Location
University of Windsor
Document Type
Paper
Start Date
6-6-2007 9:00 AM
End Date
9-6-2007 5:00 PM
Abstract
Why is there so much distortion in ordinary, political, social, and ethical argument? Since we have a pervasive interest in reasoning well and corresponding abilities, the extent of distortion invites explanation. The leading candidates are the need to economize, widespread, fallacious heuristics or assumptions, and self-defensive biases. I argue that these are not sufficient. An additional force is the intellectual pressure generated by acceptance of norms of conversation and argument, which exclude ‘middles’ of, prominently, neither accept (believe) nor reject (disbelieve). I conjecture that the distortion we find is due to intellectual and normative pressures generated by our commitment to these excluded-middle norms and if, or when, their force is lessened, there is likely to be less distortion.
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Response to Submission
Patrick Francken, Commentary on Adler
Reader's Reactions
Patrick Francken, Commentary on Adler (June 2007)
Included in
Distortion and Excluded Middles
University of Windsor
Why is there so much distortion in ordinary, political, social, and ethical argument? Since we have a pervasive interest in reasoning well and corresponding abilities, the extent of distortion invites explanation. The leading candidates are the need to economize, widespread, fallacious heuristics or assumptions, and self-defensive biases. I argue that these are not sufficient. An additional force is the intellectual pressure generated by acceptance of norms of conversation and argument, which exclude ‘middles’ of, prominently, neither accept (believe) nor reject (disbelieve). I conjecture that the distortion we find is due to intellectual and normative pressures generated by our commitment to these excluded-middle norms and if, or when, their force is lessened, there is likely to be less distortion.
