Two
Do arguments matter? It's true that arguments are often woefully impotent to effect changes,
to make a difference, to support a revolution or even to change our own minds. This is true for a
great
many different reasons, many of which we noted in class. Often we want one side on an issue to
be right so devoutly that we are impervious to any arguments for the other side. Actually
engaging the issue, taking it seriously, is just too much for us to bear, and we will not consider the
possibility that we may be wrong. Freud's dictum describes us,
that often we decide not on the basis of arguments but on the basis of desire. Often
the real issue is hidden, or the real motive is a disabling psychological need (e.g. a need for
drama) over which we keep laying down a barrage of covering fire.
And sometimes we are at peace, and if there is no issue then there are no arguments needed.
The question, "Do
you really love me?" with the tone of voice that says, convince me,' is disconcerting because of
its suggestion that there is an issue, and that's a bad sign. And when there's only malice on
one side
(or both), or there is no interest in resolution but only a need to win at any cost, then there may be
no hope
any arguments will matter. The discussion itself can have the result that despite beginning well,
in the course of the discussion some of the people shut
down or start offering threats or ultimata instead of arguments. When the opposing sides
do not have enough in common to understand each other (what Chris called incommensurability,
an idea many philosophers have used to make barnsfuls of hay), then the only arguments which
may reach both sides are often the most basic, kindergarten arguments, and the task of
building from those foundations to, say, a claim that a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
will have to involve yielding on matters till now taken as nonnegotiable--building from
kindergarten arguments to any resolution of that one could be beyond the scope of mere mortals.
Often, the
work required is subtle and clever and persistent, and we are not up to it and we don't trust those
who have the ability. Sometimes there are things about our opponents which keep us from
taking them seriously, or they push our buttons and we shift from thinking to working on how to
blow the bastards out of the water. Sometimes we find we are working to be clever rather than
working to resolve the issue. And so on. And in all these cases, it is part of the case that the
arguments offered may not matter.
There's another, more corrosive view we need to consider, the view that arguments don't
matter, they cannot matter, because objectivity is impossible and all our arguments are only
slaves to our ideologies. Arguments are always only expressions of our beliefs rather than
support for them. The idea here is that we are infinitely resourceful at rationalizing our beliefs,
and the result is that we will never discover we have been fooling ourselves on anything that
requires us to really change our minds.
There are a couple of objections to this view, one based on a conceptual argument which I rather
dislike, the other based on checking on cases. The first, conceptual argument goes like
this: Suppose the view is true, that arguments are only expressions of, and in service to, our
ideologies. How then would we ever know this is true, rather than a hoax? The answer is that all
arguments we could offer for the view are poisoned by the view--if it is true, then there is no way
we ever can come to know that it is true. Let's just pass over the problem with imagining what
ideology could give rise to this view in question, but noting that it is a result of the view that it
diminishes itself along with
diminishing all other views and all other arguments. (Sort of a toy argument, isn't it--but then the
view seems to invite that kind of argument, suggesting that it too is some kind of sandbox
artifact.) The second objection is that any case of someone changing her mind, really
changing her mind where there were stakes involved and yet she did it, stands as a
counterexample and demonstrates that the view is false. The view is not a sometime view, not a
view that generally,
arguments have hidden agendas and work to rationalize the ideology of the speakers. Instead the
view is a categorical view, a view that admits of no exceptions, a claim that arguments cannot be
otherwise, and thus one counterexample brings it crashing to earth. --And along with bringing it
crashing to earth, the case of someone changing her mind based on arguments also shows us
reason for hope. We can grant the tendencies. We can grant that arguments usually don't work,
that usually we are incapable of listening, that the work of processing arguments is terribly
difficult and slow, especially when there is a wide divide separating the parties to the issue, that
our desires often get in the way (though it is too seldom mentioned that our desires often help us,
bring us to engage the issues, make our work passionate and satisfying), we can grant that we
often really only want revenge or want to appear clever, or want another notch, another refutation
to hang on our belt.
Another obstacle to taking arguments seriously is students' insistence that everyone has a right to
her or his own opinion. There are at least a couple of problems with this. (I'll leave out the terrible swamp which surrounds and serves as a basis for talk about rights, since navigating that swamp requires more work than we've time for.) The first problem is that this takes issues and the relevant arguments to be analogous to matters
of taste--everyone does have a right to prefer strawberry ice cream to chocolate, or lattes to
cappucinos. But part of what makes these examples matters of taste is that they are not issues
with anything at stake. If you prefer talking children into secret sexual relationships with you to
watching children on playgrounds, you have moved from matters of taste on which you have a
right to your preferences to the world of issues. In the world of issues, there are consequences,
implications, stakes--there is the difference it makes which depends on which way your endorsements go. Whether your claims can be justified matters if there
is anything at stake, and insisting on having a right to an opinion may become only an evasion of
the issues. The second problem is that those who insist on the right to their own opinion seem to be thinking of arguments and issues as antagonistic or combative processes without exception--they neglect the possibility that we may wish to change our own minds. Granted, very often people do argue with no real listening, very often people are only presenting arguments to rationalize our views, very often people, which means we, are not open to considering whether we might be able to achieve a better or more well-supported opinion than we now have. If instead of thinking of arguments as opposing views, where all that is at stake is who wins and who loses, we think of arguments as the matters we might wish to consider as we form our own views, then all arguments become our friends, even the bad ones and even the ones for the views we wind up rejecting. This is because the more arguments we take seriously along the way, the more well-considered and stronger our own views are at the end. Once this possibility is granted, then insisting on combat and winners and losers, and insisting on one's right to one's own opinion without entering into the issue and the relevant arguments, looks like a kind of insecurity, a way to stonewall, and it has the appearance of fear, a fear of changing our minds.
These considerations of relevant difficulties with making arguments matter help to show that
the romantic view, the utopian view of the new heavens and new earth which would result if only
we lived by arguments, that lovely view espoused by critical thinking teachers whose status as
ex-Jehovah's Witnesses and ex-Marxists and ex-happy campers and Wordsworth scholars leaves
them with the desire to Believe
in some transforming power--that view is a little sick. It is a setup for failure. This view, you will
recall, is the view that, in a paraphrase of the story of the woman asking James about the myth
from India, it's arguments all the way down. It is the view that arguments would matter, would
be crucial, would save the world, if only we raised the questions and articulated the arguments
and followed the arguments where they lead. It is the view that arguments hold the key to our
ceasing to fool ourselves. It is the view that learning the humbling exercise of questioning
ourselves
and worrying about our beliefs is a path, maybe the only path, to sanity. It is the view that the
grim and thankless and slow business of clarifying issues and untangling arguments is shamefully
neglected while we relentlessly build models and shortcuts and demonstrate the efficacy of those
shortcuts using examples of stunning artificiality, and then we convince universities and legislators
that everyone needs facility with those fake arguments so we can sell a parade of new editions of
books explaining shortcuts through a process which has no shortcuts. The argument for the claim
that there's something sick about this view is simple: all the authorities agree there's nothing to the
view, or they would pay some attention to it.
Nobody does it. As a result, practitioners are almost nonexistent and attempts to practice it run
up against rooms full of people who want to talk about fallacies and dialogue and higher order
thinking
skills and deduction and science rather than the issues, and nothing gets done to think the issues
through.
It, the view, doesn't work.
Maybe that's enough. Do arguments matter? Often, no. When do they matter? When
we might change our minds, or, looking back a couple of years or decades later, when we ought
to have been willing to change our minds. When someone else might change her mind, or ought
to be willing to change her mind, and we've got a relevant insight to offer. When we are wrong
and don't yet see it, then arguments, if we listen, may save us from delusion. When something
important turns on processing the issue well, then the relevant arguments matter whether they are
effective or not. When the consensus is wrong, then the arguments for and against the consensus
matter. When we desire to get free of fooling ourselves, we have a reason to lead an examined
life, to raise the issues and to handle the arguments with care.
Three.What factors mislead us or keep us from thinking clearly? What are the most important of these, or the ones which seem to impede you, the writer on this question, the most?