This is a guest post by Andrew Moon, Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
When philosophers write papers, they also discuss objections to their own arguments. But how much should they do this? A paper could go on forever with discussions of more and more objections, making the paper unhelpfully long.
ONE way to know which objections to include is to present your paper at a few conferences and run your main argument by a few people in the relevant area of expertise. If an objection commonly comes up (e.g., it's the first thing that comes to mind when you mention your argument to someone), then that's evidence that it should be dealt with in the paper. Idiosyncratic objections (which might still be good objections!) probably needn't be dealt with.
These factors matter because they make the paper better and more enjoyable to read. More people will enjoy reading a paper if the objection mentioned is the one they have, not an idiosyncratic one that they don't find plausible. Following this advice will also increase the probability that you will deal with the objections a referee is likely to have.
This has implications for when YOU are the referee. The fact that you have a good objection to the argument in a paper you are refereeing isn't sufficient reason to not accept. It takes some knowledge of how people in the philosophical community would likely respond to the argument. It also requires some self-awareness of how idiosyncratic of a philosopher you are. These factors will help you know whether the objection you are thinking of is sufficient reason to not accept the paper.
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