In this paper, I argue that, despite the progress made in recent years, virtue argumentation theory still lacks a more systematic acknowledgment of other-regarding virtues. A fuller recognition of such virtues not only enriches the field of research of virtue argumentation theory in significant ways, but also allows for a richer and more intuitive view of the virtuous arguer. A fully virtuous arguer, it is argued, should care to develop both self-regarding and other-regarding virtues. He should be concerned both with (...) his own development as an arguer and with helping other arguers in that regard. (shrink)

“Meta-argument allegations” consist of protestations that an interlocutor’s speech is wrongfully offensive or will trigger undesirable social consequences. Such protestations are meta-argument in the sense that they do not interrogate the soundness of an opponent’s argumentation, but instead focus on external features of that argument. They are allegations because they imply moral wrongdoing. There is a legitimate place for meta-argument allegations, and the moral and epistemic goods that can come from them will be front of mind for those levelling such (...) allegations. But I argue there is a dark side to such allegations, and their epistemic and moral costs must be seriously weighed. Meta-argument allegations have a concerning capacity to derail discussions about important topics, stymieing argumentational interactions and the goods they provide. Such allegations can license efforts to silence, punish and deter—even as they provoke the original speaker to retaliate in kind. Used liberally, such allegations can escalate conflicts, block open-mindedness, and discourage constructive dialogues. In response, I defend “argumentational tolerance”—a principled wariness in employing meta-argument allegations—as a virtue of ethical argument. (shrink)

Contemporary argumentation theory has developed an impressive array of norms, goals and virtues applicable to ideal argument. But what is the moral status of these prescriptions? Is an interlocutor who fails to live up to these norms guilty of a moral failing as well as an epistemic or cognitive error? If so, why? In answering these questions, I argue that deliberation’s epistemic and cognitive goods attach to important ethical goods, and that respect for others’ rationality, the ethics of joint action, (...) and the importance of consensus join forces with these goods to provide strong reasons for cleaving to high standards of argument. I sketch an illustrative continuum of argument practices of different deliberative-cum-ethical standards, and consider how one should ethically respond when faced with an interlocutor employing less than ideal standards. (shrink)

This paper addresses some of the contours of an ethics of knowledge in the context of ameliorative epistemology, where this term describes epistemological projects aimed at redressing epistemic injustices, improving collective epistemic practices, and educating more effectively for higher-order reflective reasoning dispositions. Virtue theory and embodiment theory together help to tie the cultivation of moral and epistemic emotions to cooperative problem-solving. We examine one cooperative vice, ‘knavery,’ and how David Hume’s little-noticed discussion of it is a forerunner of contemporary game (...) theory’s concern with behavior of ‘free riding’ on systems of trust or cooperation. We develop these and other examples as calling for “risk-aware” social epistemology, which ties epistemic risk with doxastic responsibility. Risk-aware social epistemology aims at describing and ameliorating epistemic practices, but without confusing over-generalizing about culpability in ways that would conflate philosophical censure or critique of bias, with “blameworthiness” in any stronger sense. (shrink)

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 of virtue-based argumentation theories. The middle section analyzes courtroom argumentation as a case study. The assigned roles in legal settings provide high-definition examples of how the roles that all arguers routinely inhabit in ordinary argumentation factor into the evaluation of virtues. The contextually variable values of objectivity and biases are on clear display. The final section employs the conclusions from the middle section to answer the questions from the first section and to complete the argument that objectivity can be an occasionally “vicious virtue”. (shrink)