In this chapter, I have explored how amateurs might retain atheistic or goat knowledge if confronted by arguments it is beyond their ability to reliably evaluate. But some of us have expertise in the relevant areas; we are atheistic philosophers of religion or expert psi-debunkers. Are experts in danger of losing knowledge when confronted by arguments in which they may not be able to expose a flaw? I discussed this issue in the previous chapter, but it is informative to revisit the matter in light of the specific topics of this chapter. I focus on atheism but my comments should apply just as well to the denial of psychic phenomena.21
Suppose an expert philosopher of religion and an atheist—an expert atheist –comes across a new collection of theistic arguments. The expert has sufficient expertise to evaluate those arguments. Because philosophers are clever, the expert might not be able to figure out what is wrong with them after reading them. If the atheist were an amateur, the epistemic efficacy of amateurism might save the atheist’s knowledge. But because the atheist is an expert, the epistemic efficacy of amateurism won’t help. Does discovery of the new collection destroy the expert atheist’s knowledge?
21 My thanks to an anonymous referee for Oxford University Press for encouraging additional discussion of this
The expert atheist should not be overly concerned. According to the worry, because it is surprising for experts to be fooled by misleading arguments, experts lose knowledge more easily when confronted by the existence of counterarguments they haven’t read; they can’t take
advantage of the epistemic efficacy of amateurism. But precisely because it is surprising for experts to be fooled by misleading arguments, they don’t lose knowledge more easily when confronted by unread counterarguments.22 They can retain their knowledge without reading the counterarguments because it is unlikely the arguments will be apparently flawless. Expert atheists retain knowledge for the same reason that you retain knowledge in the situations described in Harman’s dogmatism paradox. Knowledge is not automatically destroyed by the mere possibility of counterevidence that would be surprising were you to find it.
Once they read the arguments and find them apparently flawless, of course, expert atheists might lose knowledge in a way that amateurs don’t. As argued in Chapter 3, this is the correct result. If it isn’t likely that experts would find a misleading argument apparently flawless, then if expert atheists find a theistic argument apparently flawless, they should rethink their atheism. Because it isn’t likely that they would be fooled by misleading arguments, expert atheists won’t be in this situation—finding a counterargument apparently flawless—as often as amateur atheists. Amateur atheists will routinely find misleading arguments apparently flawless that expert atheists don’t find apparently flawless. So most arguments that allow amateur atheists to retain their knowledge will also allow expert atheists to retain theirs. Expert atheists, as easily as amateur atheists, retain knowledge in the face of unpossessed evidence. Expert atheists, as easily as amateur atheists, retain knowledge after exposure to counterarguments. Only when both
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find counterarguments apparently flawless are experts in more danger of losing knowledge. This, again, is how it should be.
5
The Obligation to Engage
The definitive idea for deliberative democracy is the idea of deliberation itself. When citizens deliberate, they exchange views and debate their supporting reasons concerning public political questions. They suppose that their political opinions may be revised by discussion with other citizens; and therefore these opinions are not simply a fixed outcome of their existing private or nonpolitical interests. (John Rawls (1997, 772))
5.1 INTRODUCTION
The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have provided unprecedented opportunities to argue with each other. There are blogs, social media, email, and texts, in addition to more traditional modes of interaction: letters to the editor, town hall meetings, snail mail, conversations with friends, phone calls to elected representatives, public debates, invited
speakers, question-and-answer sessions, the center of the public square, and the corner soapbox. It is easier both to make your position widely available and for others to communicate their counterarguments and objections to you.
If you have a position on some controversial matter of politics, religion, science, ethics, or philosophy, and you have access to or are already holding forth in some public or private forum in which that matter is being discussed, what is your obligation to engage with relevant counterarguments? To what extent should you be willing to pull back from your opinion or the expression of that opinion if you can’t answer those counterarguments? In this chapter I develop a variety of arguments that we should argue with each other; there is at least a prima facie violation of an obligation in all the central cases in which we refuse to engage with relevant counterarguments, including the case that opens the preface to this book.
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don’t think these arguments ultimately achieve even that minimal goal. In many central cases there is neither a normative requirement to engage with relevant counterarguments, nor a requirement to pull back from your expressed opinion if you can’t answer those
counterarguments. On the contrary, there is often a normative requirement not to engage and, if you engage, not to do so open-mindedly. This is true even if you have already taken an explicit stand in defense of your position and even if the counterarguments in question come from members of your intended audience. I defer until Chapters 6 and 7 the argument that there often aren’t such normative requirements and that there are often normative requirements to the contrary. (I apply the conclusion to a specific case—invitations to academic speakers—in Chapter 8.)
There are at least three sources that might generate an obligation to engage with relevant counterarguments. First, the obligation might be an essential feature of the role or position occupied by the one who has the obligation. For example, having the obligation might partly constitute any of the following roles: commenter on a public paper, explicit advocate of a position, elected representative, or participant in argumentation. Second, engagement might be obligatory because of the positive consequences of engagement, among which are the positive epistemic consequences of obtaining truth and avoiding falsehood. Third, engagement might be required in order to respect the rights or agency of those who put forth counterarguments. The obligations generated by any of these sources could amount to things you owe to society or the world at large, to yourself, to those who put forth the arguments, to some specified audience,1 or
1 Though I am mainly concerned with putative obligations to those presenting arguments and to the world at large,
Christian Kock thinks that the purpose of participating in argumentation is to benefit audience members listening in, but not involved in the discussion: “the main reason why such debates are potentially meaningful is that other individuals facing such a choice (legislators and citizens) may hear, consider and compare the arguments relating to the choice” (2007, 238). The only way argumentation can serve this purpose is if each side engages with the arguments made by the other side.
even to no one at all, if it’s possible to have obligations whose fulfillment you don’t owe to anyone.2
Depending on how narrowly “salience” is construed, in addition to any putative obligations there are to engage with salient, relevant counterarguments, there might be obligations to engage with counterarguments not yet made salient. If “salience” is construed narrowly, there might be lots of counterarguments—particularly arguments that would be advocated by those whose voices are excluded from public spaces—that are never able to make it to salience. Focusing exclusively on putative obligations to engage with salient
counterarguments, on this narrow construal, inevitably leaves out of the discussion the voices of the marginalized and excluded. To avoid this, I include in the domain of relevant
counterarguments, not only counterarguments that have made it to public attention, but
counterarguments that would be endorsed or advocated by members of disenfranchised groups or their representatives.
If there is an obligation to engage with relevant counterarguments, it is likely merely pro tanto. In David Copp’s (2007, 370) construal, you have a pro tanto obligation to engage just when you have a defeasible reason for engaging that, in the absence of conflicting reasons, would suffice to establish an all-things-considered obligation. Your obligations to engage with relevant counterarguments can often be defeated by considerations of time, interest, potential payoff, and qualifications. Still, defenders of engagement take pains to comment on what kinds
2 Some of these sources might generate obligations to engage with relevant counterarguments only in some domains.
For example, if the obligation has its source in whatever it is that makes exercises of democratic power politically legitimate, as the arguments I attribute to Rawls and Gutmann & Thompson might maintain, then there might only be an obligation to engage with relevant counterarguments in public domains. Of course, the domain properly classified as “public” is itself a matter of debate. As Seyla Benhabib says, in developing her Habermasian view of public discourse, “In effect, there may be as many publics as there are controversial general debates about the validity of norms” (1992, 105). I take no stance on this issue. As long as the arguments in this chapter establish an obligation to engage with relevant counterarguments in any domain, that’s enough.
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of considerations the pro tanto obligation defeats. As we saw in the preface, Barack Obama thinks the obligation defeats considerations of offensiveness, sexism, and racism. Mill thinks it defeats considerations involving the certainty of the received opinion. Trudy Govier thinks it defeats considerations of frivolousness or silliness. If they’re right, the pro tanto obligation to engage with relevant counterarguments is a pro tanto obligation with significant clout.