Questions: Rational Response to Peer Disagreement

Question 1

Alice and Bob are epistemic peers on a question in moral philosophy. They review the same arguments and evidence. Bob concludes P; Alice concludes not-P. Alice notices that her belief 'just feels obviously right' upon reflection. How should a conciliationist evaluate Alice's appeal to how her belief feels?

• A. Alice's introspective access to her own reasoning gives her privileged grounds to maintain her view despite Bob's disagreement
• B. The feeling of obvious correctness is evidence that Alice reasoned well, so she should maintain her belief
• C. From a third-person view, Bob's belief feels equally right to him, so Alice's feeling of correctness provides no asymmetric epistemic advantage
• D. Alice should defer to Bob's view because disagreement among peers always favors revising one's own belief

Answer: (C)

The conciliationist's core argument is that Alice cannot appeal to first-person certainty as a reason to privilege her own view, because Bob experiences exactly the same first-person certainty about his position. The symmetry argument says: from an external perspective, there is no more reason to trust Alice's reasoning than Bob's. Alice's feeling that she is right is precisely what we'd expect whether she reasoned correctly or made an error — so it provides no information about which of them went wrong. This symmetry is what motivates the conciliationist's demand for some revision.

Question 2

Which of the following most accurately captures the steadfast view's objection to conciliationism?

• A. Steadfastness holds that epistemic peers never actually disagree, only that they have access to different evidence
• B. Steadfastness holds that a peer's disagreement provides no information whatsoever about the subject matter
• C. Steadfastness holds that strong first-order reasons for a belief survive peer disagreement, since disagreement tells you about your peer's reasoning, not about the subject matter itself
• D. Steadfastness holds that you should always defer to the peer with more expertise, even if they are nominal equals

Answer: (C)

The steadfast view (associated with Thomas Kelly) argues that your first-order reasons — the actual evidence and arguments you evaluated — don't evaporate when someone disagrees. Peer disagreement gives you information that one of you reasoned poorly, but it doesn't give you new information about the subject. Fully conciliating with every peer disagreement would mean your beliefs track social consensus rather than truth, and would make careful reasoning pointless. The steadfast view preserves the epistemic weight of good first-order reasoning against the social pressure of disagreement.

Question 3

According to the epistemology of peer disagreement, discovering that an epistemic peer disagrees with you mainly requires belief revision if that peer has access to evidence you haven't considered.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

False. This would make peer disagreement equivalent to ordinary evidence-updating, which is not the philosophically distinctive case. The concept of epistemic peer stipulates that both parties have access to the same evidence. The puzzle is precisely that disagreement persists even with shared evidence and equal competence. Conciliationists argue that even with identical evidence, the disagreement itself is higher-order evidence that one of you reasoned poorly — and you should revise because you have no inside access to which one erred. The interesting case is not 'you have new evidence' but 'you have the same evidence and still disagree.'

Question 4

Conciliationism implies that two epistemic peers who have carefully and independently reached opposite conclusions should each revise their confidence downward after discovering the disagreement.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

True. This is the direct consequence of the conciliationist symmetry argument. If peer disagreement is evidence that one of you reasoned poorly, and you have no privileged access to which one it was, then both parties are in an epistemically symmetrical position: each should treat the disagreement as evidence against their own reasoning and revise confidence accordingly. The revision need not take them to the midpoint — how much to revise depends on factors like prior confidence and the track records of each party — but both should move rather than only one.

Question 5

Why does the conciliationist argue that a believer cannot simply appeal to 'I've thought carefully about this and I'm confident I'm right' to maintain her view against an epistemic peer who disagrees?

Model answer: Because the peer can say exactly the same thing with equal justification. The symmetry problem is that whatever grounds Alice offers for trusting her own reasoning — she's been careful, she's confident, the conclusion seems obvious — are grounds Bob can match from his side. If Alice's confidence is evidence that she reasoned correctly, then Bob's equal confidence is equally evidence that he reasoned correctly. Since both can't be correct, Alice's grounds for trusting her reasoning are undercut by the very existence of the disagreement. The conciliationist concludes that first-person confidence, absent some asymmetry, cannot break the tie.

This is why the peer disagreement problem is philosophically distinctive rather than a mere social puzzle. It is not that Alice should defer to social pressure or to consensus. It is that the structure of the situation makes Alice's introspective resources — her sense that she reasoned well — unavailable as a uniquely privileged response, because those same resources are available to Bob. The higher-order evidence (that one of us made an error) is symmetric; only external asymmetries (track records, specific expertise, access to additional evidence) can break the symmetry.