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Conformity and Rationality, Part 3: The Case for Nonconformism

The Problem

In my last article, we considered something remarkably titillating: three variations of a scenario in which you and I found ourselves disagreeing over the answer to a fairly complicated math problem that we'd each worked in our heads.

Here's how it went:

Almost 40 of us had had lunch at White Castle©®™¹, and we had all agreed to split the bill evenly. You and I had divided the bill 39 ways in our heads. You concluded that each of us owed $11.42, and I concluded that we each owed $13.94. In one scenario, you were an extraordinary mathematician and I was a terrible one. In another scenario, I was an extraordinary mathematician and you were a terrible one. In the third scenario, we were equally terrible mathematicians.

What we decided after reflecting on this scenario was that our mathematical abilities relative to each other had a huge bearing on the rational response to the fact that we came to different conclusions. In the version where you were the math savant, it would have been perfectly rational for you to remain confident that each of us owed $11.42, even after learning that I thought we each owed $13.94.

Not so in the other versions, though. Where we were equally bad at math, the probability that I was right was just as high as the probability that you were right, so the rational thing for you to do was withhold judgment. After seeing that I thought each of us owed $13.94, you should have lost all confidence that each of us owed $11.42. And in the version where I was the savant and you were the math dunce, it was highly probable that I was right and highly improbable that you were. So, the rational response would have consisted not only in your losing confidence in $11.42, but becoming confident that we each owed $13.94.

We saw that the basic issue was relative probability. Where your being correct was more probable than my being correct, I was rationally obligated to defer to you; where my being correct was more probable than your being correct, you were rationally obligated to defer to me; and where we were equally likely to be correct, we were rationally obligated to meet in the middle — we were both obligated to become agnostic.

But then we seemed to have a problem.

We considered a case where you discovered that your philosophy professor — who was more familiar with the evidence and arguments than you are, has greater intellectual abilities and more education than you do, and so on — rejected the existence of God, or thought abortion was morally permissible, or claimed that Christianity was irrational. Given all of the advantages your professor has over you, he or she would surely be more likely to get the right answer to a given philosophical question than you are. So how — without being flagrantly dogmatic, that is — could you continue to believe what you did?

Epistemic Peers

That's the question we're going to answer in this article. A smidgen of technical terminology might be of use here.

Let's say that someone is your epistemic inferior with respect to some question Q if that person is less likely to get the correct answer to Q than you are. Let's also say that that person is your epistemic superior if he is more likely to get the correct answer to Q than you are. Finally, let's say that the two of you are epistemic equals if you're equally likely to get the correct answer to Q.

If you know that I'm your epistemic inferior and you discover that I reject the existence of God, you don't have much to worry about, since I'm considerably less likely to be right than you are. But just the opposite would seem to be the case if I was either your epistemic equal or your epistemic superior, like a prof would be.

For the sake of further simplification, then, let's say that someone is your epistemic peer if he is either your epistemic equal or your epistemic superior — in short, if he's at least your epistemic equal, at least as likely to be correct as you are.²

Is it ever rational for you to disagree with an epistemic peer, then?

The Case for Conformism³

Call the view that it's not ever rational for you to disagree with an epistemic peer, "conformism."

At first glance, it might appear that conformism is obviously right. After all, if I'm your epistemic peer with respect to some question, then, by definition, I am at least as smart as you, have just as much evidence as you have, and so on. In short, I am just as likely to arrive at the truth as you are. But then how can I be any more confident in my judgment than I am in your judgment?

You're just as smart as me or smarter. You have just as much evidence as I have or more evidence. What, then, could justify me in thinking that I'm right and you're wrong? The only evidence I have that you're the one who's mistaken seems to be that you disagree with me. But how could the mere fact that you disagree with me possibly give me sufficient evidence for the conclusion that I'm right and you're wrong? Reasoning, at least one of us is mistaken here; I'm not the one who's mistaken; therefore, you must be the one who's wrong seems to be the very pinnacle of dogmatism.

But maybe things aren't so simple.

The Case for Nonconformism

According to conformism, it's never rational to disagree with someone you regard as an epistemic peer. Nonconformism, then, will be the view that you can rationally disagree with someone you regard as an epistemic peer — at least, under certain circumstances.

So, take the White Castle scenarios again, and consider what would happen if we had fewer people and fewer burgers involved. Suppose you're my epistemic peer, suppose we've gone to White Castle and we're the only customers in the store, and suppose that the total is exactly $2. We do the math in our heads. You conclude that we owe $1 each, and I conclude that each of us owes $1.13.

The bill is $2, and you are absolutely certain that half of $2 is $1. That half of $2 is $1 is so clear to you that you can't imagine its being anything else. Indeed, you're more confident that half of $2 is $1 than that I'm even in the room with you, or that we're even at White Castle. (After all, if you were dreaming or stuck in the Matrix, I wouldn't be there with you at White Castle, but half of $2 would still be $1.) Even supposing that I'm a world-famous mathematician and you're a freshman in my remedial math class, it seems clear that it would be perfectly rational for you to disagree with me in a case like this.

So, conformism is false. It's not the case that it's never rational to disagree with someone you regard as an epistemic peer. And this is good news with respect to the above case in which you found yourself in disagreement with your prof. Just because your prof is your epistemic peer, it doesn't follow that it would be irrational for you to continue believing in God, that abortion is wrong, and so on.

But from the fact that conformism is false, it doesn't follow that it's always rational to disagree with an epistemic peer. (This, recall, was the lesson of the original White Castle cases.) So, we're not out of the woods yet. We've seen that it's sometimes rational to disagree with an epistemic peer, but not always.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Which cases do you think would allow for rational disagreement with a peer or superior?

Join the discussion!

What makes the difference, then?

We'll answer this question in the next article, and in the course of doing so, we'll see how it bears on the rationality of our religious beliefs, our moral beliefs, our political beliefs, and the other things we care about.