Skip to main content
Log in

Virtuous Arguers: Responsible and Reliable

  • Published:
Argumentation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Virtuous arguers are expected to manifest virtues such as intellectual humility and open-mindedness, but from such traits the quality of arguments does not immediately follow. However, it also seems implausible that a virtuous arguer can systematically put forward bad arguments. How could virtue argumentation theory combine both insights? The solution, I argue, lies in an analogy with virtue epistemology: considering both responsibilist and reliabilist virtues gives us a fuller picture of the virtuous arguer.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Sosa seems to use both terms interchangeably, at least in his early articles.

  2. It is Sosa’s characterisation of intellectual virtues that most interests me here. The details of his theory of knowledge can be mentioned only briefly.

  3. “A theory of intellectual virtue cannot offer an easy calculus for assessing knowledge and belief claims.” (Code 1984, p. 47).

  4. It seems to me that Battaly’s terminology is biased in that it implies that an epistemological theory must include a definition of knowledge. But, in my view, a theory that focuses in the analysis of epistemic virtues is a theory, even if it is not a definition of knowledge. Nevertheless, Roberts and Wood seem to be comfortable with the assumption that they are not strictly speaking offering a theory (2007, p. 26): “In light of what mostly counts as theory among philosophers today, we prefer to say that we are offering no theory.”

  5. Sosa argues that “the value of apt belief is no less epistemically fundamental than that of true belief” (2007, pp. 87–88). He contrasts the example of the coffee maker with examples of a ballerina and of an archer, where it seems that we would value the performance less were it not a manifestation of skill.

  6. Tracy Bowell drew my attention to this important difference.

  7. I thank Andrew Aberdein for pointing out Battaly’s distinction to me.

  8. I am making an effort to qualify claims such as this because I do not believe that considerations of character are never relevant to the quality of the argument. I am merely claiming that in general they are not relevant. They may be relevant in specific cases, such as defeasible arguments, although only to a limited extent.

  9. Are all argumentative skills reliabilist virtues? In his commentary to my paper, Aberdein points out that, rather than regarding all skills as a special sort of virtue, I should also consider skills that are necessary for the proper exercise of a virtue—a prerequisite. He is right that I have not considered this issue and I am certainly describing reliabilist virtues as if they were simply argument skills. His comment raises an interesting issue that unfortunately I cannot fruitfully address here.

  10. Interestingly, however, Aberdein argues for a virtue approach to argument appraisal. In his commentary to the present paper, he suggests that the virtue of common sense, which he understands as analogous to Aristotle’s phronesis, is associated with the recognition and formulation of good arguments. I must confess this is an intriguing idea. However, as it stands, it still strikes me as a kind of virtue that must be explained in act-based terms.

  11. http://www.en.globaltalentnews.com/current_news/reports/3609/As-a-student-Landau-dared-to-correct-Einstein-in-a-lecture.html.

References

  • Aberdein, A. 2010. Virtue in argument. Argumentation 24(2): 165–179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aberdein, A. 2014. In defence of virtue: The legitimacy of agent-based argument appraisal. Informal Logic 34(1): 77–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aberdein, A. 2016. Virtue argumentation and bias. In Argumentation, Objectivity, and Bias: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA), 18-21 May 2016 , eds. P. Bondy and L. M. Benacquista (pp. 1–12). Windsor, ON: OSSA.

  • Battaly, H. 2008. Virtue epistemology. Philosophy Compass 3(4): 639–663.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battaly, H. 2015. A pluralist theory of virtue. In Current controversies in virtue theory, ed. M. Alfano, 7–22. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowell, T., and J. Kingsbury. 2013. Virtue and argument: Taking character into account. Informal Logic 33(1): 22–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Code, L. 1984. Toward a “responsibilist” epistemology. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45(1): 29–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Code, L. 1987. Epistemic responsibility. Hanover: University Press of New England.

    Google Scholar 

  • Correia, V. 2017. Accountability breeds response-ability: Contextual debiasing and accountability in argumentation. In Modeling and using context. 10th international and interdisciplinary conference, CONTEXT 2017 Paris, France, June 2023, 2017, eds. P. Brézillon, R. Turner and C. Penco (pp. 127–136). Springer.

  • Godden, D. 2016. On the priority of agent-based argumentative norms. Topoi 35(2): 345–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. 1999. Agent reliabilism. Philosophical Perspectives 13: 273–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hookway, C. 2003. How to be a virtue epistemologist. In Intellectual virtue: Perspectives from ethics and epistemology, ed. M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski, 183–202. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, D. 2005. Education for thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kunda, Z. 1990. The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 108(3): 480–498.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mercier, H., and D. Sperber. 2017. The enigma of reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paglieri, F. 2015. Bogency and goodacies: On argument quality in virtue argumentation theory. Informal Logic 35(1): 65–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paul, R. 1993. Critical thinking, moral integrity and citizenship: Teaching for the intellectual virtues. In Critical thinking. How to prepare students for a rapidly changing world (pp. 255–267). Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking.

  • Roberts, R.C., and W.J. Wood. 2007. Intellectual virtues: An essay in regulative epistemology. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, H. 1988. Educating reason: Rationality, critical thinking, and education. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, H. 1997. Rationality redeemed? Further dialogues on an educational ideal. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. 1980. The raft and the pyramid: Coherence versus foundations in the theory of knowledge. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5(1): 3–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. 1991. Knowledge in perspective: Selected essays in epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. 2000. Reliabilism and intellectual virtue. Knowledge, belief, and character: Readings in virtue epistemology, 19–32. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. 2007. Apt belief and reflective knowledge: A virtue epistemology, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Zagzebski, L.T. 1996. Virtues of the mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Zagzebski, L.T. 2000. From reliabilism to virtue epistemology. In Knowledge, belief, and character: Readings in virtue epistemology, ed. G. Axtell, 113–122. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zenker, F. 2013. Know thy biases! Bringing argumentative virtues to the classroom. In Virtues of Argumentation. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA), 22-26 May 2013, eds. D. Mohammed and M. Lewiński (pp. 1–11). Windsor, ON: OSSA.

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was possible thanks to a pre-doctoral scholarship of the UNED and to the project FFI2014-53164-P of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2nd European Conference on Argumentation (ECA), in Fribourg, Switzerland. I thank Andrew Aberdein for his commentary and the audience for the fruitful discussion that followed.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to José Ángel Gascón.

Additional information

This paper was awarded the Frans van Eemeren Prize for Outstanding Student Paper during the second edition of the European Conference on Argumentation (ECA2017, 20-23 June 2017), held at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gascón, J.Á. Virtuous Arguers: Responsible and Reliable. Argumentation 32, 155–173 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-018-9454-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-018-9454-1

Keywords

Navigation