Topoi 38 (4):693-709 (2019)
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Abstract |
Feminist argumentation theorists have criticized the Dominant Adversarial Model in argumentation, according to which arguers should take proponent and opponent roles and argue against one another. The model is deficient because it creates disadvantages for feminine gendered persons in a way that causes significant epistemic and practical harms. In this paper, I argue that the problem that these critics have pointed out can be generalized: whenever an arguer is given a role in the argument the associated tasks and norms of which she cannot fulfill, she is liable to suffer morally significant harms. One way to react to this problem is by requiring arguers to set up argument structures and allocate roles so that the argument will be reasons-reflective in as balanced a way as possible. However, I argue that this would create to heavy a burden. Arguers would then habitually have to take on roles that require them to divert time and energy away from the goals that they started arguing for and instead serve the goal of ideal reasons-reflectiveness. At least prima facie arguers should be able to legitimately devote their time and energy towards their own goals. This creates a problem: On the one hand, structures that create morally significant harms for some arguers should be avoided—on the other hand, arguers should be able to take argument-roles that allow them to devote themselves to their own argumentative goals. Fulfilling the second requirement for some arguers will often create the morally significant harms for their interlocutors. There are two possible solutions for this problem: first, arguers might be required to reach free, consensual agreements on the structure they will adopt for their argument and the way they will distribute argumentative roles. I reject this option as both fundamentally unfeasible and practically unrealistic, based on arguments developed by theorists like Krabbe and Jacobs. I argue that instead, we should take a liberal view on argument ethics. Arguers should abide by moral side constraints to their role taking. They should feel free to take roles that will allow them to concentrate on their argumentative goals, but only if this does not create a situation in which their interlocutors are pushed into a role that that they cannot effectively play.
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Keywords | argumentation ethics epistemic injustice argumentative injustice roles design |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11245-019-09659-0 |
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References found in this work BETA
Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing.Miranda Fricker - 2007 - Oxford University Press.
Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility.John Martin Fischer & Mark Ravizza - 1998 - Cambridge University Press.
The Enigma of Reason.Dan Sperber & Hugo Mercier (eds.) - 2017 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press.
Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning.Douglas Neil Walton & Erik C. W. Krabbe - 1995 - Albany, NY, USA: State University of New York Press.
Manifest Rationality: A Pragmatic Theory of Argument.Ralph H. Johnson - 2000 - Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
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Citations of this work BETA
Angelic Devil’s Advocates and the Forms of Adversariality.Katharina Stevens & Daniel H. Cohen - 2021 - Topoi 40 (5):899-912.
No Place for Compromise: Resisting the Shift to Negotiation.David Godden & John Casey - 2020 - Argumentation 34 (4):499-535.
The Compliment of Rational Opposition: Disagreement, Adversariality, and Disputation.David Godden - 2021 - Topoi 40 (5):845-858.
Argumentative Adversariality, Contrastive Reasons, and the Winners-and-Losers Problem.Scott Aikin - 2021 - Topoi 40 (5):837-844.
View all 9 citations / Add more citations
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