Philosophy

Arguments with losers

Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 1 Arguments with Losers Presidential Address of the 61st Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association, 2015 Andrew Aberdein, Florida Institute of Technology An old friend from graduate school, who may have had unrealistic expectations about legal practice, used to claim that law was an ever-present vocational temptation for philosophers. As he put it, "Why argue with smart people for peanuts when you could make a fortune arguing with losers?" (He's now a dean, so you can see where this sort of thinking leads.) I should clarify my title. I don't intend a megalomaniacal memoir of my disputational triumphs-although that would at least have the merit of brevity. On the contrary, I want to say something about the sort of arguments that it is possible to lose, and whether losing arguments can be done well. I shall focus on losing philosophical arguments, and I will be talking about arguments in the sense of acts of arguing. This is the sort of act that one can perform on one's own or with one other person in private. But in either of these cases it is difficult to win-or to lose.1 So I shall concentrate on arguments with audiences. We may think of winning or losing such arguments in terms of whether the audience is convinced. Of course, this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with who is in the right. (I am going to assume that there is a right to be in, that is that philosophical debates are factive.) That means that there are two sorts of loser: real losers, who lose the argument deservedly, because they are in the wrong, and mere losers, who lose the argument undeservedly, because they are in the right.2 Hence there must also be two sorts of winner: real winners, who win the argument deservedly, because they are in the right, and mere winners, who win the argument undeservedly, because they are in the wrong.3 An optimal outcome for arguments with losers would be if all the losers are real losers. In other words, our goal is to minimise the number of mere losers. Before I go any further I should address the possibility that there are no losers at all in philosophical arguments. If that's true, it follows that you can't lose any of your philosophical arguments, which is reassuring. Sadly, it also follows that no one you argue with can lose either. This seems less satisfactory. But why might we deny the existence of losers in philosophical arguments? Especially when there seems to be such abundant evidence for their existence. There are three broad classes of objection to the existence of losers in philosophical arguments. We shall see that we can learn something from each of these objections, even if we are unconvinced by any of them. That this is possible also tells us something about the positive contribution losers make to philosophical argument. Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 2 The Pessimistic Objection I shall call the first objection The Pessimistic Objection. This states that There are no losers in philosophical arguments because there are no winners. That is, all philosophical arguments are interminable and irresoluble. Because they never end, their outcome is never decided. The principal problem with this objection is that it is empirically false. Of course there are many philosophical disputes of interminable duration, but that is not true of all of them. We do an injustice to intellectual history in forgetting the disputes that have been settled, or underestimating how hard fought they were. It's not that the losers never were, it's that they've been airbrushed out of the story. They deserve better than that. Nor should a lone holdout be sufficient to deny that a dispute is settled.4 Tim Williamson rightly observes that "As in natural science, something can be collectively known in a community even if it is occasionally denied by eccentric members of that community."5 Such (near) consensus is strong evidence that the holdouts are real losers. Losers may readily be found in both the purest and the most applied areas of philosophy. I heartily endorse Williamson's maxim that "we can often produce mathematical models of fragments of philosophy and, when we can, we should."6 A faithful mathematical model can show us that some positions are non-starters.7 Hence this process has decisively defeated many hitherto plausible positions and made losers out of their advocates. Philosophers may also be found on the wrong side of many past social disputes. There were philosophers who argued for prohibition or against female suffrage, for example. Surely those guys were real losers. A weaker, but perhaps more interesting version of this objection is suggested by Daniel Dennett: "I have learned that arguments, no matter how watertight, often fall on deaf ears. I am myself the author of arguments that I consider rigorous and unanswerable but that are often not so much rebutted or even dismissed as simply ignored."8 Dennett's complaint seems to be that he has been robbed of his victory by the simple expedient of ignoring him. If only it were that easy! But if his arguments really are unanswerable, then his dialectical opponents are real losers, whether they acknowledge it or not.9 And if they're not unanswerable, then someone should hurry up and answer him (perhaps proving Dennett to be the real loser). Either way, this seems like a failure of dialectical obligation rather than a lack of losers. This leads us to an important insight: unwillingness to engage in argument can itself be a losing proposition. The Optimistic Objection I call the second objection to the existence of losers in philosophical arguments The Optimistic Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 3 Objection. This states that There are no losers in philosophical arguments because everyone's a winner! This sort of claim is most frequently made in praise of the virtues of specific philosophers, rather than of philosophy as a whole. For example, consider these lines from an obituary: "To lose an argument to Peter Lipton nearly always gave pleasure, never a sense of loss or wounding: seemingly effortlessly, he made all philosophical discussion become a collaboration in which the only winners were reason and truth. There were no losers" (emphasis added).10 This is high praise for a justly celebrated philosopher. But, as an argument for the non-existence of losers, even in this narrow context, it is unsuccessful: even if the cost of losing a philosophical argument were always outweighed by other cognitive gains, the losers would still be losers argumentatively, despite being net winners over all. Perhaps there could be win-win, non-zero sum philosophical arguments in which all parties were in some sense argumentative winners. I am not sure I quite understand what such an argument would be like, but I am sure that it is not typical of philosophical arguments. Hence this version of the Optimistic Objection also seems to fail.11 The Optimistic Objection resembles the aphorism attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, that true victory is such that the defeated does not hate the victor. It is a valuable insight, despite its paradoxical expression. There is something important in the observation that the cost of losing an argument can be outweighed by other cognitive gains. Crucially, acrimony and disrespect seem certain to diminish the likelihood of realising such gains. The Misrepresentation Objection The last and perhaps the most interesting objection I call The Misrepresentation Objection. This states that There are no losers in philosophical arguments because 'winning' and 'losing' misrepresent philosophical argumentation. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson long ago observed how conceptual metaphors can work to structure our thought.12 They also noted that argument-is-war is one such metaphor. Empirical research has shown that war metaphors can be counterproductive in other fields. For example, "enemy metaphors in cancer information reduce some prevention intentions without increasing others, making their use potentially harmful for public health."13 Perhaps such metaphors are equally pernicious in philosophy. Indeed, several authors have criticized the argument-is-war metaphor at length. Daniel Cohen offers a whole range of alternative metaphors for argument: "reciprocal reading," "diplomatic negotiation," "growth or adaptation," "metamorphosis," "cross-pollination," "leading to hybridization," "brainstorming," and "barnraising."14 Many of these alternative metaphors are thought-provoking, and offer tempting vistas of philosophical inquiry, but their Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 4 existence does not really further the Misrepresentation Objection. At best, they show that "winning" and "losing" are not (always) the only way to conceptualise philosophy, not that it can't be so conceptualised. There is an ongoing argument whether philosophical argumentation is intrinsically adversarial. Robert Nozick asks "Why are philosophers intent on forcing others to believe things? Is that a nice way to behave toward someone?"15 He continues by advocating an explanatory model: "the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy ... is puzzlement, curiosity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation."16 Likewise Dennett proposes a narrative alternative to argument "I have to use more artful methods. I have to tell a story. You don't want to be swayed by a story? Well, I know you won't be swayed by a formal argument; you won't even listen to a formal argument for my conclusion, so I start where I have to start."17 Other philosophers have advocated other alternatives to argument, such as close reading.18 Ironically enough, the critics of adversariality have made a strong case. (This is ironic, but not inconsistent: they are arguing that philosophy should not be conducted through arguments, not that it cannot be. This is, as it were, the argument to end all arguments: if they win, there will be no more arguing.) But no one disputes that philosophy has been conducted adversarially, whether or not it might (sometimes or always) be better conducted some other way. And with adversariality come losers. Vicious Adversariality So it seems that we are stuck with the losers. What can we do to make the best of them? That is, how do we avoid creating mere losers and how do we make life no more uncomfortable than necessary for real losers? These two questions are closely related-if the cost of being a real loser is too great, we incentivise people to try to win at all costs, even when they are in the wrong. And if they somehow succeed in winning when they should have lost, theirs is the hollow victory of the mere winner, which makes the other party mere losers. To see how adversariality can be done well, it may help to look at an example of it being done badly. Perhaps the best known example of vicious adversariality in philosophy comes from Norman Swartz's celebrated essay "Philosophy as a Blood Sport." He recounts an audience member at a paper at a 1965 APA meeting responding to the speaker as follows: "You have got it all wrong. I am going to tell you what you should have said. Then, when I have said that, I will leave this room because I do not care how you will reply."19 There's no excuse for this sort of bad behaviour, but it is notable that Swartz's blowhard is at his most obnoxious not when he is at his most adversarial, Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 5 but when he is at his least adversarial: when he refuses to listen to a reply and leaves the room. This is an extreme refusal to discharge his dialectical responsibility: what one may call the Eric Cartman move-"Screw you guys, I'm going home." (Of course, the audience were presumably glad to see the back of him-but only because his ghastly personality outweighed his ghastly arguing.) It is also what we earlier saw, in a more benign mode, from Dennett. Indeed, a reviewer of the book in which the quoted passage occurs refers to it as "an uncharacteristic paroxysm of Nixonian churlishness."20 "From time to time," the reviewer continues, "Dennett seems to give up on the possibility of rational discourse with his readership. Sometimes, he preaches to the converted. ... Elsewhere, he shouts at the unconvertible."21 This suggests that non-adversariality is itself vicious, as a refusal to meet dialectical obligations. Adversariality is not always appropriate, but at least there seem to be cases of vicious non-adversariality just as there are cases of vicious adversariality. I wish to focus on a specific argument against adversariality, from which I believe we can draw a useful message (although perhaps not that intended by its author). Daniel Cohen proposes the following analogy to suggest that the best approach to argument is non-adversarial: The Noble Chess Player: It is the final match of a chess tournament between two intensely competitive grandmasters. One is an older, distinguished player who has devoted his whole life to the game of chess and the pursuit of the championship. He has risen to the highest ranks in the world, but he has fallen just shy of the top on several previous occasions. This may be his last chance. His opponent is much younger, but the defending champion. She is brilliant, even audacious, but sometimes erratic ... Now, at a crucial juncture in play, the young champion is about to make a daring but in fact very flawed move. The older player sees, leans forward, and whispers, "Don't do it." He pauses, then whispers again, this time through tears in his eyes because he realizes what he is doing "Don't do it. You have a much stronger move over there. It will be a better game, a more interesting game, a worthy game."22 The Noble Chess Player may be a fine human being, but he's a terrible chess player: he's just thrown the game! However, his philosophical counterpart, who makes a similar suggestion to a dialectical opponent, is not a terrible arguer. This disanalogy suggests for Cohen that competitive sport is a poor model for argument. But there are important differences between the two contexts, not least that there is no truth of the matter in a chess game. Hence all losers at chess are real losers and all winners real winners. The Noble Chess Player risks forfeiting the game by suggesting the better move; his philosophical counterpart would only risk forfeiting the chance of becoming a mere winner, a hollow sort of victory.23 Worse, in the philosophical case, mere winning rules out the Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 6 possibility of real winning. So if the philosopher wants to compete for the true prize, pointing out the opponent's error is tactically astute. Dual to the Noble Chess Player, we may consider the equally implausible Ignoble Engineer who seeks to win engineering arguments at any cost, regardless of the truth of the case. Swartz reports on the conspicuous absence of Ignoble Engineers from the visiting speaker series at the General Electric Research Laboratory he witnessed as a student intern: "the discussions were invariably, and wholly, given over to trying to enhance, and make use of, one another's work, to a cooperativeness, and selflessness that was natural, easy, and uninhibited. No one tried to "score any points" off anybody else; no one tried to attack any other person's work."24 That's not to say that the contrast Swartz observes between the APA and General Electric is attributable solely to the superior virtue of engineers as compared to philosophers. Perhaps engineers, at least at their own seminars, are seldom sufficiently provoked. Imagine that by some farcical mischance an invitation to the seminar went astray and the engineers were treated to a discussion of how electrical charge is socially constructed or a presentation on the perpetual motion machine the speaker had constructed in his garage. Indeed, what makes the Ignoble Engineer implausible is the high likelihood of being found out: such a character would be exposed as a real loser pretty quickly. So how do we accelerate the nonsense-exposing process in philosophy? Certainly not by reducing adversariality-but not by needless acrimony either. Virtuous Adversariality The positive part of this programme is where there is most to say, but also where I shall say least. In part this is because I think I have gone on long enough. More relevantly, this has been a talk about losers, so it would be out of place to say too much about the winners. Nonetheless, although there is a great deal of work that remains to be done, some substantial progress has already been made, and I wish to close by pointing towards it. Ian James Kidd, who has written extensively on virtuous adversariality, summarises the problem as that of how to avoid what we may call the Three Bs: "bullying, bias, and bastards."25 But how is that to be done? It might be tempting to lay down a set of detailed rules for the conduct of philosophical discourse. Some people have attempted as much. But I think that Nozick is at least right in saying that "Most people do not [go into philosophy] to become thought-police."26 Any project of this sort risks blocking innovation in philosophical argument and imposing a heavy burden on the well-intentioned, while being essentially unenforceable against the ill-intentioned. Instead of such onerous and impractical schemes, I contend that we need to inculcate dispositions towards good thinking, that is intellectual virtues. A full catalogue of such virtues would be a Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 7 substantial undertaking, but we have already seen some of them at work: such as willingness to engage in argument and respect for other arguers.27 Conclusion Without losers there wouldn't be any winning. Without determined losers, losers who make as strong a case as they can for their losing positions, there wouldn't be any winning worthy of the name. It is seldom the case that losers are wrong about everything. Nonetheless, arguments for losing propositions often receive scant attention once it is clear that they have lost. It can be worth revisiting the losing side of arguments to retrieve these insights, as I hope to have demonstrated in a small way this evening. Lastly, unless we lead exceedingly unadventurous or improbably successful philosophical careers, we are bound to be losers ourselves often enough. Sheer self-interest should lead us to require that they be treated well! So, in closing, let's hear it for the losers!28 Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 8 Endnotes 1 Why? Because it can be hard to say whether or not an arguer has met a criterion for winning an argument if there are only one or two people present. (And, of course, if I were to lose an argument to myself, I would also be the winner!) 2 I am using desert in a narrow sense, in which an arguer only deserves to lose if objectively wrong. By contrast, one might say that an arguer deserves to lose if the current evidence does not favour their position, even if in fact they're right. Perhaps in this sense Aristarchus deserved to lose to Ptolemy, since the former had little evidence for heliocentrism. But in the relevant sense, Aristarchus was still a (mere) loser, albeit an uncommonly prescient one. 3 We may also identify Gettier losers, who are in the wrong but lose only because they argue badly (or because the audience is incompetent), and Gettier winners, who are in the right but win only because their opponents argue badly (or because the audience is incompetent). Gettier winning is real winning, since the winner is in the right, but it does not represent evidence that the winner is in the right, as real winning otherwise would. 4 My point here is only that holdouts have no veto on consensus, not that they have no other virtues. As John Stuart Mill remarked, "the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service." J. S. Mill, On Liberty, in Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume 18, ed. J. M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 269. 5 Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 280. 6 Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy, 291. 7 Williamson cites the philosophy of possibility and necessity and the philosophy of truth as areas where technical developments in recent decades have rendered some otherwise attractive positions untenable (Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy, 280). 8 Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 12. 9 That is, the opponents would be real losers if the audience scores the argument for Dennett, as it would seem that they should if the situation is as Dennett describes. If the opponents refuse to accept the audience's verdict, perhaps we might best describe them as sore losers. (However, Dennett's opponents would be mere winners if their silence unaccountably convinced the audience.) 10 John Forrester, "Professor Peter Lipton: Razor-sharp Cambridge University Philosopher of Science," The Independent (January 8, 2008). Available online at:  professor-peter-lipton-razor-sharp-cambridgeuniversity-philosopher-of-science-769140.html. Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 9 11 One way of developing this objection might be to distinguish two senses of winning (and losing). Winning a contest and winning a trophy are different sorts of winning (even if the trophy goes to the winner of the contest). Thus Erik Krabbe maintains that, although "only one of the parties can win in the victory sense of 'winning' . . . both parties may win in the benefit sense" (Erik C. W. Krabbe, "Winning and Losing for Arguers," Argument Cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09 [2009]: 11). My focus has been exclusively confined to the victory sense of winning (or of losing). I agree with Geoff Goddu that this is the sense relevant to adversarial argumentation (Geoff C. Goddu, Commentary on Erik C. W. Krabbe's "Winning and Losing for Arguers," Argument Cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09 [2009]: 3), which I address directly in the next two sections. 12 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 13 David J. Hauser and Norbert Schwarz, "The War on Prevention: Bellicose Cancer Metaphors Hurt (Some) Prevention Intentions," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41.1 (2015): 66. 14 Daniel H. Cohen, "Argument Is War ... and War Is Hell: Philosophy, Education, and Metaphors for Argumentation," Informal Logic 17.2 (1995): 182 ff. 15 Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 5. 16 Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, 13. 17 Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 12. 18 See Andrea Nye, Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic (London: Routledge, 1990). For discussion, see Trudy Govier, The Philosophy of Argument (Newport News, VA: Vale Press, 1999), 59. See also Phyllis Rooney, "When Philosophical Argumentation Impedes Social and Political Progress," Journal of Social Philosophy 43.3 (2012): 317-333; Catherine Hundleby, "Aggression, Politeness, and Abstract Adversaries," Informal Logic, 33.3 (2013): 238-262. 19 Norman Swartz, "Philosophy as a Blood Sport," Simon Fraser University (April 9, 1994). Available online at: . 20 Nicholas S. Thompson, "Has Dennett Given Up on Argument? A Review of Daniel C. Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea," Behavior and Philosophy 24.2 (1996): 171. 21 Thompson, "Has Dennet Given Up on Argument?" 171. 22 Daniel H. Cohen, "Missed Opportunities in Argument Evaluation." Proceedings of ISSA 2014: Eighth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (2015): 258. 23 Or, if the philosopher was in the right, a Gettier winner. But, although a Gettier win is a real win, it does not provide the prima facie evidence that one is in the right that (non-Gettier) real winning does. So it would still be a hollow victory. 24 Swartz, "Philosophy as a Blood Sport." Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 10 25 Ian James Kidd, "Epistemic Humility: Virtue, Argumentation, Status, and Bias," presented to EIDOS, Durham University, 2015; see also Ian James Kidd, "Intellectual Humility, Confidence, and Argumentation," Topoi 35.2 (2016): 395-402. 26 Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, 13. 27 I have discussed some virtues of argument at greater length elsewhere (Andrew Aberdein, "Virtue in Argument," Argumentation 24.2 (2010): 165-179). 28 I am grateful to many people-none of them losers!-for their comments on an earlier version of this paper, including Lilian Bermejo-Luque, Iovan Drehe, José Gascón, James Franklin, Nicholas Joll, Ian James Kidd, Moti Mizrahi, Steven Patterson, Alan Rosiene, and Rafał Urbaniak. References Aberdein, Andrew. "Virtue in Argument." Argumentation 24.2 (2010): 165-179. Cohen, Daniel H. "Argument Is War ... and War Is Hell: Philosophy, Education, and Metaphors for Argumentation." Informal Logic 17.2 (1995): 177-188. Cohen, Daniel H. "Missed Opportunities in Argument Evaluation." Proceedings of ISSA 2014: Eighth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (2015): 257-265. Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Touchstone, 1995. Forrester, John. "Professor Peter Lipton: Razor-sharp Cambridge University Philosopher of Science." The Independent (2008). Available online at . Goddu, Geoff C. Commentary on Erik C. W. Krabbe's "Winning and Losing for Arguers." Argument Cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09 (2009): 1-4. Govier, Trudy. The Philosophy of Argument. Newport News, VA: Vale Press, 1999. Hauser, David J. and Norbert Schwarz. "The War on Prevention: Bellicose Cancer Metaphors Hurt Florida Philosophical Review Volume XVI, Issue 1, Winter 2016 11 (Some) Prevention Intentions." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 41.1 (2015): 66-77. Hundleby, Catherine. "Aggression, Politeness, and Abstract Adversaries." Informal Logic 33.3 (2013): 238-262. Kidd, Ian James. "Epistemic Humility: Virtue, Argumentation, Status, and Bias." Presentation to EIDOS, Durham University, 2015. Kidd, Ian James. "Intellectual Humility, Confidence, and Argumentation." Topoi 35.2 (2016): 395402. Krabbe, Erik C. W. "Winning and Losing for Arguers." Argument Cultures: Proceedings of OSSA 09 (2009): 1-12. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. In Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Vol. 18, J. M. Robson, ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977. Nozick, Robert. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. Nye, Andrea. Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic. London: Routledge, 1990. Rooney, Phyllis. "When Philosophical Argumentation Impedes Social and Political Progress." Journal of Social Philosophy 43.3 (2012): 317-333. Swartz, Norman. "Philosophy as a Blood Sport." Simon Fraser University (1994). Available at: . Thompson, Nicholas S. "Has Dennett Given Up on Argument? A Review of Daniel C. Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea." Behavior and Philosophy 24.2 (1996): 169-173. Williamson, Timothy. The Philosophy of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.


Virtue theories have lately enjoyed a modest vogue in the study of argumentation, echoing the success of more far-reaching programmes in ethics and epistemology. Virtue theories of argumentation (VTA) comprise several conceptually distinct projects, including the provision of normative foundations for argument evaluation and a renewed focus on the character of good arguers. Perhaps the boldest of these is the pursuit of the fully satisfying argument, the argument that contributes to human flourishing. This project has an independently developed epistemic analogue: eudaimonistic virtue epistemology. Both projects stress the importance of widening the range of cognitive goals beyond, respectively, cogency and knowledge; both projects emphasize social factors, the right sort of community being indispensable for the cultivation of the intellectual virtues necessary to each project. This paper proposes a unification of the two projects by arguing that the intellectual good life sought by eudaimonistic virtue epistemologists is best realized through the articulation of an account of argumentation that contributes to human flourishing.

Philosophy

Eudaimonistic Argumentation

EUDAIMONISTIC ARGUMENTATION ANDREW ABERDEIN∗ Abstract. Virtue theories of argumentation comprise several conceptually distinct projects. Perhaps the boldest of these is the pursuit of the fully satisfying argument, the argument that contributes to human flourishing. This project has an independently developed epistemic analogue: eudaimonistic virtue epistemology. Both projects stress the importance of widening the range of cognitive goals beyond, respectively, cogency and knowledge; both projects emphasize social factors, the right sort of community being indispensable for the cultivation of the intellectual virtues necessary to each project. This paper proposes a unification of the two projects by arguing that the intellectual good life sought by eudaimonistic virtue epistemologists is best realized through the articulation of an account of argumentation that contributes to human flourishing. Virtue theories have lately enjoyed a modest vogue in the study of argumentation, echoing the success of more far-reaching programmes in ethics and epistemology. Virtue theories of argumentation (VTA) comprise several conceptually distinct projects, including the provision of normative foundations for argument evaluation and a renewed focus on the character of good arguers. One of the boldest of such projects is the pursuit of the fully satisfying argument, the argument that contributes to human flourishing. An analogous epistemic project has been pursued independently as eudaimonistic virtue epistemology. The two projects have much in common: both projects stress the importance of widening the range of cognitive goals beyond, respectively, cogency and knowledge; both projects emphasize social factors, the right sort of community being indispensable for the cultivation of intellectual virtues necessary to each project. This paper seeks to unite the two projects, by arguing that the intellectual good life sought by eudaimonistic virtue epistemologists is best realized through the articulation of an account of argumentation that contributes to human flourishing. In the first section I survey VTA, with particular attention to the treatment of the fully satisfying argument. In the second section, I turn to eudaimonistic virtue epistemology, and discuss how it may be extended to encompass VTA. In the ∗School of Arts & Communication, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne FL. Date: April 15, 2019. 1 2 ANDREW ABERDEIN third section, I address the specific issue of adversariality, arguing that the picture proposed in the previous section promises a resolution of a long-contested debate. Lastly, I conclude with a section briefly exploring the prospects for a combined eudaimonistic project. 1. Dan Cohen has said that the "core ideas" of VTA "can fit on a couple of bumper stickers" (Cohen, 2013, 482): For a Good Argument, Argue Well Arguing Well Requires Good Arguers In other words, VTA involves two successive steps away from much orthodox argumentation theory: firstly, a shift from the investigation and analysis of arguments as texts, broadly construed, to an appraisal of arguments as processes with participants; secondly, a concentration on the character of the participants-an expectation "that the admirable conduct of arguers ought to stem from virtues, inculcated habits of mind, rather than be accidental or occasional manifestations" (ibid.). In many respects, the first of these steps is the more consequential: the emphasis on virtue is arguably a more modest move than the shift of focus onto arguers from arguments. For that matter, just as not all virtue ethicists follow Aristotle in linking virtues to eudaimonia, neither do proponents of VTA necessarily see any analogous connection. Nonetheless, this connection does suggest a possible third step for VTA: from the character of arguers to the pursuit of human flourishing through the optimal conduct of argument. Here are some of the virtues that Cohen focuses on: willingness to listen to others; willingness to modify one's own position; willingness to question the obvious; willingness to engage in serious argumentation (Cohen, 2005, 64). He situates them as Aristotelian means: extremes of excess or deficiency on their various axes comprise the corresponding vices. In my own attempt at a list of argumentational virtues, I complicate Cohen's picture with subheadings, including EUDAIMONISTIC ARGUMENTATION 3 some much more familiar virtues, many of them drawn from what is known as responsibilist virtue epistemology:1 (1) willingness to engage in argumentation (a) being communicative (b) faith in reason (c) intellectual courage (i) sense of duty (2) willingness to listen to others (a) intellectual empathy (i) insight into persons (ii) insight into problems (iii) insight into theories (b) fairmindedness (i) justice (ii) fairness in evaluating the arguments of others (iii) open-mindedness in collecting and appraising evidence (c) recognition of reliable authority (d) recognition of salient facts (i) sensitivity to detail (3) willingness to modify one's own position (a) common sense (b) intellectual candour (c) intellectual humility (d) intellectual integrity (i) honour (ii) responsibility (iii) sincerity (4) willingness to question the obvious (a) appropriate respect for public opinion (b) autonomy (c) intellectual perseverance (i) diligence (ii) care (iii) thoroughness (Aberdein, 2010, 175). One way in which Cohen has framed his approach to VTA that differs from mine is that he asks what a maximally good argument would look like: "What would make an argument satisfying to the point that the participants could say at the end, 'Now that was a good argument'?" (Cohen, 2013, 477). He stresses that "The notion of an argument that is fully satisfying to its participants includes more than epistemic gains. It has to at least extend to cognitive gains more broadly, 1Virtue epistemologists are often distinguished between responsibilists, whose virtues mostly look like Aristotelian character virtues, and reliabilists, whose virtues are less obviously virtue-like: they are reliable cognitive processes (see, for example, Battaly, 2008, 644). 4 ANDREW ABERDEIN including emotional, ethical, and possibly aesthetic aspects as well" (Cohen, 2013, 478). He also notes that, while the virtues of argument may be necessary for the fully satisfying argument, they are not sufficient: "There are necessary conditions beyond the scope of the behavior and characters of the arguers, including the subject matter, the context, and the personal chemistry of the arguers" (Cohen and Miller, 2016, 459). Other argumentation theorists, less directly associated with VTA, have also said some similar things. For example, Kathryn Norlock has proposed Nel Noddings' "receptivity" as a virtue of argument somewhat analogous to Cohen's willingness to listen, a mean between the uncritical acceptance of others' views and listening only in a defensive and uncharitable manner (Norlock, 2014, 2). Saliently, Norlock observes that for Noddings receptivity "seems to be essential to living fully as a person" (Noddings, 1984, 35). As Norlock notes, this suggests "the necessity of receptivity to eudaimonia" (ibid.). Moira Howes also asks "does happiness increase the objectivity of arguers", happiness here being thought of as not just subjective, but also eudaimonic: Argumentative communities that support subjective and eudaimonic happiness will have an easier time strengthening these factors. In such contexts, arguers and audiences are likely to find it easier to change their minds in the face of evidence and imagine diverse, multifaceted audiences. They are more likely to be resilient and assertive in the face of negative commentary and find it easier to disagree respectfully. Overall, we can expect such communities to support a deeper commitment to acquiring an empirically adequate understanding of reality (Howes, 2014, 8). So there are reasons to expect eudaimonia to have positive dividends in argumentational practice. Sharon Bailin, responding to Howes, introduces an important clarification: Eudaimonia, in the Aristotelian sense, comes in fulfilling our human purposes, i.e., living in accordance with reason. Thus, on this account, critical thinking (and hence objectivity) is constitutive of eudaimonic happiness. So it's not so much that eudaimonia is EUDAIMONISTIC ARGUMENTATION 5 a means to the end of objectivity in argumentation. It is rather that part of what it means to live well is to engage in rational pursuits and rational exchanges (Bailin, 2014, 3). Arguing well is not just a ladder you climb up to get to a state of eudaimonia and may then throw away; it is actually an indispensable part of the goal you are seeking: critical thinking as a constitutive component of the good life. The version of VTA that Cohen and I have defended may be seen as a "virtues in" account: in other words, possession of various virtues might be necessary to being a good arguer. The converse of this account is implicit in Bailin's idea that being a good arguer might be constitutive of what it is to lead the good life, and therefore that arguing badly could potentially corrupt and corrode your capacity to lead the good life. This idea has also been defended by Sherman Clark, a professor of law who has been writing about virtues in the context of legal persuasion for some years (Clark, 2003, 2011, 2013): the links between VTA and such closely related work in virtue jurisprudence are seldom addressed but hold great promise. Clark uses an example of an arguer with a perfectly legitimate goal of which they want to persuade some audience-his example concerns transport policy. Their view is perfectly respectable in itself, they're not secret racists who are trying to convince people of racist things for racist reasons; they just have a point of view on transport policy. But they might cynically appreciate that, if they add a touch of racist dog whistle to their transport policy arguments, they could win over some other people who were less admirable than themselves.2 But that would still be a bad thing to do. It might be, in the short term at least, successful; they might actually win some people over. But even if it is a good argument in that very reductive sense, it is certainly not a virtuous argument. As Clark says, You might well choose to eschew that argument. Why? In part because you might consider it simply wrong to appeal to racism. But you might also quite sensibly realize that by making that sort of argument, even and perhaps especially if you did so indirectly and subtly, you would not just be appealing to but also helping to construct and reinforce fear and prejudice (Clark, 2011, 852). 2For a discussion of dog whistling in the context of VTA, see (Aberdein, 2018, 20.). 6 ANDREW ABERDEIN What makes that kind of argument bad is not just a pious sense that one shouldn't be doing these kind of things, it's that you're actually making the world worse by indulging in such arguments and by encouraging other people to do likewise. That's the point that Clark is making, drawing on the idea that argument plays a role in constructing character: The basic claim, however, is this: persuasion succeeds, if it succeeds, not by force of abstract logic, but by finding or making space in the constitutive world views-the beliefs, understanding, and priorities-of those we persuade. Unless we believe that the beliefs and understandings and priorities of those we persuade are always fully developed and permanently fixed, we should recognize that when we persuade we do not simply find, but, crucially, sometimes also may make space in their world views. When we persuade, we also teach; when we teach, we may construct. If so, we should think about what we may be doing to people when we persuade them (Clark, 2013, 1376). This reverses the causal relationship between argument and character usually proposed in VTA. Clark is not just saying that you have to have the right sort of character in order to produce the right sort of arguments; he is saying you have to produce the right sort of arguments in order to have the right sort of character. When you succeed in persuading people of things, you succeed in some small way in shaping their character. If their character gets shaped by a lot of bad arguments then that will not lead anywhere good. 2. A very specific project within virtue epistemology is what Britt Brogaard has called "eudaimonistic epistemology" (Brogaard, 2014a,b,c). Her proposal is that we can do epistemology successfully with a fundamental norm that emphasizes intellectual flourishing, rather than the sorts of things that fundamental epistemic norms usually emphasize, such as truth: EUDAIMONISTIC ARGUMENTATION 7 Truth Norm: You ought to maximize your true beliefs and minimize your false beliefs (Brogaard, 2014c, 139).3 Brogaard's point is not that we should throw away the truth norm; on the contrary, we shouldn't say things that aren't true, and we should expect our norms to require that. But the truth norm need not be the fundamental norm. For Brogaard, "the fundamental epistemic norm is not to hinder intellectual flourishing" (Brogaard, 2014a, 15). We should still endorse the truth norm, but because the truth norm is in general conducive to intellectual flourishing, not because it is a fundamental norm. This general principle can be cashed out in specific instances. Brogaard suggests the following: Intellectual Flourishing (belief): You should believe p only if believing p does not hinder intellectual flourishing. Intellectual Flourishing (assertion): You should assert p only if asserting p does not hinder intellectual flourishing. Intellectual Flourishing (action): You should treat p as a reason for action only if treating p as a reason for action does not hinder intellectual flourishing (Brogaard, 2014a, 15). There is a much bigger story to be explored here as to whether or not this actually works. Brogaard has offered a full defence, as I shall not. She suggests some issues in epistemology, such as the value of knowledge, where treating the intellectual flourishing norm as more fundamental than the truth norm has clear advantages. Indeed, there are some very good reasons why we should not want to build our intellectual lives merely upon the acquisition of true beliefs. Were I to begin obsessively counting leaves I would acquire any number of true beliefs in short order, but that does not sound like any sort of good life (Brogaard, 2014a, 16). Since such behaviour would give me true beliefs at the cost of inhibiting any prospect of intellectual flourishing, it would be ruled in by the truth norm but ruled out by the intellectual flourishing norm. Just as Cohen observes that argumentational virtues are necessary but not sufficient for a fully satisfying argument, Brogaard also notes that virtues alone do not suffice for intellectual flourishing: "While virtuous character traits and 3Brogaard credits versions of this view to numerous epistemologists, including Ralph Wedgwood, Tyler Burge, and Christopher Peacocke. 8 ANDREW ABERDEIN well-functioning cognitive faculties and abilities can lead to a good intellectual life, there are many cases in which true belief flows from virtuous character traits or well-functioning cognitive faculties and abilities but in which the agent is not on the right track intellectually speaking" (Brogaard, 2014b, 97). In this respect, of course, both authors echo Aristotle (and differ from Plato or the Stoics) in treating eudaimonia as also dependent on other external goods, whose presence or absence may be a matter of luck (Hursthouse and Pettigrove, 2018, §2.1). Thus Brogaard observes that "Just as we cannot flourish, in Aristotle's sense, in solitude, so we cannot flourish intellectually outside an intellectual community" (Brogaard, 2014c, 140). Likewise Cohen avers that "The wrong time or place can be as detrimental to the success of an argument as bad arguers. But so can the wrong arguers, no matter how good they are" (Cohen, 2013, 484). With only minor modifications, Brogaard's norm of intellectual flourishing can produce norms for argumentation. Her specific instances of the norm for belief and assertion apply without modification to fundamental actions within argumentation: the acceptance of conclusions and advancing of premisses. Indeed, assuming practical reasoning is included within the scope of argumentation, then her action instance might also find an unmodified application. But Brogaard does not contend that the instances that she specifies exhaust the possible applications of her fundamental norm. It is entirely within the spirit of her programme to propose further instances. For example: Intellectual Flourishing (reasons): You should treat p as a reason for accepting q only if treating p as a reason for accepting q does not hinder intellectual flourishing Connoisseurs of recent debates on the normativity of logic may recognise this instance of the norm as at least an echo of what has come to be known as a "bridge principle" (MacFarlane, 2004). That is, it bridges the two independent realms of logic and of normativity. Specifically, it may be seen as a possible way of spelling out the consequent in a generic bridge principle of the form "If p ⇒ q, then (normative claim about believing p and q)" (cf. Dutilh Novaes, 2015, 591; MacFarlane, 2004, 6).4 However, since argumentation, at least according to VTA, 4At least if "⇒" is understood as encompassing defeasible as well as deductive inference. I follow Dutilh Novaes in broadening MacFarlane's definition in this manner (Dutilh Novaes, 2015, 590). EUDAIMONISTIC ARGUMENTATION 9 is an essentially dialogical activity, it seems appropriate that the instances of the norm of intellectual flourishing should be expressed in terms of a relationship between agents. For example, where a (perhaps defeasible) inference of the form p⇒ q obtains: Intellectual Flourishing (proponent): If Opponent has granted p, then Proponent should put forward q (and require Opponent to grant it) only if doing so does not hinder intellectual flourishing. Intellectual Flourishing (opponent): If Opponent has granted p, and Proponent puts forward q, then Opponent should either grant q or retract his endorsement of p, depending on which hinders intellectual flourishing the least. These two instances are adapted from Catarina Dutilh Novaes's work extending John MacFarlane's account of bridge principles to dialogical contexts (Dutilh Novaes, 2015, 604 ff.). They may perhaps be seen as special cases of the reasons instance of the intellectual flourishing norm. Although this is the barest sketch of how one might apply a eudaimonistic epistemology to thinking about how arguments work, it should at least demonstrate that such an application appears worthy of further enquiry. 3. As a test of this approach, I want to explore whether such an account can be made to work as a way of tackling the issue of adversariality. This is an important issue in argumentation, and perhaps an especially sharply focused issue in virtue argumentation, because there are a number of people who say that the adversariality of arguments is a problem. This stance is perhaps most familiar as a feminist critique but is not exclusively so (Rooney, 2010; Hundleby, 2013; Steenhagen, 2016). Such critics maintain that the way in which arguments tend to be couched, perhaps especially in philosophy, but in argumentation more generally, is needlessly damaging, because it is framed in adversarial terms. Trudy Govier has a response in terms of "minimum adversariality" (Govier, 1999, 55). Scott Aiken has refined his own version of this position over several iterations; here is a recent version: 10 ANDREW ABERDEIN an arguer taking a critical line with one's own commitments is, for the purposes of the argument, both an opponent and an ally. The thought is that without the role-related duties of critical dialogue, there are moves of critical probing that must be performed that are, in their dialectical function, oppositional. However, this is yet in the service of a broader cooperative goal of dialectical testing of reasons and acceptability (Aikin, 2017, 16). In other words, if you are concerned that we keep framing people as opponents, remember that they are also allies. Here is a similar approach to the same idea from Dutilh Novaes, that she frames hopefully as "virtuous adversariality", a strong cooperative, virtuous component which regulates and constrains the adversarial component. . . . The picture that emerges is of philosophy as ongoing conversation between interlocutors who respectfully disagree with each other. Disagreement forces them to provide the best possible arguments to support their respective positions, and it is from the comparison between the best possible arguments for competing positions that more robust philosophical theories emerge. Interestingly, Grice's famous conversational maxims offer sensible principles on how to conduct such philosophical conversations, offering the right balance between adversariality and cooperation (Dutilh Novaes, 2014). And, as a reminder, here are Grice's famous conversational maxims: Quantity: (1) Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). (2) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true. (1) Do not say what you believe to be false. (2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Relation: Be relevant. Manner: Be perspicuous. (1) Avoid obscurity of expression. (2) Avoid ambiguity. EUDAIMONISTIC ARGUMENTATION 11 (3) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). (4) Be orderly (Grice, 1975, 45 f.). Most of these are covered by the assertion instance of Brogaard's intellectual flourishing norm: You should assert p only if asserting p does not hinder intellectual flourishing. Indeed, Grice himself subordinates all of these maxims to a single norm: Cooperative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Grice, 1975, 45). It takes no great leap to see this as consistent with intellectual flourishing, at least as regards conversational exchanges. Certainly persistent and unmotivated disregard for this principle would seem likely to hinder intellectual flourishing. 4. Most discussion of VTA has emphasized the "virtues in" side, the contention that we need virtues of a certain type in order to argue the right way. However, the case I have made here is that we should also hope for "virtues out". Arguing well requires good, that is, virtuous arguers; but also arguing well, that is virtuously, is required for good arguers. If there are to be good arguers, there will need to be arguing well. More broadly, if intellectual flourishing cannot be attained in solitude, then there must be a community of interacting agents, whose potential for intellectual flourishing will only be realized individually if it is realized collectively. In any practical scenario, the interactions between these agents will exhibit disagreements and differences of opinion; that is, the basis for arguments. But these arguments ought to be fully satisfying ones, if the community is to continue to flourish. So, an indispensable component of any intellectually flourishing community will be fully satisfying arguments, which, if the treatment above is correct, will comply with instances of the intellectual flourishing norm. More broadly still, the satisfactory resolution of ethical debates will require such a community. Hence, if there are to be good people in general then there must be good argument. 12 ANDREW ABERDEIN References Aberdein, Andrew. 2010. Virtue in argument. Argumentation 24(2): 165-179. Aberdein, Andrew. 2018. Virtuous norms for visual arguers. Argumentation 32(1): 1-23. Aikin, Scott F. 2017. Fallacy theory, the negativity problem, and minimal dialectical adversariality. Cogency 9(1): 7-19. Bailin, Sharon. 2014. 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