Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment

Abstract The striking extent of religious disagreement suggests that religious conviction is very often the result of processes that do not reliably produce true beliefs. For this reason, many have argued that the only rational response to religious disagreement is to adopt a religious skepticism that eschews confident religious belief. This book contests this conclusion, explaining how it could be rational to maintain confident religious (or irreligious) belief even in the face of persistent disagreement. Part I argues against the commitment to rigorous epistemic impartiality that underlies the case for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism, while also critiquing highly sanguine approaches to disagreement that allow for an unproblematic privileging of one’s first-person perspective. According to the position defended in part I, justified confidence in the face of religious disagreement is likely to require that one have rational insight into reasons that favor one’s outlook. It is argued that many of the rational insights that are crucial to assessing religious outlooks are not achievable through analytical reasoning but only through having the right sort of emotional experiences. Part II considers the implications for religious commitment of accepting the impartiality requirement favored by “disagreement skeptics.” Challenges are raised to the assumption that a commitment to rigorous epistemic impartiality rules out confident religious belief. But it is further argued that such a commitment would likely make it irrational to pursue one’s favored form of religious life and might lead to normative uncertainty that would prevent rational engagement in any religious or irreligious way of life whatsoever.