Abstract
This chapter argues that a virtue-theoretic account of argumentation can enhance our understanding of the phenomenon of populism and offer some lines of response. Virtue theories of argumentation emphasize the role of arguers in the conduct and evaluation of arguments and lay particular stress on arguers’ acquired dispositions of character, otherwise known as intellectual virtues and vices. One variety of argumentation of particular relevance to democratic decision-making is group deliberation. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons for maintaining that intellectual humility is pivotal to the practice of group deliberation. Several factors to which the rise of populism has been attributed may be understood as failures of the virtues of argumentation in general, and intellectual humility in particular.
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Notes
- 1.
Argumentation theorists sometimes distinguish these two senses of argument as argument1 and argument2, respectively (O’Keefe 1977, 121).
- 2.
Ultimately, of course, both characterizations derive from Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit (Frankfurt 1988).
- 3.
Against Fricker’s concern that collectives “do not have any of the features of the normal subjects of virtue and vice: they are not agents, they have no will, and so they cannot accrue any credit or discredit of the praise and blame variety” (Fricker 2010, 249), the Byerlys offer a more nuanced definition: “A collective C has a virtue V to the extent that the members of C are disposed, qua members of C, to behave in ways characteristic of V under appropriate circumstances” (Byerly and Byerly 2016, 43).
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Aberdein, A. (2022). Populism and the Virtues of Argument. In: Peterson, G.R., Berhow, M.C., Tsakiridis, G. (eds) Engaging Populism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05785-4_8
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