Abstract

Those whose Way is not the same cannot take counsel together.Confucius, Analects XV, 40Quasi-Realism and Fundamental Disagreement: Egan’s ProblemI believe that it is wrong to open your boiled egg at the big end. You believe that it is not wrong to open your egg at the big end. We are at an impasse. The impasse might not be deep. One of us might just be wrong on some matter of prosaic nonnormative fact. But perhaps that is not the case. Even if we both came to be fully informed about all relevant facts, our disagreement might persist. Perhaps other rational means are available to resolve our disagreement. Perhaps if I became more sensitive, more imaginative, more considerate of others’ needs, I would change my mind. And perhaps, by my own present lights, one’s moral sensibility is improved by being changed in these ways, so that this would be, again by my own present lights, a change for the better. Perhaps your contrary view would not prove robust in circumstances where you had to endu