| Consider the situation of someone who is motivated to be moral, finds that almost no one shares her views, and has no reasonable argument for thinking most other people's moral judgments are less trustworthy than her own. I refer to such a person as a "moral non-conformist." Inasmuch as she means to avoid making moral mistakes, how can she react to this disagreement in an intellectually responsible way?;To answer this question, I first examine epistemological views about how a person should reasonably respond to disagreement with a single "epistemic peer"--- someone whose judgment is comparably trustworthy. I distinguish three major positions: the "Resolute" view holds that a person need not revise her view at all; the "Diffident" view holds that both parties should suspend judgment; and the "Conciliatory" view holds that both parties should become less confident of their initial opinions to some degree, but need not suspend judgment altogether. The Conciliatory view, I argue, is most reasonable, at least for the circumstances of the moral non-conformist. The Resolute view permits agents to ignore the possibility of moral mistakes and the Diffident view implausibly assumes that suspension of judgment is the only sort of revision available to two contrary views.;Next, I examine what the Conciliatory view implies for moral non-conformists in particular The most straightforward version of the view has some troubling implications. If a moral non-conformist becomes somewhat less confident of her view in response to each disagreement with a presumed epistemic peer, she will eventually have such a low degree of confidence in her initial view that she will effectively have switched positions. This result is troubling because almost everyone accepts moral views that were non-conforming views at some point in time, and these views probably would not have become widespread if non-conformists had changed their positions. I propose a modified version of Conciliation which would enable moral non-conformists to engage in cautious "experiments in living." This modified view, I argue, is reasonable for those who are concerned, not only with correcting their own mistaken moral views, but with promoting moral progress in general. |
