Agreeing to Disagree

Some people believe that, “In an ideal world, disagreements would not exist”, and that “‘agreeing to disagree’ is a sign of mutual disrespect and contempt.” Others disagree. I believe that agreeing to disagree is a sign of respect and a practical necessity.

— xkcd

My argument for disagreement follows:

It seems that there are (at least) two types of disagreement: disagreement over facts (”That pole is one meter tall.” versus “No, it’s two meters tall.”) and disagreement over values (”All human life is valuable and must be protected.” versus “Some people do not deserve to live.”). When you say, “In an ideal world, disagreements would not exist,” I assume you only mean disagreement over facts. [...] However, the distinction between facts and values is questionable. Once you see that every “fact” may be laden with “value”, and you admit that agreement on values is often difficult or impossible, then you see that agreement on facts can be difficult or impossible, due to their inherent implications for values. The claim that, “In an ideal world, (factual) disagreements would not exist,” then becomes very problematic.

One reader asked:

Do you believe that the distinction is invalid in general, and that every fact (e.g., human beings reproduce sexually rather than asexually) is really a value? Or are you saying merely that some of what seem to be judgments of fact are judgments of value?

To which I replied:

I think it’s like black versus white. There are extreme cases that seem to be pure fact (pure black) and extreme cases that seem to be pure value (pure white). But we live most of our life in shades of gray.

I believe that agreeing and disagreeing are like cooperating and defecting in the prisoner’s dilemma. Poundstone wrote:

Both Flood and Dresher say they initially hoped that someone at RAND would “resolve” the prisoner’s dilemma. [...] The solution never came. Flood and Dresher now believe that the prisoner’s dilemma will never be “solved”, and nearly all game theorists agree with them. [...] To the extent that a real social problem poses a prisoner’s dilemma, it will be an agonizing choice even when all the side issues are settled. There will be no “right” answer, and reasonable minds will differ.

It might be argued that the prisoner’s dilemma only applies where there is a conflict of interest. We should be able to agree when there is no conflict of interest. This is merely another way of phrasing the fact/value distinction. Conflicts of interest are pervasive and enter most discourse to some degree, sometimes in subtle ways.

In science, the ultimate judge of an argument is experimentation. This is why I would like to limit the length of arguments and encourage readers to present experimental evidence for their views.