Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Virtuous Vices: On Objectivity, Bias, And Virtue In Argumentation, Daniel H. Cohen, Katharina Stevens

OSSA Conference Archive

How is it possible that biases are cognitive vices, objectivity is an exemplary intellectual virtue, and yet objectivity is itself a bias? In this paper, we argue that objectivity is indeed a kind of bias but is still an argumentative virtue. In common with many biases – and many virtues – its effects are neither uniformly negative nor uniformly positive. Consequences alone are not enough to determine which character traits are argumentative virtues. Context matters.

The opening section addresses the problem of identifying argumentative virtues and provides a preliminary response to recent questions from Goddu and Godden regarding the foundations …

The Willingness To Be Rationally Persuaded, Michael D. Baumtrog

OSSA Conference Archive

In this paper I argue that underlying phronêsis is the more foundational virtue of a willingness to be rationally persuaded (WTRBP). A WTBRP is a virtue in the sense that it fulfills the doctrine of the mean by falling between two vices – never sticking to your position and never giving it up. Articulating a WTBRP in this way also helps address problems phronêsis faces in light of implicit bias research.

Pursuing Objectivity: How Virtuous Can You Get?, José Ángel Gascón

OSSA Conference Archive

While, in common usage, objectivity is usually regarded as a virtue, and failures to be objective as vices, this concept tends to be absent in argumentation theory. This paper will explore the possibility of taking objectivity as an argumentative virtue. Several problems immediately arise: could objectivity be understood in positive terms— not only as mere absence of bias? Is it an attainable ideal? Or perhaps objectivity could be explained as a combination of other virtues?

Virtuous Argumentation And The Challenges Of Hype, Adam Auch

OSSA Conference Archive

In this paper, I consider the virtue of proportionality in relation to reasoning in what I call ‘hype contexts’ (contexts in which otherwise perfectly temperate claims take on an outsized or inappropriate importance, simply due to their ubiquity). I conclude that a virtuous arguer is one that neither accepts nor rejects a claim based on its ubiquity alone, but who evaluates its importance with reference to the social context in which it is made.

Argumentative Virtues And Deep Disagreement, Chris Campolo

OSSA Conference Archive

The theoretical possibility of deep disagreement gives rise to an important practical problem: a deep disagreement may in practice look and feel like a merely stubborn normal disagreement. In this paper I critique strategies for dealing with this practical problem. According to their proponents these strategies exhibit argumentative virtue, but I will show that they embody serious argumentative (and even moral) vices.

Does Happiness Increase The Objectivity Of Arguers?, Moira Howes

OSSA Conference Archive

At first glance, happiness and objectivity seem to have little in common. I claim, however, that subjective and eudaimonic happiness promotes arguer objectivity. To support my claim, I focus on connections between happiness, social intelligence, and intellectual virtue. After addressing objections concerning unhappy objective and happy unobjective arguers, I conclude that communities should value happiness in argumentative contexts and use happiness as an indicator of their capacity for objective argumentation.

Receptivity As A Virtue Of (Practitioners Of) Argumentation, Kathryn J. Norlock

OSSA Conference Archive

I rely on Nel Noddings’ analysis of receptivity as "an essential component of intellectual work," to argue that receptivity is a virtue of argumentation (1984, p. 34), practicing the principle of charity excellently for the sake of an author and their philosophical community. The deficiency of receptivity is epitomized by the philosopher who listens to attack. The excess of receptivity is the vice of insufficiently critical acceptance of an author regardless of the merits of an argument.

The Virtuous Arguer: One Person, Four Characters, Katharina Von Radziewsky

OSSA Conference Archive

When evaluating the arguer instead of the argument, we soon find ourselves confronted with a puzzling situation: What seems to be a virtue in one argumentative situation could very well be called a vice in another. This talk will present the idea that there are in fact two roles an arguer has to master – and with them four sometimes very different sets of virtues.

Compromise As Deep Virtue: Evolution And Some Limits Of Argumentation, Philip Rose

OSSA Conference Archive

If argument forms evolve then the possible existence of localized argument forms may create an interpretive impasse between locally distinct argument communities. Appeal to evolutionarily ‘deep’ argument forms may help, but might be strained in cases where emergent argument forms are not reducible to their base conditions. Overcoming such limits presupposes the virtue of compromise, suggesting that compromise may stand as ‘deep virtue’ within argumentative forms of life.

Virtue, In Context, Daniel H. Cohen

OSSA Conference Archive

Virtue argumentation theory provides the best framework for accommodating the notion of an argument that is “fully satisfying” in a robust and integrated sense. The process of explicating the notion of fully satisfying arguments requires expanding the concept of arguers to include all of an argument’s participants, including judges, juries, and interested spectators. And that, in turn, requires expanding the concept of an argument itself to include its entire context.