Chapter 6 - Disagreement

Summary

The point of Ridge’s chapter 6 is simple: to provide a plausible account of disagreement.  It has to improve on existing accounts and mesh with the account built so far in EE.  The structure of the chapter is also simple.  The first section deals with Stevenson’s account, which is found wanting.  The second section deals with Allan Gibbard’s account, which is seen as an improvement on Stevenson’s, but is also found wanting.  Ridge then develops his own account, which he calls ‘disagreement in prescription’, and shows how it meshes with what has gone before.

Section 1: Disagreement in Attitude

Ridge begins with a summary of Stevenson’s account.  How to define ‘disagreement in attitude’?  Although many think it is sufficient for there to be two attitudes that cannot be satisfied, Ridge notes that Stevenson does add a further, necessary condition in some passages, namely that at least one party has to have a desire to change the other’s attitude.   Ridge argues that this second condition renders the overall position absurd, and focuses in the main on the account with this condition eschewed.

Having summarized Stevenson’s account, Ridge indicates four main worries.  (i) We can have cases of different preferences – I prefer that Wolverhampton Wanderers win, and you do not – that seem to be differences of attitude but do not seem to be disagreements, at least in a sense we are trying to capture.  (ii) What about non-linguistic animals?  Fido wants to go for a walk, whilst I want to have a quiet evening in.  This fits Stevenson’s account, yet it does not seem a clear case of disagreement at all.  Even if we think it is a case of disagreement, it doesn’t seem as clear-cut as the others.  The analysis offers no sense of how that can be.  (iii) Stevenson’s account seems to fit many mental states where there can be incompatible propositional contents.  However, we do not find the ideas of ‘disagreement in fantasy’, ‘disagreement in supposition’ and ‘disagreement in perception’ natural type of disagreement as opposed, again, to being differences only.  (iv) This account has no way of accommodating agent-relative judgements, and these judgements seem to be pre-theoretically intuitively plausible.  The worry here revolves around indexicality and what one would wish others to do.  Where we have a difference between two speakers as to what a third should do,  that difference can be expressed as two different preferences as to what those individual speakers would do if they were in the shoes of the third: ‘if I were you, then I would / would not phi’.  Both preferences can seemingly be satisfied, and thus we have no disagreement where we think there should be one.

Section 2: Disagreement in Plan

For Gibbard, normative judgements are planning states.  He “analyzes what my judgement about what other people should do in a given set of circumstances in terms of my contingency plan for being in those circumstances.”

         This account gets round the fourth problem that dogs Stevenson’s account.  Gibbard illustrates his view with the example of what Brutus thinks Caesar should do.  Brutus plots to ensure that Caesar comes to the Senate, yet he can also say to himself that if he were to find himself in Caesar’s shoes, then he should not come to the Senate.  We have two all-things considered judgements that clash.  Ridge is satisfied that there is an improvement here, from Stevenson to Gibbard.

         However, there are, again, four issues that Ridge raises for this account, or rather stages of worry that he develops.  (i) I plan to do something in a circumstance, whilst you plan to do something else in the same circumstance.  What makes it the case that such differences are disagreements?  Gibbard’s response is a type of transcendental argument: we must treat at least some disagreements in plan as genuine disagreements.  Imagine what it would be like to be a single person over time, changing her plans.  It makes sense for her to treat differences between her present self and previous selves as disagreements.  If she does not, then these previous plans could still be considered as mere possibilities for her now, rather than as plans that are, in some way, defective.  Similarly, when I consult others about what to do, especially if I regard them as good planners and worth talking with, and there is a difference, it can make sense to treat this as a type of disagreement.  Again, if I don’t then these could be considered to be live possibilities for me, rather than plans that I think are flawed in some way.  This is not something we are forced to do, but if we think of someone else as a good planner, then in part it shows that we take her plan seriously, and as something worth disagreeing with.  This does suggest, as Ridge notes, that there can be occasions of ‘impasse’: I regard myself and my plan as ideal and think that you and yours are not, and vice versa.  In that case, we will have nothing left to work with and no point, perhaps, to treating our differences as ones of disagreement.  But, Gibbard hopes that such occasions will occur infrequently.   Can this transcendental argument work?....

          (ii) Ridge thinks not.  He is not convinced that we have to treat these types of difference as disagreements.  If Gibbard uses ‘disagreement’ as ‘disagreement in plan’ throughout his argument, he has established nothing.  We have a type of circularity – the differences in plan that two people have amount to a disagreement but only because we have cast ‘disagreement’ as ‘disagreement in plan’.  The real issue is whether disagreement in plan is a real type of disagreement.  Is it?  We need some independent idea of what sorts of topic can correctly be topics for agreement and disagreement.  Gibbard gives us some glimmers here, but not enough with which to work. 

(iii)  Gibbard’s transcendental move depends on a practical need.  Agents have to conceive of themselves as disagreeing with previous selves or other people in order to take themselves as being effective planners.  But what if this need could be met by us merely pretending that we disagree with previous selves as opposed to merely differing?  Gibbard could respond by saying that at least many people do feel this need to conceive of themselves in this way.  And this leads to a more fundamental issue….

(iv) Namely that the range of cases in which there is a point to treating ourselves as disagreeing does not coincide with the range of cases in which people disagree.  Consider cases of impasse: it may be coherent for us to treat ourselves as disagreeing (rather than differing) but there is no point in doing so simply because there is no way that one or the other party will change his or her mind.  This point is sharpened if we think that there are quite a few cases of impasse, I think.   

            The big worry that emerges for Ridge is Gibbard’s transcendental argument.  To what extent are we licensed to treat difference in plan as proper disagreement?

Section 3: Disagreement in Prescription

Gibbard is right to focus on normative discussion, thinks Ridge.  But, in order to move from difference to disagreement, his account depends on there being a point – a real, actual point – to the discussion, and it is this that distinguishes (mere) difference from (proper) disagreement.   Better to think about an idealized circumstance, thinks Ridge: what people would prescribe if they were in best circumstances.  We leave behind the thought that there has to be some actual, existing point to their difference. 

Ridge asks us to think about idealized circumstances in which each party advises the other about what they should do.  Each party must be fully honest and fully candid with the other.  Each must mention all considerations that are relevant to the decision, and each must mean what he or she says.

Ridge lists some advantages of his account.  (i) Sometimes there is mere difference and this does not result in disagreement, and this may simply be because I have no desire to change your mind, for I may not be advising you to do anything, even if we have different tastes or preferences.  This account can capture this phenomenon.  (ii) The account makes it easy to see why we are cautious about characterizing non-linguistic agents as entering into relations of agreement and disagreement.  We may very well hesitate about speculating as to what a non-linguistic agent would advise in ideal circumstances.  (iii) There is a nice mirror to point (i).  This account can explain how we can be taken to be disagreeing even without any actual motive to change someone else’s mind.  All that matters is that we would offer incompatible actions if we were to offer some advice.  (iv) A theme from elsewhere in the book comes in.  This account explains what is special about belief and desire.  The focus here is on advice.  Consider first desire – it would seem to be insincere to say ‘I would advise you to phi, even though I would never do that if I were in your circumstances for I have no desire to’. And in order to be offering advice in ideal circumstances, one has to be sincere.  What of belief?  That is more complicated, but essentially, one way of advising someone to believe that p is simply to assert that p.  Ridge claims that there is nothing analogous to this for fantasizing and the rest.  (v) Lastly, Ridge outlines how this account accommodates normative disagreement about agent-relative reasons.

              Ridge ends by indicating how this fits with the ecumenical expressivism he has already developed.

Commentary and Questions

(1) I think that, by and large, Ridge does a really good job in summarizing Stevenson and Gibbard, and raises some good points.   The move to think about idealization is a really nice one.  But….

(2)  …there is one point from what Ridge says that I think it is worth pausing on, if only to get more clarification.  I am going to focus on his claim that asserting that p is a way of advising someone to believe that p and, in particular, the claim that comes from this, namely that there is a great difference between belief and, say, fantasizing on this point.  (Note that establishing the difference between belief and fantasy, for example, is the main thrust of what Ridge is doing on pp. 188ff.) 

         So, first of all, is asserting a way of advising?  Well it can be.  (I am not going to deny that here.)  Ridge makes a nice point on p. 189 that relies on discussants and believers both aiming at truth, ceteris paribus.  If I say that p, then I am presenting p as being true.  If you think of me as honest and reliable, you have a reason to believe that p.  What Ridge does is play up the interesting aspects of our language that take us from a dull, narrowly characterized speech-act of asserting to show us that assertion can also be a type of advising.

          Fine.  But, the more one plays that up, the more one might see that expression of fantasy shares more with expression of belief than Ridge allows for.  He says:  “Nothing analogous to this can be said about fantasizing, perceiving, or supposing for the sake of argument.  It is not obvious that we can (in our language, anyway) directly express these states of mind at all, as opposed to expressing them by expressing our beliefs about them.  This is especially unclear when one recalls that the relevant sense of ‘express’ is one which goes via robust linguistic conventions. Insofar as we could directly express them in the relevant sense, though, it is not plausible to suppose that we would thereby be advising our interlocutor to adopt our fantasy, perception, or supposition. Nor is it clear that the idea of honesty, hypocrisy, and the like intuitively come into the frame in these other cases either.” (p. 189, his italics).

        Some comments on this key passage.  First, I don’t share Ridge’s confidence that we cannot express fantasies directly with our language.  Just think of stories one tells to all manner of people – bedtime stories to children, for example.  I think I am directly expressing a fantasy to them and not just beliefs about the fantasy (or, perhaps better to make Ridge’s point, not just beliefs about the fantasy world).  I think that when I tell my children a story I am directly expressing the fantasy, not giving them beliefs about what happens or is happening in this fantasy world.  (Of course, this may be because – thinking of Ridge’s next claim – that I have misunderstood what is meant by ‘express’ here.  But, then I need a little clarification.)  Now, a crucial point for me.  Remember, I am worried about how special belief is in this sense, and how different it is, as Ridge supposes, from fantasy and the like.  Ridge says that it is implausible to suppose that we are trying to get our interlocutor to share our fantasy.  This strikes me as wrong-headed.  When I tell my children a bedtime story this is precisely one of the things I am aiming at doing, alongside other things such as trying to amuse them and calm them down.   Insofar as my asserting of p is a type of advising others to believe p, so my expressing a fantasy p (or a fantasy that p, or a fantasy of p), is a type of getting others to share in my fantasy and to fantasize as I do.  I just don’t see the gulf here.

        (Now, here’s something that is more of a ‘blogged punt’….)  Where I do think Ridge may have something is the point about honesty, at least as narrowly construed.  Issues of honesty don’t, obviously, come into fantasies!  But recall why we are talking about honesty.  We are talking of someone, suitably idealized, advising someone to phi.  Part of that idealization involves honesty.  And now we are trying to explain why belief, amongst many contentful states, has a special status and why agreement and disagreement in belief and attitude have great similarities, and are unlike samenesses and differences in fantasy.  But, the point of introducing honesty is, really, to show that we are people who are proper discussants, and who are not just sounding off in the same general vicinity.  Our difference gets turned into a disagreement, and our sameness gets turned into an agreement, partly because there is something about our character that connects with someone else.  Now, we have just seen that we can share in the fantasy together.  Furthermore, this is not just me giving a fantasy with you latching on.  Rather, I am aiming to get you to share in the fantasy, perhaps even continue it.  This is not honesty on my part, but some similar character trait, relevant to fantasy, something such as ‘engaged, sympathetic creativity’. 

          What of difference in fantasy?  (Here I think Ridge is on stronger ground, so this paragraph just shows where I have got….)  Well, there has to be some basis of sameness to begin with.  We have to be talking of the same, general fantasy world, with quite a few of the same characters and the like.  (Just as, when it comes to belief, we have to be having beliefs about the same set of things in general, otherwise the difference will simply be a difference: you expressing a belief about cheese, whilst I express a belief about tables.)  You and I both continue the story, but in different ways.  This may turn into a disagreement, and not just a difference, because the different depictions we offer continue the characterisations in ways that clash.  But, as Ridge may point out, if you dig deep, is the best way to cache out that clash really just to put it in terms of belief: given the fantasy world we have both been engaged in constructing, I believe that Noddy will eventually turn to a life of crime as he grows up, whereas you believe that he will stick to the straight and narrow.  And, so, we may still see that the only way of moving from differences in fantasy to anything like disagreements in fantasy is to rely on beliefs.  And that may show the power of Ridge’s stance.              

(3) Also, I am going to raise a very general point, if only to encourage clarification and extension of the account.  All of this concerns action: advising people to phi.  What about judgements where there is no action?  What of cases where I am judging that something is the case where we are dealing with evaluative judgements?  In a comment on a previous chapter I mentioned aesthetic judgements, so let’s stick with one of those.  I say that a painting is jejune and sloppy, whereas you say that it is youthful, daring and unencumbered.  Is this sort of difference one of mere taste?  (I’m wary of saying that about all aesthetic cases.)  It also doesn’t seem to be a difference in prescriptions, at least not straightforwardly.  After all, what am I prescribing people to do?  Buy the painting?  In a few cases, yes, but not all.  So, is the translation to what Ridge says the simple one of ‘asserting that the painting is jejune, etc. is a way of advising others to believe that it is jejune? (Or ‘…advising others to feel that it is jejune?’.)  What is going on in cases where we may decline to say that there is an obviously straightforward prescription?   

Sorry this is longer than the norm.  (I really got into this, Mike.)

Also, apologies in advance.  After posting I may not be able to get back here to check on comments until the weekend.