Dependent philosophicalmajorities and the skeptical argument from disagreement

According to the skeptical argument from disagreement, we are mandated to suspend judgement about a question if we discover that others disagree with us. Critics, however, have proposed that this skeptical argument fails if there are not equally many people on either side of the debate: numbers matter. The present paper explicates this as the argument that a group can be more likely to arrive at the correct view by majority rule than the members are on their own. Defenders of the skeptical argument have resisted that numbersmatter by observing that if group members depend on each other when forming their beliefs, then the group can be less competent than its members. However, neither side of the debate has accompanied their views with quantitative estimates of how detrimental dependence is for group competence. This paper tries to improve this situation by drawing on jury theorems from social choice theory. The paper cannot settle the debate, but it shows that even the lower limit on group competence will exceed the average individual competence when dependence among voters remains moderate. This should give confidence to those who propose that asymmetry between the disputing parties can counter the skeptical argument from disagreement since being in the majority can thus be higher-order evidence for the disputed proposition.

Automated summary

According to the skeptical argument from disagreement, one should suspend judgement if others disagree. However, critics argue that the argument fails when there is an imbalance in the number of people on each side. This paper explores the idea that a group can be more likely to arrive at the correct view through majority rule. The authors show that even with moderate dependence, group competence exceeds individual competence, providing confidence to those proposing asymmetry to counter the skeptical argument.