Michele Palmira

In recent work, J. Adam Carter argues that truth-relativism should be compatible with the so-called conformist response to peer disagreement about taste to the effect that subjects should revise their opinions. However, Carter claims that truth-relativism cannot make sense of this response since it cannot make sense of the idea that when two subjects are recognised as epistemic peers, they should acknowledge that they are equally likely to be right about the targeted issue. The main aim of this paper is a modest one: to argue that truth-relativists should not be worried about their alleged incompatibility with conformism for they should be non-conformists

A popular definition of epistemic peerage maintains that two subjects are epistemic peers if and only if they are equals with respect to general epistemic virtues and share the same evidence about the targeted issue. In this paper I shall take up the challenge of defending the necessity of the evidential equality condition for a definition of epistemic peerage from criticisms that can be elicited from the literature on peer disagreement. The paper discusses two definitions that drop this condition and argues that they yield implausible verdicts about the instantiation of the epistemic peerage relation.