Disagreement, Testimony, and Religious Understanding

Abstract

In Chapter 2, questions about appropriate responses to religious disagreement are related to questions about appropriate responses to religious testimony. If it is appropriate to alter one’s credence on the basis of encountering a disagreeing peer, it is also appropriate to alter one’s credence in a religious proposition on the basis of encountering a testifier who is at least as competent and informed as oneself, when one is antecedently unopinionated on the matter at hand. However, recent literature on moral testimony should give one pause; there is distinctive value or importance in acquiring not merely knowledge but understanding. It is argued in this chapter that it may often also be inappropriate to adjust one’s credence on the basis of religious disagreement, for the reason that in so doing one would threaten or disincentivize one’s religious understanding.