Reasonable but Intractable Disagreement

Richard Keshen
University College of Cape Breton

Intractable disagreement between reasonable interlocutors is what I call reasonable disagreement. Recently, a number of liberal philosophers such as Rawls, Nagel, and Larmore have drawn attention to reasonable disagreement as an aspect of justifying liberal toleration and even as a key to modernity. They accept and even welcome reasonable disagreement as a reflection of a pluralistic and tolerant society. At the same time, they are adamant that giving reasonable disagreement its due should not undermine confidence in one's own beliefs. This paper criticizes a number of accounts of reasonable disagreement and questions whether these accounts are compatible with epistemological self-confidence.