Compromising with the uncompromising: Political disagreement under asymmetric compliance

Abstract

Imagine a fictional society in which there exist two groups of people, the Twisters and the Stickers. Often, but not always, when some new political issue arises, the Twisters have one reaction about what is to be done, while the Stickers have some other, conflicting reaction. But there is also a difference in how the Twisters and the Stickers react when they learn about their disagreements. Even though the Twisters do not find the Stickers’ arguments particularly persuasive, they take the fact that so many Stickers disagree with them to be a sign that they might be mistaken in their reactions. As such, when they encounter disagreements with the Stickers, they become significantly less confident in their original views. The Stickers, on the other hand, remain intransigent in the face of disagreement, never reducing their confidence. Both groups participate in the political process – protesting, campaigning, discussing, and voting – based on the views (and levels of confidence) that they have ultimately reached, and the process gives equal weight to each participant’s view in determining outcomes. As one might expect, the view that the Twisters began with almost never carries the day. By contrast, the view that the Stickers began with often does carry the day. And over time, the political center of gravity systematically shifts toward the (original) views of the Stickers. What has gone wrong here? One thing that has plausibly gone wrong, at least given many ways of developing the case, and given certain assumptions about the epistemology of disagreement that will be discussed later, is that the Stickers are being unreasonable in their total intransigence. They ought to, like the Twisters, recognize that there are many thoughtful and intelligent people who disagree with them, and moderate their confidence in the truth of their views in response, at least somewhat. But it seems to me – and I hope it seems to you – that more than that has gone wrong. There is something unfair about the outcomes of the political process in our imagined society. Specifically, there seems to be some sense – I’ll try to precisify what sense later – in which the situation unfairly favors the Stickers (and their views), and fails to adequately represent the Twisters. Given this, what ought the Twisters to do? Three answers suggest themselves: