No, We Don’t Have To Agree With You!

Do you think everyone has to agree with you about something? Do they have to agree that God exists, Christianity is true, atheism is true, Islam is evil, libertarianism is true, socialism is true, Obama is the antichrist, or Harry Potter is satanist propaganda? Many people seem so confident that they’re right and they know that you need to agree with them. The other person might think that you’re an idiot for not agreeing. This attitude of certainty and confidence often leads to intolerance and insults. Of course, few people are perfect and almost everyone suffers from over-confidence and immodesty at one point or another.

Three Kinds of Intuitive Arguments

Our arguments depend on assumptions. We prefer these assumptions to be intuitive and coherent with our other “knowledge” rather than counterintuitive and incompatible with our other “knowledge.” We might not be able to fully explain how we know “1+1=2” but we find it to be an intuitive belief, and we think it’s absurd (and perhaps incoherent) to deny that it’s true. Intuitive arguments are not only very common in philosophy, but it’s possible that all our justifications are grounded in intuition in one way or another.

10 Myths About Beliefs

There are many myths and misunderstandings that prevent clear thinking, good debate, and proper argumentation. I will discuss ten myths about beliefs, but first I will describe knowledge.

Objections to Moral Realism Part 4: Moral Beliefs Can’t Motivate

There is evidence that moral values involve desires. When we say “human life has intrinsic value,” we expect a desire to promote human life and a pro-attitude towards human life. The connection between moral beliefs and desires is not clear, and some people have argued that morality is only about desires. If morality is only about desires, then we should reject the existence of intrinsic values because our intrinsic value beliefs would merely state our desires. These concerns reflect Humean psychology, which states that there are beliefs and desires, and beliefs can’t motivate. Mark Platts, John Searle, and others have disputed Humean psychology. Although not all philosophers agree with Humean psychology, I will not question it here. Instead, I will attempt to prove that Humean psychology is compatible with moral realism.