The Loyalty of Religious Disagreement

In Matthew A. Benton & Jonathan L. Kvanvig, Religious Disagreement and Pluralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 238-270 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benefits. But religious communities tend to frown on it. A salient reason is that, whereas scientists should be neutral toward the topics they discuss, religious believers should be loyal to God; and religious disagreement, they argue, is disloyal. For it often involves discussion with people who believe more negatively about God than you do, putting you at risk of forming negative beliefs yourself. And forming negative beliefs about someone, or even being open to doing so, is disloyal. A loyal person, says the objector, should instead exhibit doxastic partiality, doing her best to believe positively about the other party even at the cost of accuracy. I discuss two arguments from doxastic partiality that aim to show that religious disagreement is typically disloyal. I argue that even given doxastic partiality, religious disagreement is not typically disloyal, and can in fact be loyal. But then I argue that doxastic partiality is false. A superior form of loyalty is epistemically oriented: concerned with knowing the other party as she really is. This opens up new ways in which religious disagreement for the sake of learning about God can be loyal to him.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Religious Disagreement.Dormandy Katherine - 2023 - In John Greco, Tyler Dalton McNabb & Jonathan Fuqua, The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 208-223.
Religious Disagreement Is Not Unique.Margaret Greta Turnbull - 2021 - In Matthew A. Benton & Jonathan L. Kvanvig, Religious Disagreement and Pluralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 90-106.
Disagreement from the Religious Margins.Katherine Dormandy - 2018 - Res Philosophica 95 (3):371-395.
Transformative Experience and the Problem of Religious Disagreement.Joshua Blanchard & Laurie Paul - 2021 - In Matthew A. Benton & Jonathan L. Kvanvig, Religious Disagreement and Pluralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 127-141.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-03-02

Downloads
403 (#74,766)

6 months
130 (#41,912)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Katherine Dormandy
University of Innsbruck

Citations of this work

Religious Disagreement.Dormandy Katherine - 2023 - In John Greco, Tyler Dalton McNabb & Jonathan Fuqua, The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 208-223.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Warranted Christian Belief.Alvin Plantinga - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Epistemic partiality in friendship.Sarah Stroud - 2006 - Ethics 116 (3):498-524.
Can it be Rational to have Faith?Lara Buchak - 2012 - In Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison, Probability in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 225.

View all 17 references / Add more references