When to give weight to weighty religious disagreement

Abstract

When we encounter a disagreeing interlocutor in the weighty domains of religion, philosophy, and politics, what is the rational response to the disagreement? I argue that the rational response is to proportion the degree to which you give weight to the opinion of a disagreeing interlocutor to the degree to which you and your interlocutor share relevant beliefs. I begin with Richard Fumerton's three conditions under which we can rationally give no weight to the opinions of a disagreeing peer. I argue that his conditions are incomplete; I propose a fourth condition that maintains that disagreeing interlocutors (whether they are peers or not) need not give weight to each other's opinions when the interlocutors do not share rationally held relevant beliefs. By contrast, when rationally held relevant beliefs are shared, rationality demands that we re-evaluate and even moderate or change beliefs in the face of disagreement. I then defend my condition against two objections. First, I argue that the condition does not entail a coherence theory of justification. Second, I consider the charge that my condition recommends operating within an epistemic bubble.