Location
University of Windsor
Document Type
Paper
Keywords
argumantation, virtue, bias, objectivity
Start Date
18-5-2016 9:00 AM
End Date
21-5-2016 5:00 PM
Abstract
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” (and biases can be “virtuous vices”).
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Reader's Reactions
Tone Kvernbekk, Commentary on Daniel Cohen and Katharina Stevens' "Virtuous Vices: On Objectivity and Bias in Argumentation" (May 2016)
Included in
Virtuous Vices: On Objectivity, Bias, and Virtue in Argumentation
University of Windsor
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” (and biases can be “virtuous vices”).
