Goals and functions of public argumentation
Lead authors: 1,2,3Frank Zenker and 4Jan Albert van Laar; 1Dpt. of Philosophy,
Boğaziçi University, 34342 Istanbul, Turkey; 2Int. Center for Formal Ontology,
Warsaw U. of Technology, Poland; 3Dpt. of Philosophy, Lund University, Sweden;
ORCID: 0000-0001-7173-7964; 4University of Groningen, Oude Boteringestraat 52,
Groningen, The Netherlands
Co-authors: Abreu, P., Nova University of Lisbon, Nova Institute of Philosophy,
Lisbon, Portugal;
Bengtsson, M., Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark;
Castro, D, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands;
Cooke, M., School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Ireland;
Danka, I., Budapest University of Technology and Economics/John von Neumann
University, Budapest/Kecskemet, Hungary;
De Cock, B., Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium;
Dutilh Novaes, C., Department of Philosophy, Free University of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands; Arché, University of St. Andrews, Scotland;
Farine, L., University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland;
Gâţă, A., Dunărea de Jos University of Galaţi, Galaţi, Romania;
Greco, S., Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland;
Grossi, D., University of Groningen, Groningen, NL;
Jolić, T., Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, Croatia;
Lanius, D., Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany;
Lewiński, M., ArgLab, Nova Institute of Philosophy, Universidade Nova de Lisboa,
Lisbon, Portugal;
Lumer, C., University of Siena, Siena, Italy;
Łupkowski, P., Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland;
Mohammed, D., FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal;
Oswald, S., University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland;
Pichlak, M., University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland;
Rast, H., Nova Institute of Philosophy, New University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal;
Ritola, J., University of Turku, Turku, Finland;
Rodríguez-Alcázar, J., University of Granada, Granada, Spain;
Sadek, K., University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland;
Scott, B. D., Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium;
Stojanovic, I., Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS, DEC, ENS, PSL Research University,
Paris, France;
Tindale, C.W., Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric,
Windsor, Ontario, Canada;
Urbanski, M., Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland;
Wagemans, J.H.M., University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Final version, 20191113
Goals and functions of public argumentation
Abstract: This position paper of Working Group 2 of the European Network for
Argumentation and Public Policy Analysis (COST Action CA17132;
https://publicpolicyargument.eu) reviews goals and functions of public
argumentation. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, the paper introduces basic
distinctions and charts out options. It is meant to guide reflection on the conceptual
basis for the Action’s subsequent research regarding the analysis, evaluation, and
design of public argumentation.
Keywords: apprehension, decision making, function, goal, norm, opinion formation,
public argumentation
1. Introduction
Studying public argumentation—the exchange, that is, of arguments about public
affairs as these occur in public settings—touches upon disciplines and areas of
research such as argumentation theory, artificial intelligence, deliberation theory,
discourse analysis, linguistics, philosophy of law, political philosophy, rhetoric,
social choice theory, and speech communication, amongst others. In argumentation
theory, the disciplinary point of departure adopted here, argumentation is typically
characterized as a communicative activity aimed at deliberating about, contending
with, and inquiring into problems and disagreements by means of exchanging and
critically evaluating reasons pro and con.
Questions such as “What is the goal of argumentation in policy making or
public controversies?” or “What functions does and should argumentation serve
when individuals, small groups or large collectives form their opinions and come to
their decisions?” touch upon how society should be organized and how problems
and disagreements regarding policy choices should be dealt with. Such questions
address the norms that (should) govern public argumentation, norms which this
paper approaches indirectly. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, we first describe
the goals and functions of public argumentation. (A subsequent paper should
address these norms directly.)
Within the APPLY Action, one purpose of an inventory of goals and
functions is to support empirical research into the argumentative characteristics of
corpora of public argumentation, thereby connecting to research in working group
one (WG-1). Another purpose is to guide the design of tools for public
argumentation (e.g., e-learning software, disputation frameworks, argument
visualization techniques, or measures for aggregating opinions), thus connecting to
research in WG-3. A third purpose—indeed WG-2’s chief purpose—is to apply this
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inventory when determining the extent to which contributions to an argumentation
process facilitate, or hinder, the rational solution (or resolution) of problems or
disagreements regarding a public policy issue.
We use ‘argumentation’ in a broad sense, denoting interpersonal reasoning
aimed at resolving, or otherwise inquiring into, differences of opinion or problems.
‘Argumentation’ thus refers both to the specific acts of arguing and the
communicative practices of exchanging such acts. In Section 2, we elaborate on the
concept of public argumentation. In Section 3, we list prominent views on the goals
and functions of public argumentation concerning opinion formation and decision
making at the level of societies and large collectives. Section 4 deals with opinion
formation and decision making by individuals and small groups. In Section 5, we
complete the inventory by focusing on goals and functions pertaining to
understanding and apprehension.
The scholarly story emerging from these sections is coherent up to a point.
Diverse philosophically/theoretically-motivated disagreements and divergences
remain, which we cannot hope to resolve here, now.
2. Argumentation theory and public argumentation
Argumentation theorists deal less with abstract forms of human reasoning and
justification as studied in logic and epistemology, than with the use of reasons in
understanding and solving practical problems or disagreements. Argumentation
theorists develop tools for analysing and evaluating argumentative discourse,
including tools for characterising and evaluating modes of presentation (e.g. visual),
argumentative styles (e.g. introvert) and argumentative strategies (e.g.
non-authoritarian).
In their Handbook of Argumentation Theory van Eemeren and co-authors
(van Eemeren et al., 2014) offer a definition of ‘argumentation’ that emphasizes its
communicative and interactional aspects: “[a]rgumentation is a communicative and
interactional act complex aimed at resolving a difference of opinion with the
addressee” (ibid., 7), such that “argumentation involves putting forward a
constellation of propositions the arguer can be held accountable for” (ibid., 5), and
“involves an appeal to the addressee as a rational judge who judges reasonable”
(ibid., 5-6). This definition gives pride of place to argumentation’s function of
contributing to the resolution of a difference of opinion.
As a point of departure for this paper, the definition gives precedence to a
dialectical stance on the aim of argumentation. This emphasizes the proponent’s goal
of convincing an opponent who critically tests the proponent’s thesis and the
arguments forwarded in its favour (Hamblin, 1970; Walton and Krabbe, 1995; van
Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2004). Scholars can place different emphases, of course.
In rhetorical theories, for instance, the emphasis is on context-sensitive goal of
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persuading often larger, not directly-responding audiences (Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969). In epistemological theories of argumentation, by contrast,
the emphasis is on the goal of producing knowledge or justified belief (Goldman,
1994; Lumer, 2005; Biro and Siegel, 2006).
Among the rich terminology to describe public argumentation, perhaps most
notable are ‘public reason’, ‘deliberation’, and ‘justification’. Chambers (2010) has
identified three aspects to distinguish public justification from other forms of
justification—aspects we now rely on to characterize public argumentation.
First, ‘that a justification is public’ expresses that it deals with “public things,
i.e., laws, constitutions, basic social structure” (ibid., 894). Analogously, public
argumentation deals with the acceptance, implementation, or enforcement of law or
policy, and thus with the exercise of power. Second, the phrase expresses that “the
addressee of the justification is a public at large characterized by pluralism” (ibid.,
894). Argumentation is thus public insofar as it addresses a (more or less) general
audience, typically consisting of agents bound by the law or policy at issue. Third, it
expresses that argument “is presented in public or by citizens acting publicly” (ibid.,
894). Thus argumentation is public insofar as it is conveyed in public by persons in
their public capacity. In sum, we characterize the practice of public argumentation
as: argumentation that is about a public issue (content clause) and that is typically
expressed by people in their public capacity, e.g. as citizens or politicians (speaker
clause), in an open forum (context clause), while addressing a larger audience whose
members are people in their public capacity (addressee clause).
A prototypical instance of public argumentation would thus satisfy all four
clauses jointly, while degrees of ‘public argument or family- and cluster-conceptions
of public argumentation can recognize the four clauses as jointly sufficient
conditions without having to treat any one condition as necessary. Our
characterization of public argumentation thus allows us to be inclusive. An exchange
of reasons between judges, for example, even if it occurs behind closed doors,
nevertheless becomes an instance of public argumentation if it deals with a public
issue, and if it prepares the judges to reach a motivated decision to be shared in
public. Or, if a private discussion amongst colleagues about a governmental decision
affecting them is instrumental in reaching well-considered opinions about the
decision, then this may influence who they vote for in an upcoming public election.
Similar cases, at any rate, are no less instances of public argumentation. Because
argumentation is expressed in various modes, moreover, an inclusive
characterization of public argumentation must also recognize that argumentation
finds expression in narratives, in the display of emotions, in visuals, gestures and
sounds.
Chambers also discusses the concept of public reasons—i.e., reasons the
content of which is “intelligible, accessible, acceptable, or sharable” (ibid., 894).
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Avoiding the requirement that public justifications would involve the exclusive use
of public reasons, she suggests that the idea of public reasons provides for a
content-oriented angle from which to view public justification, on a par with
deliberation as a process-oriented angle. We propose an analogous approach when
characterizing public argumentation. After all, a definitional clause requiring reasons
to be public in this sense would make the concept of public argumentation unduly
restrictive. For instance, it would exclude prima facie “illiberal” argumentative
contributions that may narrowly appeal to religious or nationalist values. (Note that
our inclusive characterization of public argumentation nevertheless allows adopting
restrictive norms by which to evaluate religious or nationalist arguments as
suboptimal or even inadmissible.) Further, if core instances of public argumentation
are addressed in public and are about something public, then arguers are already
strongly incentivized to offer reasons which can be evaluate for their potential to not
only be understood, but also accepted—indeed shared—among the widest possible
audience(s) addressed.
This position paper is mainly concerned with the goals and functions of the
exchange of arguments and criticisms, i.e., with the practice in which public
argumentation figures prominently (Mohammed, 2016). (This entails downplaying
goals and functions applying to individual agents’ acts of arguing such as persuading
others, or gaining support for one’s policy preferences, for a survey and discussion
of which see Walton and Krabbe, 1995; Gilbert, 1997; Patterson, 2011). We view the
goals of public argumentation as the proximal outcomes that agents strive to realize
by engaging in the practice. Pursuing these goals involves an active effort and a
more or less conscious intention. The functions of public argumentation are the
argumentative process’ typical contributions towards particular social or political
processes. Arguers must direct conscious efforts towards realizing these outcomes.
Importantly, arguers do not only create, or reproduce, arguments and
criticisms that figure in argumentative exchanges; they also design, or redesign, the
institutional contexts of their communication (Jackson, 2015). We therefore include
goals and functions of public argumentation that concern an institutional settings’s
structure (as designed or having evolved) for managing public argumentation.
From a normative perspective, this paper asks: what goals and functions
argumentation should serve to be legitimate, justified, or acceptable. The point of
advancing an argument, of course, is to provide good reasons for a thesis (e.g., a
policy recommendation). Allegedly good reasons, however, may nevertheless lead to
mistaken opinions and bad decisions. Argumentation may thus serve us poorly. In
fact, some argumentative interactions can be mere charades, allegedly offering good
reasons yet really constituting but an exercise of power, intimidation, or bluffing.
Further, people may genuinely disagree about the legitimacy of their arguments.
What one person finds is a bad argument another may find good; what this person
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perceives as emotional blackmail, a threat, or bribe, another could view as a
legitimate form of advocacy. These observations underline both the normative
character of the practice of public argumentation, as well as the need for clear ideas
about the goals and functions public argumentation should serve.
3. Collective opinion formation and decision-making
In settings where (relatively) large collectives seek to form a common opinion, or to
arrive at a shared or justified decision, public argumentation serves goals and
functions that relate to a decision’s legitimacy. If participants to a socio-political
setting engage in due reflection about their individual preferences, as well as the
available policy options and the extent to which those concerned consider the
options justified, then argumentation can serve the function of forming and
justifying positive or negative opinions about establishing, or upholding, political or
legal decisions (Rawls, 2005; Habermas, 1996; Dryzek & List, 2003). Whether a
collective decision then deals with the general political and legal order or with
specific laws and policies, it can always be viewed as receiving its legitimacy from
reasons that those whom the decision affects do (or could) accept as a justification,
or could least apprehend as such (Benhabib, 1994, 32).
To realize genuinely legitimate decisions, participants must not only arrive at
a reason-based decision; the decision should also result from a procedure they
themselves accept as valid. As a consequence, argumentative exchanges serve the
meta-argumentative quest for finding or designing the norms by which to evaluate
contributions to public argumentation as valid or invalid, and as providing or failing
to provide genuine justification (Cooke, 2002). (What ‘validity’ means does strongly
depend on one’s approach; among the possible meanings are logical, dialectical,
rhetorical and epistemic kinds of validity, which can be detailed from a subjective,
intersubjective, or objective viewpoint.)
The evaluative norms for a decision’s political legitimacy thus include norms
for the validity of the argumentative praxis through which legitimacy is established.
But since “any procedure [...] can be misinterpreted, misapplied and abused,” it
follows that “[p]rocedures [alone] can neither dictate outcomes, nor can they define
the quality of the reasons advanced in argumentation, nor can they control the
quality of the reasoning and rules of logic and inference used by participants”
(Benhabib, 1994, 33). (This is one reason to treat purely procedural models of
rationality as underdetermining the rationality of a decision-making outcome.)
Which function one assigns to public argumentation can be influenced by
one’s view on the appropriate role of government. As examples, we briefly discuss
republicanism and liberalism. Central to both traditions is the concept of freedom,
either—as in republicanism—freedom as non-domination by an arbitrary power
(Pettit, 1997), or—as in liberalism—freedom as independence from interference
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with one’s actions. Both forms of freedom require fora for public argumentation,
where policy proposals and decisions are open to contestation (Lovett, 2018).
According to republicanism, both the reasons and the processes of reasoning are
public in virtue of dealing with the common good, as opposed to self- or
partisan-interests (Sunstein, 1993; Pettit, 1997). This yields two connected functions
of public deliberation argument: deliberating on the common good and securing
citizens from the arbitrariness exercise of power (Bellamy, 2009; MacCormick,
2005). By contrast, liberalism acknowledges the government’s role in protecting
citizens from serious violations of their rights (whether natural or positive ones). But
instead of focusing on the government’s role in cultivating civic virtue and the
common good, this tradition places the state at the service of individual citizens: the
rule of law must in some way or another be based on the wills of the individual
citizens (Wolterstorff, 2012). This requirement can be given a reason-based
interpretation in the justification principle: “[a] coercive law L is justified in a public
P, if and only if each individual member i of P has sufficient reason(s) Ri to endorse
L” (Vallier, 2018, 24).
One may treat the required legitimacy as resulting from argumentation in an
ideal setting, entirely hypothetical rather than real. Examples are deliberation behind
a veil of ignorance (Rawls, 2005), or in an idealized communicative situation
(Habermas, 1996). Alternatively, one may treat the bestowment of the required
legitimacy as a factual goal, thus linking this goal to argumentation in real-life
settings that merely approximate the ideal. Although this brings a contextual,
empirical conception of argumentation into play, the evaluative norms can
nevertheless still be derived from specific views about an ideal communicative
setting. Given a specific non-ideal communicative situation, for instance, one can
always ask: what would the ideal of the “unforced force of the better argument”
(Habermas, 1996, 541) consist in here?
We can thus view argumentation that bestows legitimacy on decisions as
resulting from the exchange of reasons under normative constraints implemented in
specifically designed real-life disputations such as deliberative polling or debate
(Fishkin, 2009; Manin, 2005). Public argumentation may serve social deliberation
processes in the informal public sphere—for instance, it may enhance an exchange
in a newspaper’s editorial section or in social media (Habermas, 1996)—as well as
in the institutionalized public sphere—for instance, it may feed into a courtroom or
parliamentary debate. In both cases, public argumentation assists those involved and
affected by a decision in arriving at judgements and decisions that address, and
potentially withstand, pertinent critical challenges.
Specifically, argumentation may be understood as being instrumental to the
ends of deliberation in the informal public sphere when it enables agents to evaluate
reasons in terms of their acceptability and intelligibility to the public at large.
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Alternatively, it may be understood as serving deliberation in a more pluralist sense,
when it appeals to specific publics (e.g., Roman Catholic citizens, or laborers). A
special case are counterpublics (Fraser, 1992), constituted by marginalised groups
who hold, express, or push for a common idea, interest, or identity against the tide of
the prevailing public opinion.
Besides serving to establish political legitimacy that is (partially) grounded
in agreement, argumentation can also serve more directly to produce decisions that
are deontically right, or good in a utilitarian sense, or legally or morally just, or
ecologically sustainable, and so forth. Rather than attribute these moral functions to
argumentation, of course, one can identify such political functions of argumentation
as: securing order, providing security, and fostering cooperation by enabling shared
decisions whenever agents persistently disagree in matters concerning ‘the right,’
‘the good,’ ‘the just,’ or ‘the ecological’ (Williams, 2005; Dryzek, 1983; 2010).
Public argumentation that an orator addresses to a non-responsive mass
audience may narrowly serve to bolster the orator’s support and power—in which
case Chambers speaks of “plebiscitary rhetoric”—or it may amount to “deliberative
rhetoric” whenever it encourages addressees to reflect upon an issue at hand
(Chambers, 2009). The latter kind is important for large democracies because the
exclusive focus on deliberation in small groups (mini-publics) risks falling prey to
“participatory elitism” (ibid.). By establishing and strengthening alliances between
agents who hold similar social outlooks, or by helping to identify points of
agreement on both sides of an issue, rhetoric can generally lead to bonding and
bridging between agents. But when left unchecked, it may also serve hierarchical
power interests that threaten democratic pluralism (Dryzek, 2010).
Public arguments are important in public accountability practices.
Accountability puts public actors under an obligation to justify their conduct, thus
controlling power by subjecting it to the rule of public reason (Schedler, 1999).
While accountability may be approached from a variety of perspectives (e.g.
Mulgan, 2004; Tsai, 2011), there is agreement that actors held accountable should
explain and justify their conduct to a forum which can pass a judgment (Bovens et
al., 2010). Some forums are designed for that purpose (e.g., audit offices and
administrative tribunals); at other times, accountability is exercised by forums that
also serve additional purposes (Mulgan, 2000). A parliament, for instance, whether
in purposefully designed sessions such as Question Time (Mohammed, 2018) or
during a legislative debate or a financial authorisation, turns into the forum which
holds an executive accountable. When accountability occurs through public
argumentation and an electoral process is provided, the ultimate account-holder who
gets to pass judgment thus is the general public (Mulgan, 2004, 24).
Emotions such as fear, anger, pity, or feelings of solidarity may—whether
they are displayed verbally, visually or in another presentational mode—fulfill
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argumentative functions such as expressing reasoning in an enthymematic way, or
binding the audience to the acceptance of reasons advanced in support of accepting
or rejecting a policy. In this respect, visual rhetoric seems especially apt insofar as it
can convey the importance and urgency of some normative perspective on a
practical issue (e.g., the priority of sustainability over austerity). This may help tilt
social deliberation processes towards a resolution (Kjeldsen, 2015).
As part of social deliberation processes, argumentation should enable the
formation of collective judgements based on individual judgements and preferences.
As Arrow’s (1951) impossibility theorem shows, however, if the following four
individually reasonable conditions are all satisfied, then it is impossible to always
(algorithmically) aggregate agents’ individual preferences into a single collective
preference order: (i) any level of pluralism can serve as input (i.e., the aggregation
procedure holds for a universal domain); (ii) if all agents prefer option A over option
B, so does the collective (weak Pareto principle); (iii) any collective preference for
option A over B depends only on agent’s individual preferences regarding these
options (independence of irrelevant alternatives); (iv) no agent determines the joint
order regardless of others’ preferences (non-dictatorship) (List, 2013).
Moreover, the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem shows that no collective
choice procedure leading to a single decision is possible, if conditions similar to (i)
through (iv) hold together with the condition that agents cannot manipulate the
collective decision by expressing false preferences (i.e., if the choice procedure is
“strategy-proof”). In principle, deliberation may compensate for relaxing the above
conditions, so that one collective preference order (i.e., one social choice) can be
aggregated that counts as rational, although fewer than all of the above conditions
are satisfied (Dryzek & List, 2003).
We now list four functions of social deliberation: (1) social deliberation
“induces individuals to reveal their preferences and views truthfully” (Dryzek &
List, 2003, 9; Goldman, 1994) for several reasons. First, communication is typically
recurrent, so that lying now may be potentially profitable, but can destroy a
speaker’s credibility later. Second, critical argument is generally a good way of
testing the value of information, a purpose that Mercier and Sperber (2011) call the
exercise of epistemic vigilance, and for which argumentation may have developed
phylogenetically. Third, the “we-frame” of deliberation often lets participants act
comparatively more collaboratively than they would otherwise (Dryzek and List,
2003). Insofar as this promotes truthfulness, social deliberation may compensate for
no longer demanding choice procedures that are “strategy-proof.” Thus, a social
choice can be aggregated from individual preferences because individuals by
themselves stop manipulating its outcome by expressing false preferences.
(2) Social deliberation may influence individuals’ preference profiles via
encouraging participants to evaluate policy preferences by first reaching a
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meta-level agreement on some criterion or dimension (e.g., a mutually acceptable
generalized interest). If a suitable criterion is found, individuals can be convinced to
drop preference orderings that are incoherent relative to the criterion. The resulting
set of individual preference orderings then are “single-peaked,” that is, they can be
ordered ‘objectively’, for instance on a left-right spectrum. This makes it possible to
work around Arrow’s impossibility theorem, enabling mechanisms that can
democratically aggregate a collective decision from individual preferences (on the
Median Voter Theorem, see Black, 1948).
Deliberation can thus be viewed as a procedure to pre-process the inputs of a
voting mechanisms, filtering out those inputs that lead to incoherent results. This
explains why viewing deliberation from the perspective of deliberative democracy
(Elster, 1998)—as a tool to improve the quality of individual inputs to voting
mechanisms—has received increasing attention in studies of social choice, often
under the description ‘epistemic social choice theory’ (cf. Pivato, 2019). In
situations where no single criterion is available (because the issue is complex and
multi-dimensional) public argumentation can serve a similar function by inducing
single-peaked profiles for any such criterion or dimension. In addition, it can help
individuals in subsequently finding a majority for a middle ground solution, a
solution based in bargaining or on an agreed hierarchy of criteria, or it can help to
craft new policy options based on an improved understanding of the issue’s
multidimensional nature (Dryzek & List, 2003; from a non-technical angle, also see
Kock, 2006; 2007).
(3) Social deliberation may induce agreement on the option-set from which a
collective can choose, thereby reducing the scope of manipulating the aggregation
procedure that arises from introducing false preferences (“agenda setting”). This
supports social aggregation even if a violation of the “independence of irrelevant
alternatives”-condition is not ruled out in a principled way (Dryzek & List, 2003).
(4) Insofar as public argumentation brings out how to best compare the
intensity of individual preferences—using a utilitarian principle, for example, or a
Rawlsian (2005) index of primary goods—it may in the end enable
preference-aggregation, and can even lead to a rational collective decision that
satisfies all of the conditions discussed above (ibid.).
We finally turn to legal perspectives. Public argumentation may serve the
development of valid legal opinions and decisions that are justified either externally
if the supporting reasons are correct in the legal setting at hand, or are justified
internally if the judgement follows logically from the grounds a legal context
requires (Wrόblewski, 1971). Enabling a valid legal decisions thus are legal norms,
procedures, and institutions—components that a practical discourse in the general
sense of an informal public sphere typically lacks (Alexy, 1989). To require legal
decisions to be rationally justified (by basing them on general, universalized,
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coherent, accessible, and acceptable norms) makes law relatively predictable and at
the same time arguable, i.e., open to reasonable criticism (MacCormick, 2005). In
this way, public argumentation specifically serves the rule of law via the criticism of
legal exercises of power, thus helping to reduce the number of arbitrary or
unjustified instances.
Whether by appeal to universal or more particularised norms, public
argumentation thus serves to foster “critical agency” in a society with regard to
determining the priorities among primary social goods, the ends of government, and
the legitimacy of political bodies (Ricoeur, 1992). Whether public argumentation
requires distinct norms that are not shared with other kinds of argumentation—for
instance norms concerning the preservation of value rather than of truth (Kock,
2013)—this we leave for another occasion.
4. Opinion formation and decision making by individuals and small groups
In smaller settings such as dialogical exchanges or “mini-public” deliberations,
public argumentation can be viewed as serving the function of resolving, or at least
engaging with, a difference of opinion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, 52-54;
Walton 1990). These functions arise from viewing argument as externalizing a
reasoning episode that leads from premises to conclusion(s), and as serving the
various goals that characterize different dialogue types, e.g., persuasion dialogue
(aka critical discussion) aimed at dispute resolution, inquiry aimed at solving a
non-practical problem, negotiation aimed at a compromise agreement, eristic
dialogue aimed at renewed emotional or intellectual hierarchy, information seeking
dialogue aimed at a more even distribution of information, and deliberation aimed at
solving a practical problem (Walton, 1990; Walton and Krabbe, 1995).
Specifically the dialogue type of a critical discussion has inspired the
development of a normative model by the same name. Argumentation here serves to
resolve conflicts of avowed opinions on the merits, by enabling the exchange of
reasons in a mutual attempt to establish whether a thesis can withstand an
opponent’s critical testing (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984; Barth and Krabbe,
1982). Real-life argumentation can subsequently be viewed as serving the strategic
maneuvering of individual arguers, in the sense of seeking to balance their
dialectical objective to resolve a disagreement on the merits with their rhetorical
objective to persuade the other side and thereby resolve the disagreement in their
own favour (van Eemeren, 2010).
In specific institutional settings (e.g., parliament), strategic maneuvering
often follows stereotypical patterns, patterns that can be explained by the purposes
of the institution and the procedures/conventions operative in that setting (van
Eemeren & Garssen, 2014). For instance, when members of the European
Parliament must determine whether a rapporteur’s policy proposal merits
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acceptance, the institutional purpose typically “produces” specific combinations of
arguments (e.g., reasoning from a policy effect and the effect’s utility to the selection
of that policy, in tandem with reasoning in support of the effect’s utility).
Oftentimes, argumentation here aims not only at rationally persuading opponents,
but at the same time also at changing the institutional environment (Jackson 2015).
Next to specifying the functions of public argumentation in dialectical terms,
it can also be specified epistemically. Whenever epistemic assets are distributed
unequally, where agents are fallible and incentives to deceive are present,
interpersonal argumentation should generally promote truth and avoid error, not only
in cognitive inquiries but equally in practical settings that concern action or policy
(Goldman, 1994). Argumentation can thus be viewed as a cooperative inquiry into
the truth, truth-likeness or probability of some thesis, an inquiry that is based on
critical checks as to whether the epistemically motivated truth- or
adequacy-conditions of focal theses have been fulfilled (Lumer, 2005; Govier, 2018;
Biro and Siegel, 2006). The standard function of acts of arguing can then be
described as that of leading individual agents to entertain rationally justified beliefs
(Lumer, 2005, 219; Goldman, 2003, 58; Siegel & Biro, 1997, 278, 286; similarly:
Feldman, 1999, xiii, 12, 24; Sinnott-Armstrong, 1999, 181; yet see Goodwin, 2007).
Among the more distal functions for which acts of arguing are particularly apt are
the following: representing the justification of beliefs, transferring justified beliefs to
others, cognizing autonomously, reconsidering a belief, and securing a justified
belief intersubjectively (Lumer, 2005, 219f.).
5. Goals and functions pertaining to understanding
This section presents goals and functions of public argumentation that relate to
understanding. (Again, we leave a survey of relevant norms, such as Gricean
maxims or norms governing assertion, to another occasion.) The practice of public
argumentation may help to apprehend “wicked” practical issues, and can thus form a
vehicle for understanding policy issues (Rodríguez-Alcázar, 2017). Generally,
reason-based policy choices are more tractable to stakeholders, debaters or
onlookers, than choices which enjoy no argumentative support. In this sense, public
argumentation as an institutional praxis serves to establish, or increase, the
transparency and accountability of policy decisions (Dryzek, 2010).
Participants within this practice have a plethora of devices at their disposal to
increase their understanding regarding the issue at hand, as well as the standpoints,
preferences, and justifications others bring forward. For example, they can variously
define (Robinson, 1950), clarify or “precizate” (Naess, 1966), or dissociate
(Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969) the terms used to express arguments. As
linguistic framing is indispensable to argumentation (Wohlrapp, 2014), how agents
construe premises and conclusions typically conveys an evaluation, that may or may
11
not be widely shared. Because a certain level of contestation serves to uphold the
quality of public argumentation (Manin 2005; Mansbridge et al, 2010), the framing
and reframing of policy issues to one’s own advantage—for example by way of
“persuasive” or “quasi definitions”—can in principle be part of a sound rhetorical
strategy (Zarefsky, 2007).
The litigation of the meaning of concepts contested in public controversies
(Ludlow, 2014) can also take place by means of meta-linguistic negotiations. Here,
one participant challenges how another participant uses a term in one of her
statements. Yet this occurs not by mentioning a key-term and explicitly disagreeing
with its definition, but rather by allegedly “denying” the statement (Plunkett and
Sundell, 2013). Those who participate in such metalinguistic negotiation need not be
fully aware that they also engage in a linguistic (aka verbal) dispute, so that
confusion may easily result. At the same time, public argumentation includes tools
for gaining clarity about the relevant meanings of key-terms and possibly to reach an
agreement on their use, which is instrumental to various of the goals and functions
discussed in previous sections.
The intimate link between argumentation and the goal of mutual
understanding allows for a critical perspective on perversions of this normative aim
(Habermas, 1970; Bohman, 1986). A speaker may seek to obfuscate or mislead her
peers or her audiences, for instance by making an issue appear unwarrantedly
complex, by making her contributions ambivalent, ambiguous or vague, or by
bringing in unjustifiable presuppositions and other kinds of implied meaning.
Strategies of obfuscation and manipulation generally are more easily employed
outside of a critical face-to-face dialogue, for instance when addressing large
non-responsive audiences through mass or social media. These perversions may
erode social equality (Saul, 2017b), serve false ideologies (Stanley, 2015), or create
conditions that promote verbal strife or lead to an unlimited exercise of power. This
makes them inimical to public argumentation. Examples include: utterances loaded
with presuppositions (Langton, 2018), insinuations (Fricker, 2012), codewords, dog
whistles and figleaves (Saul, 2017a), devices for manipulative propaganda (Stanley,
2015), and the exploitation of generic terms (Anderson, Haslanger and Langton,
2012).
In short, public argumentation may serve the understanding required by
transparent and autonomous opinion formation and decision making, but it may
equally prevent us from reaching this goal.
6. Conclusion
We have sketched a diverse range of goals and functions connected to the concept of
public argumentation. This list is compiled from diverging disciplines, schools of
thought, and types of literature. It shows the need to deal with the connections
12
between goals and functions, respectively their absences. For example: Does
extrinsic legal justification require agreement on epistemological principles? What
else, if anything, is needed for a political decision to be justified if the decision is
based on the way the stakeholders resolved their initial disagreements regarding the
policy issue?
Most of the goals and functions we have listed are suggestive of norms by
which to evaluate the quality of public argumentation. This shows that it is in
principle worth investigating the connections between norms in light of the
connections between goals and function. Yet at this stage, the norms themselves are
not only implicit, they also look far from being simple. One would probably best
analyze them as multidimensional constructs. In a subsequent paper, we hope to
provide a survey of the norms for public argumentation, and to explain how they
relate to public argumentation’s goals and functions.
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