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Argumentative Virtues as Conduits for Reason’s Causal Efficacy: Why the Practice of Giving Reasons Requires that We Practice Hearing Reasons

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Abstract

Psychological and neuroscientific data suggest that a great deal, perhaps even most, of our reasoning turns out to be rationalizing. The reasons we give for our positions are seldom either the real reasons or the effective causes of why we have those positions. We are not as rational as we like to think. A second, no less disheartening observation is that while we may be very effective when it comes to giving reasons, we are not that good at getting reasons. We are not as reasons-responsive as we like to think. Reasoning and argumentation are, on this view, charades without effect. This paper begins by identifying a range of theoretical responses to the idea that reasoning and argumentation have little casual role in our thoughts and actions, and, consequently, that humans are not the reasons-giving, reasons-responsive agents that we imagine ourselves to be. The responses fall into three categories: challenging the data and their interpretations; making peace with the loss of autonomy that is implied; and seeking ways to expand the causal footprint of reasoning and argumentation, e.g., by developing argumentative virtues. There are indeed possibilities for becoming more rational and more reasons-responsive, so the reports of our demise as the rational animal are greatly exaggerated.

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Notes

  1. For good statements of this position and summaries of the data see, e.g., Haidt (2001) with respect to moral reasoning and Mercier and Heintz (2014) with respect to scientific argumentation.

  2. The movement to a more extreme version of one’s (and one’s “allies”) initial position, as well as a reactive movement away from an opponent’s position, have to count as among possible negative effects of argumentation. See Sunstein (2002) for the former, Cohen (2005) for the latter.

  3. The failures of our reasoning to do what we expect it to do may, of course, have more to do with our expectations than our reasoning. See, e.g, Gigerenzer (2001) or Mercier and Sperber (2011) for more biologically informed “teleologies.”

  4. Kornblith (1999) articulates this point clearly and effectively, noting that it is often the best reasoners (“reason-givers”) who are most reason-resistant.

  5. Mercier and Sperber (2011, p. 59), argue that the main function (“in its biological sense”) of reasoning is arguing, and they nominate as the twin roles for argumentation (1) the use of reasons to persuade others and (2) the evaluation of others’ reasons. The latter role is often ignored. It deserves greater emphasis.

  6. This kind of response is developed in Cohen (2015).

  7. The distinct roles for arguers and the different skill sets and virtues appropiate for them are discussed in Stevens (2015) and Cohen (2013).

  8. Wegner and Wheatley (1999), abstract.

  9. Ibid. p. 1.

  10. The description that Wegner and Wheatley adopt is closer to the first, but to be fair they are quite careful and consistent in taking the perspective that (in philosophical jargon) acts are not a distinct “natural kind” subcategory of the neurological correlates of mental events. They are not themselves guilty of equivocations on, or conflations of, selves, minds, and brains.

  11. Gazzaniga (2005, pp. 88–89), makes the distinction explicit and gives it due respect: “We need to distinguish among brains, minds, and personhood. People are free and therefore responsible for their actions; brains are not responsible.”

  12. Two very good examples are Pereboom (2001) and Gray (2015). Pereboom incorporates hard determinism into a broader philosophical position in order to accommodate the relevant empirical data. Gray embraces, rather than merely accepts, the idea that human rationality neither entails nor requires free will. There is a special (“gnostic”) kind of freedom that is not (merely!) “freedom of choice” but, paradoxically, “freedom from choice” that he sees exemplified in the “grace” of a puppet.

  13. Various forms of compatibilism with respect to free will and determinism could also fit under the “acceptance” rubric. Dennett (2013) offers an effective sequence of incrementally varying scenarios to make compatibilism more palatable by serially recontextualizing the role of reasoning in action.

  14. Gigerenzer (2001) is the source for the quoted phrases as well as the larger perspective from which they are taken.

  15. Mercier and Sperber (2011, p. 59) state this explicitly: “reasoning is best adapted for its role in argumentation, which should therefore be seen as its main function” (again, where function is used “in its biological sense”).

  16. An extraordinary example of argument-as-communication is provided by Laytner (1990), reading Elie Weisel’s post-Auschwitz argument with God as Weisel’s only viable alternative to cutting off all communication and completely his relationship to God.

  17. This example is taken from Cohen (2015).

  18. Haidt (2001, pp. 815, 819); emphases added. The specific target of Haidt’s claim is moral reasoning.

  19. Kornblith (2009) provides an excellent survey—and rebuttal—to the vast literature on behalf of the potential of reflective endorsement. He focuses on Sosa, Shoemaker, Frankfurt, and Korsgaard who privilege its place in moral reasoning, its centrality to rationality, and its role in establishing free will.

  20. According to Mercier and Landemore (2012), “group reasoning often surpasses individual reasoning” and “the failiures of reasoning are most likely to be remedied at the collective level than at the individual level.” Further, even if the concern is making us better individual arguers, as it is here, the primary measure of what it is to be a “good arguer” (as distinct from “good reasoner”) is found in group contexts. Of course, the data that show the greater accuracy of group reasoning need to be balanced by the data reagarding varioous distortions to which group deliberations are subject, such as polarization. Gigone and Hastie (1997) identify the conditions in which group judgments excel, as those which impede accuracy.

  21. This is the grounds for the extended argument for democracy in Landemore (2012).

  22. Govier (1999, 47) emphasizes these two points, and we need to be reminded of them regularly.

  23. With apologies for riding this (iron-)horse too long: I was once accused of having a one-track mind when it comes to arguments and metaphors, so the train of thought that prompted this particular metaphor left the station a long time ago.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Colby College, Waterville, ME, 04901, USA

    Daniel H. Cohen

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Cohen, D.H. Argumentative Virtues as Conduits for Reason’s Causal Efficacy: Why the Practice of Giving Reasons Requires that We Practice Hearing Reasons. Topoi 38, 711–718 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-015-9364-x

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