In this study, an approach is presented for analyzing the uncertainties in expert judgments elicited by pairwise comparisons, and for improving the consistency of judgments. Ecological expertise is applied in the estimation of an evaluation model which can be used in assessing alternative forest plans with respect to biodiversity in optimization calculations. The approach is based on the combined use of HERO optimization method developed for tactical forest planning, Delphi technique, and variance components modeling. The Delphi technique may be helpful in understanding better the causes of the possible disagreements. Variance components modeling is used to estimate the changes in the views of 11 experts concerning the different components of biodiversity, in three Delphi rounds. It turned out that the views converged to some extent, but in one case an increase in shared inconsistency among judges was also detected. For. Sci. 44(4):610-617.

Bringing the Outside In

Newcomers to jurisprudence are invariably struck, and are sometimes depressed, by the way in which legal theories do not meet squarely on a shared battleground, but appear to slip past each other in covert manner. Each theory seems to address issues which are slightly different from those addressed by its rivals. Some students conclude that there is no genuine disagreement at all: the whole debate comes to seem phoney and trumped up. Others are tempted by the bland view that the seemingly warring factions may in fact be fellow labourers in a field of knowledge where insights are cumulative rather than mutually incompatible. These common responses are erroneous. Philosophies of law fail to meet each other squarely not because they have no genuine disagreements but because they have so many. Philosophy is a self-reflective discipline; the question of the nature of philosophy is itself a central philosophical question, and that fact alone is sufficient to generate a high degree of complexity in the debate. Theories disagree as much about the nature of legal theory as about the nature of law, and the self-reflective dispute cannot be neatly insulated from the substantive enquiry. Differing views about the nature of legal theory will manifest themselves at every turn: in the interpretation of classic texts; in decisions about the parameters of enquiry; and in the type of perspective that informs the inquiry. A growing appreciation of the complexity of the debate has led to increasing dissatisfaction with the traditional categories beloved of textbook writers. Distinctions between 'natural law' and 'legal positivism', or between 'analytical' and 'normative' jurisprudence, provide a misleading framework for the discussion of much of the literature. It is of course true that the categories do not matter in themselves: sooner rather than later we have to study the writings of particular theorists and grapple with their subtle and multi-layered positions. Yet broad categories retain an importance that it would be wrong to underestimate. We do not require a course of literary theory to be aware of how far the positions that we find in the texts that we read reflect the expectations with which we approached those texts. It follows from this that an inappropriate framework may be confirmed rather than corrected when we embark on more detailed study. It is precisely because broad categorial frameworks have this self-entrenching quality that we must, from time to time, seek to challenge them. This should not be done in an iconoclastic spirit, nor should it be accompanied by the empty

Intelligence and Strategic Surprises Revisited: A Response to Richard K. Betts's "Surprise, Scholasticism, and Strategy"

The point of departure for Intelligence and Strategic Surprises (Levite, 1987) was a review of some twenty-five years of academic research into the surprise phenomenon. This review revealed that a remarkably broad consensus had emerged in the discipline regarding that phenomenon, pertaining most clearly to its ubiquity and high probability of occurence (i.e., inevitability) but also extending to its underlying causes. Studies reflecting this broad consensus were conveniently referred to by Betts as the “orthodox school,” whose origins can be traced back to Roberta Wohlstet-ter's pathbreaking study of Pearl Harbor (Wohlstetter, 1962). As Betts correctly points out, not only the classical studies of surprise but also most of the more recent ones belong to this “orthodox school.” This clearly is not the case with Intelligence and Strategic Surprises (ISS) , which Betts, in his comprehensive and insightful review of the book, classifies as the first member of the “revisionist school” of surprise. In his review, Betts dwells on the differences between the so-called “orthodox” and “revisionist” schools as well as on some specific features of ISS . Making ISS into a one-book “revisionist school” is flattering, if hardly justified.1 In addition, some of the differences Betts sees between the two “schools” are more imagined than real. Still, he does highlight some genuine disagreements between ISS and the orthodox school, although he usually attributes them to the failings of ISS . This response therefore seeks to clarify briefly the areas of agreement and disagreement between ISS and the orthodox school pertaining to methodology and theory as well as to policy implications.