Motivations for Relativism as a Solution to Disagreements

There are five basic ways to resolve disagreements: keep arguing until capitulation, compromise, locate an ambiguity or contextual factors, accept Pyrrhonian skepticism, and adopt relativism. Relativism is perhaps the most radical and least popular solution to a disagreement, and its defenders generally think the best motivator for relativism is to be found in disputes over predicates of personal taste. I argue that taste predicates do not adequatelymotivate relativism over the other possible solutions, and argue that relativism looks like the most promising approach when disputants cannot even agree on the meta-evidence for a contested proposition. Relativism is a way to resolve disagreements. Given that there are several ways to address disagreements, what is sufficient motivation to adopt the relativist approach? In this paper I lay out the case for what kinds of epistemic clashes offer the strongest motivation to vote for relativism. I argue that the most promising candidate on the relativist ticket is that of disputes involving irreconcilable differences. Genuine irreconcilable differences are scarce, and I argue that the usual proposals of relativism-motivators, such as predicates of personal taste, fail to generate them. I then argue that irreconcilable differences are to be located at the level of independent methods of generating noninferential beliefs which are then used as basic data for building theories that one holds in reflective equilibrium. There are many ways to resolve disagreements besides relativism. Given that these other methods are often very appealing, or at least have their own partisans, it is incumbent on relativists to show what cases of disagreements are not plausibly addressed by competitor strategies. To keep matters perspicuous, I will phrase disagreements interpersonally, but nothing substantive should be read into this presentation, as there are other kinds of disagreement as well. I may disagree with Thomas Aquinas, but he and I cannot reasonably be said to be disagreeing with each other. Likewise I may disagree with one of St. Thomas’s arguments, one of his conclusions, or even his sense of fashion and eating habits, but those things do not stand in the same relationship to me. So while one may be in a state of disagreement, without there being an actual person with whom 63 doi:10.1017/S003181911300051X © The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2013 First published online 9 July 2013