Why is rational agreement so elusive?

One of the perennial problems in philosophy is why a general consensus or rational agreement is so hard to come by on virtually all the interesting topics. This is also a problem about philosophy, since the lack of agreement certainly has to give philosophers pause, and make them wonder about the value of what they’re doing.

Jurgen Habermas, the 20th century German philosopher – though hang on, he’s still alive at 94! -- made this one of his central concerns. The American philosopher William Rehg has given an excellent account of the problem, which is worth quoting at length:

According to Habermas, cogent argumentation does not compel assent in the manner of logical deduction but only makes assent to a claim possible or reasonable. This suggests that, at least in some cases – and particularly in more controverted matters – both assent and dissent may be reasonable options. Both options are so insofar as an open, unconstrained process of discourse has not been able to exclude either option as illogical or clearly inferior in responsiveness. How is it, then, that some participants are rationally motivated to accept a claim p and others to reject p, given that everyone has heard the same arguments pro and con? Although both options are reasonable, it is hardly a matter of indifference which side the participants believe – that is, participants in argumentation do not simply feel free to adopt either of the two reasonable options. The gap, then, lies between the possibility of reasonable assent provided by logical and dialectical standards, and actual rational motivation.

Rehg believes that this gap is also a gap in Habermas’ position on argumentation, one that Habermas does not address adequately. Rehg has some Habermasian suggestions to offer, involving the uses of rhetoric and emotion, but that’s not the direction I want to pursue in this OP. Rather, I want to keep the question about “the gap” open, and sharpen it as much as I can, to see how forum members might respond. I should add that I don’t have a “correct answer” hidden in my chiton, to be deployed with a flourish after everyone else reaches aporia. For me it’s a genuine unsolved and perhaps intractable problem, of considerable consequence for philosophy.

So let me re-pose the problem in two ways. First, notice that when an important question receives competing reasonable answers in philosophy, there’s almost certainly a meta-question involved. That question focuses on what are the correct or convincing ways to argue rationally on that topic. Rehg sees this too, when he says that philosophers have to assess “not just two competing sets of arguments but competing interpretations of what argumentation itself should be in a given domain. . . . In effect, one is asked to make a judgment about what constitutes rationality itself in a given area.” Might this looming, enormous meta-question partially account for why consensus is often so hard to achieve?

Second, one of most prevalent tendencies in post-modern philosophy has been to question, often hostilely, the role of rationality itself – what is it, what is it worth, what knowledge does it lead to, etc. Can this sort of critique of rationality be deployed to examine the Habermas problem? In other words, is it possible that the often frustrating morass of competing “reasonable” claims might be a revealing wake-up call about rationality itself, and its role in philosophy? How far could such a critique be taken? At what point does the critical post-modernist fall into what Habermas called “performative contradiction” -- using argument to persuade others that argument should not be persuasive?

I know these are big questions that are often taken separately, but there’s also a unity of concern among them, I think. The “Habermas gap” asks whether the jump from competing reasonable positions to agreement on one can have a rational motivation. I’d be interested to hear how other philosophers on the forum have thought about it. BTW, I am not a Habermas expert, and welcome any corrections or improvements to what I (and Rehg) say about him here.

Moliere

Good questions!

While this is surely not the whole story I think, partly, there is value to disagreement. Agreement allows us to proceed, but philosophy doesn't proceed; Or when philosophy agrees it stops being philosophy and becomes something else. This doesn't accord well with philosophical traditions, which seem to have a sort of progress to them that's a mixture of agreement and disagreement, so it's definitely not the whole story. Only I think it worth highlighting that rational disagreement is valuable, and so the elusiveness of rational agreement isn't necessarily a fault against philosophy.

Angelo Cannata

It looks like you identify philosophy with rationality, but they are not the same thing.

It looks like you identify philosophy with rationality, but they are not the same thing. — Angelo Cannata

Well, I don't really identify philosophy with rationality, since many of the post-modern critics I have in mind are extremely dubious about such an equation, and I don't hesitate to call them philosophers. For me, the rationality question is a problem within philosophy, but not necessarily solvable by rational means alone. A philosopher is free to recommend other approaches.

Angelo Cannata

A philosopher is free to recommend other approaches — J

So, why do you see disagreement as a problem? Why should philosophers agree about something?

Fooloso4

The gap, then, lies between the possibility of reasonable assent provided by logical and dialectical standards, and actual rational motivation. — J

As I understand it, there is a gap between competing rational arguments, neither of which can resolve the issue, and what motivates an individual to chose one over the other. In other words, what is it that persuades someone to chose as they do.

The problem is framed in terms of:

actual rational motivation.

Since both sides present rational arguments, I question the framing of the problem in terms of rational motivation. The participants each come to the argument with their own education, experiences, prejudices, interests, temperament, and so on. These inform and shape their rational thinking.

In other words, is it possible that the often frustrating morass of competing “reasonable” claims might be a revealing wake-up call about rationality itself, and its role in philosophy? — J

What assumptions about rationality are we to awaken from? Mathematics is the model of rationality for Modern philosophy, but this is not how rationality is regarded in the Socratic tradition. What do those today within the Socratic tradition have to wake-up from, if anything?

Arne

Philosophy is not easy. Even posing the issue raises issues. For example, I am unconvinced that "rational agreement" is elusive. Certainly, adherents of idealism (as opposed to realism) agree that idealism is correct. In that sense, there is significant rational agreement in most areas of philosophy.

What is lacking is consensus. Yet in some sense, a significant issue for which there was rational consensus would cease to be a philosophical issue. To some degree (perhaps a significant degree), argument is the essence of philosophy. If a consensus is ever agreed to regarding an issue, the argument is over and philosophy will (of necessity?) move on to other issues.

So, why do you see disagreement as a problem? Why should philosophers agree about something? — Angelo Cannata

These are good questions, and need to be taken separately. Philosophical disagreement can be a "problem" in two senses. First, it can puzzle and distress individual philosophers, especially those who have held out high hopes for something like a scientific philosophical method, one that obviously converges on truths within given paradigms. Should it distress them? It’s hard to know quite what to say here. It seems more a psychological than a philosophical question.

But philosophical disagreement can also be a problem in a more abstract sense – a thought problem, a phenomenon that needs explaining. Taken in this sense, disagreement may or may not cause personal distress, but it ought to raise a question about what we’re doing as philosophers. What can we discover in the history and practice of philosophy that might account for such widespread inability to converge on a consensus? One may or may not think that’s unfortunate, but the intellectual problem remains. It’s more in that spirit that I wanted to raise the question. (Personally, I find that when I’m operating in a rational mode, I do think it’s unfortunate, and when I’m in a more aesthetic/mystical place, I don’t!)

Which leads to your second question about why philosophers should agree about something. As a skeptical observation, I think it’s unanswerable. There is no good reason, provided you’re willing to operate outside rational argumentation and/or "argue" for such a move. And indeed, we see this strategy (I don’t mean that derogatorily) often employed by Derrida, Feyerabend, Rorty, and others. They are, or appear to be, indifferent to whether other philosophers agree with them, unless it’s in the name of “solidarity,” like Rorty.

I question the framing of the problem in terms of rational motivation. The participants each come to the argument with their own education, experiences, prejudices, interests, temperament, and so on. — Fooloso4

Yes, and the question Habermas and Rehg want to press is: Is that all we can say? Is that the end of the story? Is rational consensus impossible? Are we left with the dreaded "incommensurability" of viewpoints?

What do those today within the Socratic tradition have to wake-up from, if anything? — Fooloso4

I'm not a post-modernist, and perhaps should leave that question to someone with more sympathy for the "wake-up call" position. Presumably, the Socratic tradition would be seen as a chimera, something that promises Truth and doesn't deliver, because capital-T Truth just isn't on offer.

Even posing the issue raises issues. — Arne

I thought about pointing out that the very problem I was raising was, of course, subject to the problem! But I decided it would be better to let that come out in the discussion. I agree completely. There are reasonable arguments to be made on both sides of the "Is rational agreement possible" question.

Fooloso4

Is that the end of the story? — J

No. It is the condition under which the story unfolds.

Are we left with the dreaded "incommensurability" of viewpoints? — J

No, we are left with an acknowledgement of the irreconcilability of viewpoints. The question then is, how best to live together given that there are differences that cannot be reconciled.

Presumably, the Socratic tradition would be seen as a chimera, something that promises Truth and doesn't deliver, because capital-T Truth just isn't on offer. — J

I don't want to derail the topic but the Socratic tradition does not promise Truth. It is based on the recognition that we do not know. The description of dialectic in the Republic seems to be making that promise, but, as I have argued elsewhere on the forum, we cannot use hypotheses to free ourselves from hypotheses. If we could Socrates would possess the knowledge he denies having.

Angelo Cannata

As a postmodern, as a follower of Vattimo’s weak thought, I see all of this as the nth temptation of philosophy to establish a good ground to support dictatorship.

We can even interpret the whole world, nature itself, as something fortunately based on contradiction and disagreement. I agree that contradiction and disagreement cause suffering, but this suffering is much less than suffering caused by dictatorship. Think of Hitler: he is the reference point of the attempt of our minds to get agreement from other people. Fortunately nature continuously disagrees with itself. This confuses us, our human nature needs a degree of agreement, comfort, love, support, but what we need is not agreement as a fundamental philosophical category. The fundamental philosophical category should be the opposite: disagreement, progress, research, looking for new and different things. The mentality that looks for agreement prepares racism, so that those who have different cultures, different mentalities, are seen as a problem rather than as a resource to make us and the world rich of variety and difference. Disagreement is the treasure that we should be looking for every day and every moment, more precious than gold and diamonds.
As I said, we are humans, we need degrees of comfort. For this reason we should be careful not to turn disagreement into a new metaphysics, a new system.

it can puzzle and distress individual philosophers — J

If disagreement puzzles and distresses any philosophers, this tells me that they are far from being good philosophers, they are just aspiring dictators that don’t like to be contradicted.

high hopes for something like a scientific philosophical method — J

Let’s leave science to scientists and philosophy to philosophers. Philosophy can dialogue with science, of course, but a philosophy that wants to be science is just disguised dictatorship.

What can we discover in the history and practice of philosophy that might account for such widespread inability to converge on a consensus? — J

This inability to converge on a consensus is exactly what has made philosophy productive, a way for growth, discovery, progress, in any epoch.

Now you might answer: “Well, I disagree totally with you and, as a consequence, you should be very happy about this”. :grin: This would be just a trick, because disagreement from love for disagreement means wanting, at the end, and environment where disagreement is discouraged. So, in that case you would disagree with me, not because you want to encourage disagreement, but for the opposite. In other words, the disagreement of Hitler with Hebrews is much different from the disagreement of Hebrews with Hitler, they are the opposite of each other in their final result.

You can notice that my disagreement from you is an encouragement to discuss, explore different perspectives, enlarge our horizons; your disagreement from me would mean, instead, discouragement of plurality, invitation to close our minds and our horizons inside some kind of cage.

Arne

I don't want to derail the topic but the Socratic tradition does not promise Truth. — Fooloso4

I agree. There is a reason The Allegory of the Cave comes early in the study of philosophy.

LuckyR

While this is surely not the whole story I think, partly, there is value to disagreement. Agreement allows us to proceed, but philosophy doesn't proceed; Or when philosophy agrees it stops being philosophy and becomes something else. This doesn't accord well with philosophical traditions, which seem to have a sort of progress to them that's a mixture of agreement and disagreement, so it's definitely not the whole story. Only I think it worth highlighting that rational disagreement is valuable, and so the elusiveness of rational agreement isn't necessarily a fault against philosophy

↪Moliere

Disagreement is, I agree, predictable and ultimately desirable. However, there should be agreement on the step up of the problem, that is what is known, what is unknown, what is opinion. Disagreement on what we theorize is the unknown is natural.

Fooloso4

I agree. There is a reason The Allegory of the Cave comes early in the study of philosophy. — Arne

Some interpret it to mean that we can transcend the cave, but others that we remain in it. Some despise Plato because no matter how deep they go they find only questions and not answers, others love him for the same reason.

plaque flag

One of the perennial problems in philosophy is why a general consensus or rational agreement is so hard to come by on virtually all the interesting topics. — J

So much could be said on this excellent topic, but I'll mention a possible sampling bias approach. The problems with solutions we agree on are for just that reason boring. We don't need to talk about them. If genuine inquiry is the settlement of belief in the context of genuine doubt, then we should expect conflict on interesting topics. It's maybe a bit like the jury being out for a long time suggesting the intricacy of the case.

I don't want to derail the topic but the Socratic tradition does not promise Truth. — Fooloso4

I agree. — Arne

And so do I. I was doing my impersonation of a disappointed post-modernist, trying to give voice to a common critique of Western phil. My own view is that Plato was the subtlest of philosophers, constantly engaging with the meta-philosophical questions I find so compelling. However . . . there is a way of understanding "the Socratic tradition" to mean "everyone in the West who came after Plato," and if you adopt this somewhat crude and Hellenistic conception, then yes, there's a strong streak of "Let's find the ultimate truth about everything" in that tradition.

Arne

Some interpret it to mean that we can transcend the cave, but others that we remain in it. Some despise Plato because no matter how deep they go they find only questions and not answers, others love him for the same reason — Fooloso4

Exactly. Disagreement is inherent to some issues. There would be no philosophy without it.

we are left with an acknowledgement of the irreconcilability of viewpoints. The question then is, how best to live together given that there are differences that cannot be reconciled. — Fooloso4

One of the responses to this problem that I like best is the line that stretches from Dewey through Rawls and describes a broadly liberal-democratic, pluralistic vision of justice and the state. For let's not kid ourselves, when viewpoints become irreconcilable, philosophy must become praxis. The way we disagree has ethical and political dimensions.

But then, in the spirit of "two reasonable views of (most) everything," Rawls, T. Nagel et al. have been the subject of some withering, well-observed dissents from Critical/neo-Frankfurt School philosophers and also from more friendly voices such as Martha Nussbaum.

Arne

there's a strong streak of "Let's find the ultimate truth about everything" in that tradition. — J

Agreed. And therein is the Chimera (ultimate truth). In a sense, Plato's idealism is premised upon the notion that we are incapable of any certainty regarding "the ultimate truth."

Janus

↪J

Any argument is rational if it is consistent with its most basic premises, and I don't think basic premises are rationally derived, but are products of creative imaginative thinking. So, disagreement exists in philosophy largely on account of people preferring different basic premises.

As someone earlier pointed out there is agreement amongst realists or materialists and idealists, for example, but not between the different camps, obviously, because the different camps accept different things as being fundamental.

@Janus I think this is what Rehg is getting at when he talks about the difference between “cogent argumentation” and “logical deduction,” in the quoted passage. He wants to know whether the premises for a logically valid deduction can also be rationally justified in a way that would compel agreement. So your answer is no, fair enough. From your position, I wonder whether you think there might be something sufficiently intersubjective – not to say objective – in “creative imaginative thinking” that could take the place of rational argument and inspire consensus? Or might we need to supplement imagination with rhetoric in order to persuade?

Janus

From your position, I wonder whether you think there might be something sufficiently intersubjective – not to say objective – in “creative imaginative thinking” that could take the place of rational argument and inspire consensus? Or might we need to supplement imagination with rhetoric in order to persuade? — J

I don't know. I know what seems plausible to me, and I know that differs from what seems plausible to some others. I don't see myself as being concerned with persuading but just with trying to articulate what seems most plausible to me concerning metaphysical speculation about the nature of the real. I can easily understand that others with different foundational assumptions do not share my sense of plausibility.

I don't believe I have an agenda or preference for say physicalism vs idealism; perhaps if anything I'd rather live in an idealist world because it opens up the possibility of some kind of immortality. I get it that others don't like the idea of immortality at all, but I, for one, would choose to live forever if it were possible. That said I find physicalism more plausible, so I am not being motivated by wishful thinking. I often interact with others who I believe are motivated by wishful thinking, but I acknowledge I could be mistaken and even if I were correct, I don't imagine that i could ever convince them of that.

Wayfarer

Second, one of most prevalent tendencies in post-modern philosophy has been to question, often hostilely, the role of rationality itself – what is it, what is it worth, what knowledge does it lead to, etc. Can this sort of critique of rationality be deployed to examine the Habermas problem? In other words, is it possible that the often frustrating morass of competing “reasonable” claims might be a revealing wake-up call about rationality itself, and its role in philosophy? — J

Obviously a very deep and difficult issue.

One point, it is the nature of dialect to explore a question from the perspective of competing arguments. That is why dialectic, in particular, has such a role in philosophy. For example Kant's critiques responded to the dialectic between empiricist (Hume, Berkeley) and rationalist (Spinoza, Liebniz) philosophers. In so doing he produced a kind of 'third way' which was not available to the protagonists of either side. In some ways, dialectic offers a kind of range of possibility, rather than a settled dogma.

Another point is that attaining philosophical insight might not itself be easy or even possible to communicate. It is often said that philosophy is hung up on problems it has been canvassing for 2,000 years 'without making any progress'. But how do you measure 'progress' in this matter? Perhaps some of the sages of yore reached a pinnacle of philosophic insight which is preserved in their writings - the later platonists come to mind - but those who now read them don't really understand them, and neither did many of their contemporaries. In which case the accusation of futility is not really applicable. It's that realising the insights that they try to convey is very difficult - unlike the fruits of scientific research, which are cumulative across generations, and yield practical results.

It could be argued that reason in contemporary culture lacks the kind of lodestar that was formerly provided by religion. After all, it was suppose to provide the summum bonum, the reason for all reasons. But then religion seems itself to have demolished that ideal, when viewed through the history of religious conflict in Western culture.

There's an old opinion piece in the NY Times that I often cite, concerning Habermas' dialogue with religion (as is well-known, he engaged in a number of dialogues with Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI). This was eventually published as the book An Awareness of What is Missing. Habermas is not endorsing any kind of wholesale return to religious faith, rather he says that while 'religion must accept the authority of secular reason as the fallible results of the sciences and the universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality, conversely, secular reason must not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith.'

In the NY Times column, some of these points are discussed:

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”

Postmodernism announces (loudly and often) that a supposedly neutral, objective rationality is always a construct informed by interests it neither acknowledges nor knows nor can know. Meanwhile science goes its merry way endlessly inventing and proliferating technological marvels without having the slightest idea of why. The “naive faith” Habermas criticizes is not a faith in what science can do — it can do anything — but a faith in science’s ability to provide reasons, aside from the reason of its own keeping on going, for doing it and for declining to do it in a particular direction because to do so would be wrong.

So I suppose none of that points to a resolution - which, considering the topic, is kind of appropriate.

Judaka

↪J

Not sure I agree with the premise of the OP to begin with, that "rational agreement is elusive", or what exactly that entails. I also don't see why this would be a problem for philosophy since it doesn't need to reach or even aim for a complete consensus. I consider rationality a deeply flawed concept, but in this context, it's the completely unrealistic conditions it sets up that lead to this predictable failure to produce a unanimous consensus across (humanity?) or (across a civilisation?).

The gap, then, lies between the possibility of reasonable assent provided by logical and dialectical standards, and actual rational motivation

This captures part of these unrealistic conditions. However, I'd point out that logic and rationality rely on language, which is part of why there's a lack of consistency that would lead to unanimous consensus. All could easily agree that "People should aim to be reasonable", and proceed from this point, using it as a foundation for further argumentation. A premise that will help lead all of us to the same conclusion. The issue is that the truth conditions for when one or something is "reasonable" are highly complicated and context-dependent.

The logic of when something is or isn't reasonable includes too much nuance and subjectivity for it to be reliable. The same applies to many words that are commonly used in philosophy. It's part of the nature of those words, and I don't see it as a problem to be resolved.

The other problem is that logical arguments aren't very powerful, and you can see this when doing anything competitive. A novice can make as logical an argument as can be about how to achieve good results in X, but with their limited experience, I'd still expect their results to be subpar. All logic must accomplish is to be convincing or compelling, and that's no guarantee of results. There's always going to be a process of trial and error, of endlessly seeking ways to improve. It's a neverending process. The lack of consensus is part of that process, and it exists even within a single person when pursuing improvement. Top athletes or professionals never stop searching for ways to improve or exploring and testing new ideas.

The final problem is that rationality is holistic, and logic can never be holistic. I can go into detail on that if you disagree, but that mightn't be necessary.

I generally find that the problem with rationality as a concept overall is that the term pretends to be non-evaluative, and is yet evaluative. The word is deceptive. The truth conditions of the term have very little to do with what the term is supposed to represent. I'm almost at a point where I refuse to debate the term anymore. Treating the word as synonymous with "logical" or "sensible" seems fairest to me, and that's how I interpret the term when it's used, usually regardless of whatever the person using it wanted to express.

Corvus

↪J

Interesting that you mentioned Habermas, because I just bought a book by him called "Truth and Justification".

But for the OP questions, could it be the case that some interlocutors' judgements are overridden by their self-pride and emotions ignoring the rationality during the debates?

Even if their rationality tells their claims have logical flaws or not making sense, but due to their overriding emotions such as self-pride overshadowing the rationality, either the rationality is invisible to them, or they still maintain their claims even if it lacks rationality or truths in order to protect their self-pride, taking an ad hominem response. Therefore could it be the case, emotions are more forceful than rationality in the minds in some cases?

Fooloso4

He wants to know whether the premises for a logically valid deduction can also be rationally justified in a way that would compel agreement. — J

Having recently read Aristotle's Rhetoric I have been persuaded of the importance of rhetoric in service of the truth.

You said you did not want to pursue the use of rhetoric and emotion but unless you want to draw the limits of reason and its inability to lead us to agreement some attention should be given to rhetoric.

You said you did not want to pursue the use of rhetoric and emotion — Fooloso4

By all means, please share your thoughts on how rhetoric might enter the story here. In the OP I tried to sharpen the question about rationality in order to make it manageable and specific, but Rehg and Habermas both write about the importance of rhetoric and a hermeneutical investigation of rationality. In the same paper I quoted from ("Reason and Rhetoric in Habermas's Theory of Argumentation," in Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time, Jost & Hyde, eds., 1997), Rehg devotes a number of pages to laying out his ideas of how "rhetorical devices might constitute an essential aspect of rational motivation."

wonderer1

↪J

:up:

I too would be interested in hearing more along those lines.

kudos

So let me re-pose the problem in two ways. First, notice that when an important question receives competing reasonable answers in philosophy, there’s almost certainly a meta-question involved. That question focuses on what are the correct or convincing ways to argue rationally on that topic.

And why does this take the form of a question, when none of those concerned are interested in looking for a truth that they are not already in possession of?

Second... is it possible that the often frustrating morass of competing “reasonable” claims might be a revealing wake-up call about rationality itself, and its role in philosophy? How far could such a critique be taken?

This seems to be falling into the trap of considering reason to be purely objective. 'Competing reason' is an oxymoron. In my experience, competing claims are 80% a concern of psychology and 20% rationality at best... and that goes for philosophical argumentation too.

It could be argued that reason in contemporary culture lacks the kind of lodestar that was formerly provided by religion. After all, it was suppose to provide the summum bonum, the reason for all reasons. But then religion seems itself to have demolished that ideal, when viewed through the history of religious conflict in Western culture.

How do you mean it has been demolished, by what/whom?

none of those concerned are interested in looking for a truth that they are not already in possession of — kudos

I’ve met many such people, interested only in confirming what they’re already sure of. Socrates met a lot of them too! I hope it doesn’t characterize more than a fraction of good philosophers, though.

'Competing reason' is an oxymoron. — kudos

I probably didn’t do justice to the distinction Habermas and Rehg want to make between “rational argument” and “reasonable claim.” Rational argument based on logical form (validity, if you like), with the premises put on hold as to their veracity, is indeed as objective as “objective” gets – that is, it’s transparent and publicly checkable. But H & R’s idea is that, when you also claim veracity for the premises, you’ve moved from rational argument to reasonable claim, to making a plausible case that could be countered by an equally plausible alternative. And the “gap” question concerns whether there’s a rational procedure for deciding between such competing reasonable claims.

The role of psychology is yet a different matter. In an earlier post, we have:

The participants each come to the argument with their own education, experiences, prejudices, interests, temperament, and so on. — Fooloso4

This seems to be a similar idea to yours. But the “gap” question remains: You can grant that most of what we think is idiosyncratic to our psychology, and still ask whether there is a rational procedure that can mitigate this -- and also, as many have responded here, whether you would want to.

Your final quote about religion as a lodestar is @Wayfarer, not me, so I'll leave it to them to respond.

Why is rational agreement so elusive?

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