No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Rational Partisan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2025
Abstract
Our politics are increasingly polarised. Polarisation takes many forms. One is increasing clustering, whereby people hold down-the-line liberal or conservative views on a wide range of orthogonal issues. Some philosophers think that such clustering is indicative of irrationality, and so finding yourself in one of several clusters gives you evidence that not all your political beliefs are true. I argue that the reverse is true, presenting a simple model of belief-formation in which finding yourself in one of several clusters of opinion on orthogonal issues should increase, rather than decrease, your confidence that all your beliefs are true.
Information
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Canadian Journal of Philosophy Inc
References
Boland, P. J., Proschan, F., & Tong, Y. L. (1989). Modelling dependence in simple and indirect majority systems. Journal of Applied Probability 26: 81–88.10.2307/3214318CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bramson, A., Grim, P., Singer, D. J., Fisher, S., Berger, W., Sack, G., & Flocken, C. (2016). Disambiguation of social polarization concepts and measures. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 40: 80–111.10.1080/0022250X.2016.1147443CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, D. (2007). Epistemology of disagreement: the good news. Philosophical Review 116: 187–217.10.1215/00318108-2006-035CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Condorcet, M.d. (1785/1976). An Essay on the Application of Probability Theory to Plurality Decision-Making. In Baker, Keith Michael, editor, Condorcet: Selected Writings, 33–70. Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Converse, P. (1964). The Nature of Belief systems in mass publics. In Apter, D.E., editor, Ideology and its Discontent, 206–261. Free Press of Glencoe.Google Scholar
Freeborn, D. P. W. (2024). Rational factionalization for agents with probabilistically related beliefs. Synthese 203: 1–27.10.1007/s11229-024-04491-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, R. E. and Spiekermann, K. (2018). An Epistemic Theory of Democracy. Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198823452.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Vintage.Google Scholar
Hedden, B. and Dorst, K. (2022). (Almost) All evidence is higher-order evidence. Analysis 82: 417–425.10.1093/analys/anab081CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huemer, M. (2016). Why People are Irrational about Politics. In Anomaly, Jonathan, Brennan, Geoffrey, Munger, Michael, & Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey, editors, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics: An Anthology, 456–467. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Joshi, H. (2020). What are the chances you’re right about everything? an epistemic challenge for modern partisanship. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 19: 36–61.10.1177/1470594X20901346CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, T. (2005). The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement. In Gendler, Tamar Szabo and Hawthorne, John, editors, Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 1, 167–196. Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199285891.003.0007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1996). Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, V. and Lewis, H. (2022). The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sliwa, P. (2012). In Defense of Moral Testimony. Philosophical Studies 158: 175–195.10.1007/s11098-012-9887-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherall, J. O. and O’Connor, C. (2020). Endogenous epistemic factionalization. Synthese 198: 6179–6200.10.1007/s11229-020-02675-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar