Think Again: How to Reason and Argue

by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

  Some brave souls do seek conflicting news sources. However, their motive is often simply to find mistakes there in order to criticize those sources instead of learning from them. They are not really listening but only waiting to pounce. One master of this technique was Jon Stewart, the host of The Daily Show. He could always find short clips that made Fox News look silly. Of course, these clips were often unfair because they had been ripped out of context. Stewart’s excuse was that his show was comedy, not serious news, but he still set a tone for his viewers. When they did listen to opposing news sources, each side was trained to laugh at the bad parts instead of learning from the good parts of their political opponents.

  If fellow citizens get their facts as well as analysis and commentary from conflicting sources, then it is no wonder that they end up consistently supporting opposite positions. It is also not surprising that they despise people who disagree with them, because then those people seem ignorant of the most basic and central facts that have been all over the news—at least the news that they watch.

  WHY ASK?

  If opponents are so ignorant, there is little to be gained by asking them why they believe what they do. That is one explanation for why many people today have stopped asking each other for reasons.

  Another part of the explanation for the demise of questioning is cultural. In some circles, it is disdained as naïve or impolite to ask people why they think and act as they do. One example is religion. Religious beliefs affect people’s stands on many crucial and divisive issues. But what happens when a Muslim person walks into the room? Does anyone ask that Muslim why he or she believes that the Koran is a Holy Book or that Muhammad was a prophet? I have never heard anyone ask that question in such a situation, maybe because they do not expect any useful or reasoned answer. Instead, people either avoid the subject of religion and talk about something else or they avoid the Muslim and assume that he or she is sympathetic with terrorism. Neither approach accomplishes anything. Both sides remain completely ignorant of any reasons behind the other side’s position on the elephant in the room: religion. And the same goes for Christians, Jews, Hindus, and atheists.

  Consider also gay marriage. Among my liberal friends in Europe and the United States, if anyone were to say that governments should not recognize gay marriages, then that person would immediately be labeled a bigot and ostracized. If anyone bothered to ask “Why shouldn’t gay marriages be recognized?” the questioner would be ready to jump all over any answer that a conservative gave. They would not listen sympathetically, interpret charitably, or look for any truth in that opponent’s reply.

  In return, conservatives dismiss gay marriage as disgusting, immoral, or unnatural, and then they dismiss its advocates as dupes of gay advocacy groups. They assume that the United States Supreme Court opinions in support of a constitutional right to gay marriage are totally political, judicial over-reach, and not strict construction—even before they read the arguments in those opinions.7 Why bother reading the judicial opinions carefully when you are already confident that they are wrong? Attitudes like these keep people on either side from digging deeper into the reasons on both sides.

  Moreover, even when people do ask questions, they are often ignored and not answered. Just watch any political debate. A moderator asks a serious question, then the candidate proceeds to talk about something entirely separate. Sometimes this non-response is portrayed as background information, but the speaker never gets back to answering the original question. Sometimes the speaker simply changes the subject with no excuse whatsoever. Either way, the tendency not to answer questions contributes to the tendency not to ask questions either. Why bother asking a question when it is unlikely to elicit any real response? The only kinds of questions that end up being asked are rhetorical questions whose answers are already obvious—or thought to be obvious—so nobody bothers to give or listen to any answer. “The rest is silence” (as Hamlet said when he died).

  SO WHAT?

  Even if we do not want to be silent or silenced ourselves, we still might want to silence others. Many of my liberal friends not only dislike conservatives—they like to dislike them. They think that they should dislike conservatives. They are proud of their refusal to reason or even talk with their opponents. They ask, “Why should we try to understand them? Why should we be civil to them? We need to fight them, and abuse is a weapon worth wielding. If we can silence them, so much the better.” Of course, conservatives reply in kind. They think that liberals deserve the abuse that they heap on them, because liberals are threatening the well-being of their country as well as the values that conservatives hold dear. They would be happy if liberals were to shut up. Their goal is to silence the opposition.

  Perhaps not everyone should get along. Maybe a few like-minded friends are enough or even better than trying to like everyone. When extreme danger is imminent, some enemies need to be stopped with laws or even guns instead of just words.

  Nonetheless, we would lose a lot if we never encountered worthy opponents. If everybody agreed with us, or if we talked only to allies and never left our echo chambers, then we would never look for any new evidence to counter opposition. Our lack of exposure to any arguments on the other side would make us overconfident. It would also reduce our ability to correct mistakes, so we would become more likely to get stuck in a rut.

  This basic point was made long ago by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Mill also saw other advantages of deliberating with a variety of interlocutors. When we need to deliberate with opponents, we are forced to present arguments for our positions, and we thereby gain a better understanding of our own positions and the reasons for them. One recent study found that “incongruent information increases thought quality as measured by thoughts’ integrative complexity, volume of thoughts, and frequency of arguments.”8 These improvements were in reasoning that supported prior beliefs, but better arguments on that side can also improve understanding of that position by both sides—advocates as well as opponents. We become more justified in believing what we do, and our views become more nuanced, subtle and refined after we add qualifications, even if we hold onto basically the same positions that we started with. Encounters with opponents help us in many ways.

  To find counterevidence and counterarguments whenever possible, we need to seek groups whose members vary in as many relevant ways as possible.9 It also helps for the groups to engage in extended and respectful deliberation.10 Today we have new tools to help us accomplish this goal. We can use the Internet to facilitate encounters with opposing views, such as by joining deliberative groups of people whom we would rarely encounter otherwise or by deploying digital tools, such as Reddit’s thread called “ChangeMyView.”11

  The goal is not to get everyone to agree. How boring that would be! Diversity of opinion invigorates and illuminates. Nor is the goal to make us open to all other positions. We should not be willing to move to a new position that is clearly mistaken. Instead, the goal is to remain civil, understand opponents, and learn from them even when they are mistaken.

  Of course, there is no guarantee that mixed groups who deliberate will arrive at mutual respect, much less the truth or the best policies. Some risk of error is unavoidable. Still, reasoning with opponents gives us more chance of arriving at mutual understanding and respect as well as true beliefs and good policies.

  ISN’T SILENCE SOOTHING?

  If reason should not be silenced, do we have to talk about controversial issues all day long? No. Excess arguments can create problems of their own. Most of the time we should leave controversies alone and get on with more pleasant parts of our lives.

  Internet trolls sometimes engage in what is called seal-lioning. They demand that you keep arguing with them for as long they want you to, even long after you realize that further discussion is pointless. If you announce that you want to stop, then they accuse you of being closed-minded or opposed to reason. This practice is obnoxious. Reason should not be silenced, but it needs to take a va
cation sometimes.

  When we do talk about controversial issues, we do not always have to include opponents in our discussions. Many universities in the United States have set up “safe spaces” where students can go when they want to talk about intimate and controversial issues without encountering opponents or skeptics. These environments are supposed to be supportive and to aid healing and improve self-confidence, especially in groups that are often dismissed or denounced by others. Gay students, for example, get tired of defending their lifestyle in hostile environments, so they can gain personal strength from entering a safe space where they know people will not call them immoral. Such safe spaces are perfectly compatible with my general point that we need to encounter opponents in order to learn from them. There is enough time in life for both. Nothing is wrong with using safe spaces at certain times in order to prepare ourselves to encounter opponents at other times—as long as everyone eventually does get out and encounter opposition often enough to understand that opposition.

  Even when the time is right, what is valuable is not simply talking about controversies. We need to learn to talk to opponents in the right way. The Rapoport rules (quoted above) tell us part of what counts as the right way. Parts II and III of this book say more about what is the right way to reason with each other about controversial issues. In any case, it is important to recognize that speech is not enough. What is needed is the right kind of speech, involving civil communication about reasons.

  4

  WHAT ARGUMENTS CAN DO

  ARGUMENTS CANNOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS all by themselves. Even good seed cannot grow on infertile soil, so audiences must be receptive before arguments can accomplish anything. To nurture their receptivity, we need many other virtues, including modesty, graciousness, civility, patience, and forgiveness. But if all of that has to be present in advance, what further good can arguments really do that these other virtues have not already done?

  WHO IS THE SLAVE?

  Many cynics and skeptics will dismiss reasoning right from the start. They deny that reason and argument have as much power as I claim. Sometimes these skeptics deny that reason and argument have any power at all. In their view, reason does nothing, because emotion does it all. According to them, we are driven completely by our emotions, feelings, and desires rather than by reasons or beliefs—much less arguments.

  In support of this view, such critics often quote the early modern philosopher David Hume, who notoriously said, “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”1 This simple slogan is catchy, but Hume’s considered views are much more complex and subtle:

  [I]n order to pave the way for such a sentiment [or emotion], and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained . . . . [I]n many orders of beauty, particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ much reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be corrected by argument and reflection. There are just grounds to conclude, that moral beauty partakes much of this latter species, and demands the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in order to give it a suitable influence on the human mind.2

  Hume here explains how reasoning often precedes, influences, and corrects emotions, especially on moral matters. If reason is a slave, this slave sometimes guides its master.

  One lesson from Hume’s passage is that the contrast between reason and emotion is a false dichotomy. We need not—and should not—hold either that emotion does everything and reason does nothing or that reason does everything and emotion does nothing. Instead, emotion can be guided by reason. Indeed, emotions can be reasons, such as when fear indicates danger, or happiness is evidence of having made a good choice. And strong emotion can be backed by strong reasons, such as when I get very angry that someone raped my friend. Reason does not always require us to remain calm and cold. The rational and emotional aspects of our nature do and should work together as allies in shaping our judgments and decisions. They need not conflict or compete.

  Hume was analyzing moral and aesthetic judgments, but his point applies as well to personal, political, and religious disputes. Cynics often claim that people pick their friends, political parties, and religious stances on the basis of their feelings—fear, anger, hatred, and disgust, but also positive attraction. They feel their way into their positions instead of reasoning or thinking about facts. They move from “ought” to “is”—from their beliefs about how the world ought to be to beliefs that the world really is that way.

  Of course, nobody denies or should deny that emotion is crucial to hot issues. Emotion is what makes hot issues hot. Nonetheless, reason and argument also have some role to play. People would not become active and risk alienating others if they did not feel strongly about their personal, political, or religious positions. At the same time, they also might not feel that way if they did not think and reason about the relevant facts in the ways they do. Reason thereby affects actions, because actions are based on motivations and emotions, and those motivations and emotions are shaped by beliefs and reasons.

  To see this in a personal case, just imagine that an informant tells you that your rival for promotion in your job lied about you to your bosses, and then she got the promotion instead of you. “That demon! I hate her! I am going to get back at her!” Your emotions are aroused, and they lead you to undermine her career. Your anger leads you to lie about her, but you are caught. Your boss then fires you for undermining her and the group.

  The fact that your acts were so counterproductive and destructive would lead many to tag your acts as irrational and emotional. Emotions are seen as preventing reasoning that would have stopped you from getting into trouble. You would never act that way toward your rival if you did not have those emotions.

  Still, you also would never have acted in that way if you had not believed that your rival lied about you and that her lie was why you did not get the promotion. You trust your informant, so you reasoned from his report to reach the conclusion that your rival lied about you. Then you assumed that her lie was the best explanation for your failure to get promoted. This reasoning was what led you to feel strong negative emotions toward your rival. If you had not trusted your informant, or if you had not believed that your rival’s lie made any difference to your promotion, you would not have been nearly so angry and vengeful. Then you would have kept your job.

  In this way, reason and emotion together shape behavior. Emotions sometimes arise from aspects of the situation that have little or nothing to do with the relevant facts. However, we usually get mad at people because we believe that they did something wrong. Our anger might then lead us to act in irrational ways, but it arises originally from a belief about the other person, and that belief can be the conclusion of reasoning. If the reasoning is faulty, then the emotion is unjustified and can lead us astray. Even if the reasoning is good, the emotion can become so strong that it prevents reasoning later on. Either way, we need to take account of both reasoning and emotion in order to understand the action. It is a mistake to think that the act results from either reason or emotion alone.

  The same point holds at the social level in politics. Consider the recent Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. Opponents of Brexit, who lost the referendum, claimed that the vote was fueled by emotions—fear of immigration, frustration with politicians, and so on—which made voters forget or ignore the arguments for the economic costs of Brexit. This pattern is common. Voters who lose typically say that their opponents acted on emotion instead of reason. But think about it. There really were a lot of immigrants flooding into Europe and Britain.3 They really did have an impact on British citizens. It is true that the vote might have gone differently if British citizens had welcomed them instead of fearing them. But it is also true that the outcome of the vote would have been different if the fac
ts had been different, such as if there had been fewer immigrants, assuming that citizens would have changed their beliefs accordingly. The vote might also have gone the other way if the British people had been convinced that immigrants were helping them instead of taking their jobs and using up public services. These matters need to be decided by cognition, reasoning, and argument. Thus, both arguments to settle the facts and also emotions to see how we react to those facts play a role in determining the response. Here there is no either-or. Cynical commentators have gone too far to emphasize emotions and downplay reasons. Reason also plays a role—not instead of but in addition to emotion.

  In many cases like these, reason is not the slave of the passions, nor is passion the slave of reasons. Instead of being slaves and masters, they work together as peers and allies—or at least they can.

  IS THERE ANY HOPE?

  Critics of this view will not give up yet. Sure, they will admit, our beliefs guide our emotions. But why think that reasoning or arguments really determine our beliefs? Our beliefs might just be post hoc rationalizations that we make up to fit our feelings. We might really believe what we do because we want to believe that. Or we might believe it for no reason at all. Then reason and argument have nothing to do with what we believe.

  This sentiment has been expressed by cynics through the ages who deny that arguments do any good, like these:

  I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument—and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes. – Dale Carnegie4