Moral Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence

AbstractThis paper sketches a general account of how to respond in an epistemically rational way to moral disagreement. Roughly, the account states that when two parties, A and B, disagree as to whetherp, A saysp while B says not-p, this is higher-order evidence that A has made a cognitive error on the first-order level of reasoning in coming to believe thatp (and likewise for B with respect to not-p). If such higher-order evidence is not defeated, then one rationally ought to reduce one ’s confidence with respect to the proposition in question. We term thisthe higher-order evidence account (the HOE account), and present it as a superior to what we might callstandard conciliationism, which holds that when agents A and B disagree aboutp, and are (known) epistemic peers, they should both suspend judgement aboutp or adjust their confidence towards the mean of A and B ’s prior credences inp. Many have suspected that standard conciliationism is implausible and may have skeptical implications. After presenting the HOE account, we put it to work by applying it to a range of cases of moral disagreement, including those that have feature in recent debates assuming standard conciliationism. We show that the HOE account support reasonable, non-skeptical verdicts in a range of cases. Note that this is a paper on moral disagreement, not on the HOE account, thus the account is merely stated here, while defended more fully elsewhere.

Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 15, 2019 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research