Disagreement, peerhood, compromise

Although disagreement is one of the most debated issues in political philosophy, political theorists have relatively neglected its epistemic analysis. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap and provide an epistemic analysis of some normatively relevant disagreements and draw some implications on what kind of political solution could be more appropriate. From such discussion, we argue for a compromise solution to the problem of normative disagreement within democratic societies. We start by considering two relevant examples of normative issues currently subjected to reasonable disagreement: the experiments on animals in scientific laboratories and affirmative action. We characterize such disagreements as reasonable, though not in the Rawlsian sense. Indeed, the idea of reasonableness we work with is characterized by two distinctions. The first one is that between first-level disagreements, regarding the clash between judgments, and second-level disagreements, concerning the grounding and justification of first-level judgments. The second distinction is that between empirical features of disagreements and normative features of disagreements. Reasonable disagreements are those empirical and normative disagreements in which two or more parties hold mutually incompatible claims, but they are justified in holding their respective claims. The complexity of understanding factual issues and individuals’ diverse allegiances to contrasting ultimate principles makes the case for reasonable disagreements. Then, we defend epistemic fallibilism, namely the view that no rational justification can raise the truth of our beliefs to the level of absolute certainty. It is important to stress that arguing for fallibilism does not entail defending some form of skepticism: the idea that claims to knowledge can, in principle, be mistaken, does not turn into saying that none of those claims are ever justified. From the defense of epistemic fallibilism, we derive the idea that the condition of epistemic peerhood should be considered as a default position when it comes to citizens of democratic societies involved in reasonable disagreements and in need of arriving to some kind of political decision. Given epistemic fallibilism and its commitment to peerhood, in cases of reasonable disagreements, in which there is no proof that one of the parties at dispute is epistemically superior to the other, we propose a principle of respect for rationality that calls for a compromise solution. Indeed, if parties cannot justify their respective beliefs in a conclusive way and cannot be certain about their claims, they ought to give up part of their demands and strike a balance between their positions. This form of compromise is not intended as a modus vivendi solution precisely because it is grounded in the idea of respect for rationality and, thus, it is not the result of a mere balance of power. There are two main advantages of this approach. First, such a solution is appealing in not requiring citizens to change their inner convictions, but only to recognize the fallibility of their justifications. Second, this solution is in principle applicable to a number of cases of disagreement in contemporary societies.