One strategy for defending paraconsistent logics involves raising ‘normative arguments’ against the inference rule explosion. Florian Steinberger systematically criticises a wide variety of formulations of such arguments. I argue that, for one such formulation, Steinberger’s criticisms fail. I then sketch an argument, available to those who deny dialetheism, in defence of the formulation in question.

In Biro and Siegel we argued that a theory of argumentation mustfully engage the normativity of judgments about arguments, and we developedsuch a theory. In this paper we further develop and defend our theory.

In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke rejects some of the most popular accounts of what meaning facts consist in on the grounds that they fail to accommodate the normative character of meaning. I argue that a widespread interpretation of Kripke's argument is incorrect. I contend that the argument does not rest on the contrast between descriptive and normative facts, but on the thought that speakers' uses of linguistic expressions have to be justified. I (...) suggest that the line of reasoning that I attribute to Kripke can be seen as putting pressure on the idea that predicate satisfaction is to be explained in terms of a relation between predicates and properties. (shrink)

Natural normativity describes the means whereby social and cultural controls are placed on argumentative behaviour. The three main components of this are Goals, Context, and Ethos, which combine to form a dynamic and situational framework. Natural normativity is explained in light of Pragma-dialectics, Informal Logic, and Rhetoric. Finally, the theory is applied to the Biro-Siegel challenge.

The paper argues that an ethical firm has cause to realize and to respect, in good faith, the decision of workers regarding labor unions, and proceeds along the following lines. First, the employer is due appropriate deference the bounds of which should be determined in conjunction with employees, as they are the most closely affected party. Second, employee preferences for defining the employment relation and appropriate deference are best reflected through autonomous voice. Third, autonomous voice is assured by the right (...) to free association and generally achieved through labor unions. Fourth, because employment is so important to a dignified existence, an economically just system of employment requires respect for workers’ choice regarding labor unions. And fifth, there are concerns and contradictions that arise from labor union operations, but they do not justify impeding a morally valid prerogative. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 40-42.

The Rhetoric to Alexander (second half of the fourth century B.C.) is among the oldest contributions to the study of argumentation. From antiquity on, this treatise, which abounds in opportunistic advice, has come under heavy criticism on normative grounds. And yet, as I shall maintain here, it clearly takes into account the requirements of rational argumentation which are still in use today. Moreover, it contains the seeds of a whole series of doctrines found in modern normative argumentation theory. (...) There are reasonable grounds for maintaining that some of these modern doctrines stem indirectly from the tradition to which the Rhetoric to Alexander belongs. (shrink)

Norms—that is, specifications of what we ought to do—play a critical role in the study of informal argumentation, as they do in studies of judgment, decision-making and reasoning more generally. Specifically, they guide a recurring theme: are people rational? Though rules and standards have been central to the study of reasoning, and behavior more generally, there has been little discussion within psychology about why (or indeed if) they should be considered normative despite the considerable philosophical literature that bears on (...) this topic. In the current paper, we ask what makes something a norm, with consideration both of norms in general and a specific example: norms for informal argumentation. We conclude that it is both possible and desirable to invoke norms for rational argument, and that a Bayesian approach provides solid normative principles with which to do so. (shrink)

The open borders view is frequently dismissed for making infeasible demands. This is a potent strategy. Unlike normative arguments regarding open borders, which tend to be relatively intractable, the charge of infeasibility is supposed to operate as what we call a "normative argument-stopper." Nonetheless, we argue that the strategy fails. Bringing about open borders is perfectly feasible on the most plausible account of feasibility. We consider and reject what we take to be the only three credible ways (...) to save the charge of infeasibility: by proposing an alternative account of feasibility; by proposing an alternative, more circumscribed interpretation of the subject-matter of feasibility claims; and by proposing a more expansive account of the addressees of the demand for open borders. The first fails to vindicate the claim that infeasibility is a normative argument-stopper. The second does not provide an argument against open borders at all. The third underestimates the power of at least some non-state actors. We conclude by drawing some lessons for the open borders view and the use of feasibility in politics more generally. (shrink)

In _The Moral Austerity of Environmental Decision Making_ a group of prominent environmental ethicists, policy analysts, political theorists, and legal experts challenges the dominating influence of market principles and assumptions on the formulation of environmental policy. Emphasizing the concept of sustainability and the centrality of moral deliberation to democracy, they examine the possibilities for a wider variety of moral principles to play an active role in defining “good” environmental decisions. If environmental policy is to be responsible to humanity and to (...) nature in the twenty-first century, they argue, it is imperative that the discourse acknowledge and integrate additional normative assumptions and principles other than those endorsed by the market paradigm. The contributors search for these assumptions and principles in short arguments and debates over the role of science, social justice, instrumental value, and intrinsic value in contemporary environmental policy. In their discussion of moral alternatives to enrich environmental decision making and in their search for a less austere and more robust role for normative discourse in practical policy making, they analyze a series of original case studies that deal with environmental sustainability and natural resources policy including pollution, land use, environmental law, globalism, and public lands. The unique structure of the book—which features the core contributors responding in a discourse format to the central chapters’ essays and debates—helps to highlight the role personal and public values play in democratic decision making generally and in the field of environmental politics specifically. _Contributors._ Joe Bowersox, David Brower, Susan Buck, Celia Campbell-Mohn, John Martin Gillroy, Joel Kassiola, Jan Laitos, William Lowry, Bryan Norton, Robert Paehlke, Barry G. Rabe, Mark Sagoff, Anna K. Schwab, Bob Pepperman Taylor, Jonathan Wiener. (shrink)

Reliabilism says that knowledge must be produced by reliable abilities. Abilism disagrees and allows that knowledge is produced by unreliable abilities. Previous research strongly supports the conclusion that abilism better describes how knowledge is actually defined in commonsense and science. In this paper, I provide a novel argument that abilism is ethically superior to reliabilism. Whereas reliabilism unethically discriminates against agents by excluding them from knowing, abilism virtuously includes them.

In this article, we argue for the general importance of normative theories of argument strength. We also provide some evidence based on our recent work on the fallacies as to why Bayesian probability might, in fact, be able to supply such an account. In the remainder of the article we discuss the general characteristics that make a specifically Bayesian approach desirable, and critically evaluate putative flaws of Bayesian probability that have been raised in the argumentation literature.

Given the explanatory stalemate between ‘embedded’ (EMB) and ‘extended’ (EXT) cognition, various authors have proposed normative and moral arguments in favour of EXT. According to what we call the “extended cognition moral narrative” (EXT-MN) (Cassinadri, 2022), we should embrace EXT and dismiss EMB, because the former leads to morally preferable consequences with respect to the latter. In this article we argue that two arguments following the EXT moral narrative are flawed. In Sect. 2.1 and 2.2, we present respectively King (...) (2016) and Vold’s (2018) ‘argument from assessment of capacities’ (AAC) and Clowes (2013), Farina and Lavazza’s (2022a) ‘cognitive diminishment argument’ (CDA). The AAC states that we should embrace EXT over EMB since the former is better at attributing cognitive credit to individuals with learning disabilities who use assistive tools to complete their learning tasks, thus avoiding their marginalisation. The CDA states that EMB implies a morally undesirable picture of the agent in terms of cognitive diminishment. In Sect. 3, we clarify and criticise the underlying assumptions of the AAC and CDA: the “cognitive credit assumption”, the “marginalisation assumption” and, more generally, an ableist conception of disabled agency. In Sect. 3.1, we discuss the role of moto-perceptual skills and metacognitive credit involved in complex cases of tool-use, to demonstrate that the EXT-MN is uninformative in addressing these cases. To conclude, in Sect. 4 we argue that AAC and CDA fail to present EXT as descriptively and normatively superior to EMB. (shrink)

I argue that in order to account for normative uncertainty, an expressivist theory of normative language and thought must accomplish two things: Firstly, it needs to find room in its framework for a gradable conative attitude, degrees of which can be interpreted as representing normative uncertainty. Secondly, it needs to defend appropriate rationality constraints pertaining to those graded attitudes. The first task – finding an appropriate graded attitude that can represent uncertainty – is not particularly problematic. I (...) tackle the second task by exploring whether we can devise expressivist versions of the standard arguments used to support rationality constraints on degrees of uncertainty, Dutch book arguments and accuracy-dominance arguments. I show that we can do so, but that the resulting arguments don’t support the same rationality constraints as the original versions of the arguments. (shrink)

The levers of natural selection are random genetic mutation, fitness for survival, and reproductive success. Defenders of the evolutionary debunking account (EDA) hold that such mechanisms aren’t likely to produce cognitive faculties that reliably form true moral beliefs. So, according to EDA, given that our cognitive faculties are a product of unguided natural selection, we should be in doubt about the reliability of our moral cognition. Let the term ‘sanspsychism’ describe the view that no supramundane consciousness exists. In arguing against (...) theism, some sanspsychists advance a normative claim about the moral significance of phenomena like sentient suffering. But if no supramundane consciousness exists, our cognitive faculties are a product of unguided natural selection. It follows that if EDA is correct, the sanspsychist should not think that our moral cognition is reliable. So unless the sanspsychist has a defeater for EDA, she should not think herself justified in appealing to normative reasons for denying the existence of God. (shrink)

The paper critically engages with some of the normative arguments in Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson’s book Unfit for the Future. In particular, it scrutinizes the authors’ argument in denial of a moral right to privacy as well as their political proposal to alter humankind’s moral psychology in order to avert climate change, terrorism and to redress global injustice.

A problem arises, both for philosophy and for argumentation theory, in a pluralist world where people hold widely different beliefs about what to do. Some responses to this problem, including relativism, might settle but do not provide any criteria for resolving such differences. Alternative responses seek a means of resolution in universalist, culture-neutral criteria which must be invoked in assessing all human action. A philosophically adequate account of universalism would contribute to an ideal of critical rationality, as well as to (...) the ideas of field-invariance and of convincing, as opposed to persuasive, argumentation. The account's adequacy would require universality both in form and in content. Universality in form is secured by seeking universal preconditions for practical reasoning in general, rather than specifically for morality. Universality in content is harder, and candidates such as freedom, autonomy and health are problematic. An alternative content is provided by the proposition that the satisfaction of material preconditions is necessary for the performance of any action whatever. Neglect of these preconditions may constitute a fallacy in the extended sense found in argumentation theory, and assumptions about them should form part of the point of departure for any practical deliberation. (shrink)

Is appealing to emotions in argumentation ever legitimate and, if so, what is the best way to analyze and evaluate such appeals? After overviewing a normative pragmatic perspective on appealing to emotions in argumentation, I present answers to these questions from pragma-dialectical, informal logical, and rhetorical perspectives, and note positions shared and supplemented by a normative pragmatic perspective. A normative pragmatic perspective holds that appealing to emotions in argumentation may be relevant and non-manipulative; and that emotional appeals (...) may be analyzed as strategies that create pragmatic reasons and assessed by the standard of formal propriety or reasonability under the circumstances. I illustrate the explanatory power of the perspective by analyzing and evaluating some argumentation from Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” I conclude that a normative pragmatic perspective offers a more complete account of appealing to emotions in argumentation than a pragma-dialectial, informal logical, or rhetorical perspective alone, identifies a range of norms available to arguers, and explains why appealing to emotions may be legitimate in particular cases of argumentation. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that the ‘Logical’ Argument from Evil (LAFE) is bankrupt. We aim to rehabilitate the LAFE, in the form of what we call the Normatively Relativised Logical Argument from Evil (NRLAFE). There are many different versions of a NRLAFE. We aim to show that one version, what we call the ‘right relationship’ NRLAFE, poses a significant threat to personal-omniGod-theism—understood as requiring the belief that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good person who has created our (...) world—because it appeals to value commitments theists themselves are likely to endorse. The ultimate success of this NRLAFE will rest on developing a theological ethics of right relationship that rejects as morally flawed the exercise of omnipotence first to sustain horrors and then to redeem them. Yet a vindicated NRLAFE of this sort need not require atheism, but only rejection of the standard conception of God as a personal omniGod. (shrink)

Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative (...) outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. If participants lack competence or are prone to biases, a correct deliberative outcome requires limiting participation. The central question for public argumentation, therefore, is how to strike a balance between both ideals. Rather than advocating a preferred normative framework, our main purpose is to illustrate the complexity of this theme. (shrink)

J. L. Mackie argued that moral thought and discourse involve commitment to an especially robust kind of normativity, which is too weird to exist. Thus, he concluded that moral thought and discourse involve systematic error. Much has been said about this argument in the last four decades or so. Nevertheless, at least one version of Mackie’s argument, specifically the one focusing on the intrinsic weirdness of the relevant kind of normativity, has not been fully unpacked. Thus, more needs (...) to be said about the issue of how to interpret Mackie’s argument. Moreover, I argue that by looking closely at Mackie’s discussion, we can extract two distinct versions of the argument which together present a tougher, and also more precise, challenge for moral realism than extant versions. In this paper I thus revisit Mackie’s discussion with an eye to making progress on an important issue in contemporary metaethics. (shrink)

The question, “What norms are appropriate for the evaluation of the probative merits of visual arguments?” underlies the investigation of this paper. The notions of argument and of multimodal visual argument employed in the study are explained. Then four multimodal visual arguments are analyzed and their probative merits assessed. It turns out to be possible to judge these qualities using the same criteria that apply to verbally expressed arguments. Since the sample is small and not claimed to be (...) representative, this finding can at best be regarded as suggestive for the probative assessment of multimodal visual arguments in general. (shrink)

The knowledge norm of assertion is mainly in competition with a high probability or rational credibility norm. The argument for the knowledge norm that I offer turns on cases in which a hearer responds to a speaker's assertion by asserting another sentence that would lower the probability of the speaker's assertion, were its probability less than one. In cases like this, though with qualifications, is the hearer's contribution a challenge to the speaker's assertion or complementary to it? My answer (...) is the latter, and that only the knowledge norm yields that answer.The cases that I rely on follow from an elementary probability relation, though one that is inconsistent with the still influential relevance criterion for confirmation and evidence . Assume, for illustrative purposes, that p is in your belief corpus, as a consequence of your believing ∨ ∨ . 1 You learn that ∼ & ∼ , which would lessen the probability of p, were its probability less than one, 2 since it eliminates two rows of the truth-table in which p holds. What conclusion do you reach about p?Rather than withdrawing p, you acquire the belief that p & ∼ s & ∼ r, even though Formula where pr would be the subjective or epistemic probability of p on a probabilistic view of the knowledge norm before learning ∼ & ∼ . Instead of withdrawal …. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that the most fruitful approach to developing normative models of argument quality is one that combines the argumentation scheme approach with Bayesian argumentation. Three sample argumentation schemes from the literature are discussed: the argument from sign, the argument from expert opinion, and the appeal to popular opinion. Limitations of the scheme-based treatment of these argument forms are identified and it is shown how a Bayesian perspective may help to overcome (...) these. At the same time, the contributions of the standard scheme-based approach are highlighted, and it is argued that only a combination of the insights of different traditions will yield a complete normative theory of argument quality. (shrink)

Many of the most influential theorists of linguistic justice make arguments on the basis of comparisons between language and religion. They claim either that (1) language, by contrast with religion, cannot be separated from the state or that (2) unequal official linguistic recognition, just like unequal official religious recognition, is morally problematic. This article argues that careful attention to debates about liberalism and the place of religion in public life invites us to question the two above-mentioned liberal assumptions about religion (...) underlying many arguments concerning linguistic justice based on (dis)analogies between language and religion. The hope is that such critical scrutiny is likely to shed some light on normative questions of linguistic justice, more precisely on questions about the legitimacy of granting more recognition to certain languages, usually those of national native groups (as opposed to groups resulting from more or less recent immigration). (shrink)

This paper concerns connection between knowing or accepting a logical principle such as Modus Ponens and actions of reasoning involving it. Discussions of this connection typically mention the so-called ‘Lewis Carroll Regress’ and there is near consensus that the regress shows something important about it. Also, although the regress explicitly concerns logic, many philosophers think that it establishes a more general truth, about the structurally similar connection between epistemic or practical principles and actions involving them. This paper’s first aim is (...) to address key interpretations Carroll’s regress as clearly as possible so as to show precisely how it might be relevant to questions concerning the connection between logical knowledge and reasoning, and, more broadly, to discussions of how epistemic or practical principles may be action-guiding. Its second aim is to show that the regress fails to establish anything of substance about the connection between logical knowledge and reasoning, or any other structurally similar relation, unless substantive, contentious and typically undefended assumptions are made. The consensus is thus on shaky ground. (shrink)

In this article, we present an argumentative approach to normative reasoning. Special attention is paid to deontic conflicts, contrary-to-duty and specificity cases, which are modelled by means of argumentative attacks. For this, we adopt a recently proposed framework for logical argumentation in which arguments are generated by a sequent calculus of a given base logic of Argument & Computation ), and use standard deontic logic as our base logic. Argumentative attacks are realized by elimination rules that allow to (...) discharge specific sequents. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by means of various well-known benchmark examples, and show that this approach is rich enough to capture a variety of paradigms for handling conflicting norms such as reasoning with maximally consistent sets, prioritized norms and deontic formalisms based on I/O logic. (shrink)

In his well-known essay on Wittgenstein, Saul Kripke maintains that dispositional analyses of meaning cannot work mainly because the concept of disposition is descriptive, whereas that of meaning is normative. Unfortunately, neither Kripke nor his followers have ever spelled out this “argument from normativity” in full detail. As a result, the argument does not have good press. This paper offers an explicit version of the argument. In particular, (1) I try to explain what the claim that (...) meaning is normative amounts to, (2) I try to clarify what supports it, and (3) I sketch a valid version of the argument. (shrink)

In this article I introduce constitutive norm accounts of assertion, and then give three arguments for giving up on the constitutive norm project. First I begin with an updated version of MacFarlane’s Boogling argument. My second argument is that the ‘overriding response’ that constitutive norm theorists offer to putative counterexamples is unpersuasive and dialectically risky. Third and finally, I suggest that constitutive norm theorists, in appealing to the analogy of games, actually undermine their case that they can make (...) sense of assertions that fail to follow their putative constitutive norm. These considerations, I suggest, together show that the constitutive norm project founders not because any single norm is not descriptively correct of our assertion practices, but rather, because giving a constitutive norm as the definition of assertion alone is insufficient. (shrink)

In this paper I develop an argument against a type of Non-Analytic Normative Naturalism. This argument, the Normative Property Dualism Argument, suggests that, if Non-Analytic Normative Naturalists posit that normative properties are identical to natural properties and that such identities are a posteriori, they will be forced to posit that these properties which are both normative and natural have higher-order normative properties of their own.

Too often in argumentation studies, an emphasis on argumentative norms fails to give adequate weight to elements of emotion and style that are essential to public speech at its best, not only in ordinary practice but especially in those rare moments where public speech arrives at the sublime. In this paper we examine the coordination of argument with figurative and emotive language whose combination yields sublime effects in the poetry of the Hebrew prophets as well as in examples of (...) modern discourse. It is shown that poetic figures, while not fully reducible to argumentative norms, nor rational in the sense commonly applied to argumentation, do in fact contribute in propriety in public discourse; moreover, they surpass mere propriety to generate moments of the sublime. (shrink)

This paper proposes an approach to investigate norm-governed learning agents which combines a logic-based formalism with an equation-based counterpart. This dual formalism enables us to describe the reasoning of such agents and their interactions using argumentation, and, at the same time, to capture systemic features using equations. The approach is applied to norm emergence and internalisation in systems of learning agents. The logical formalism is rooted into a probabilistic defeasible logic instantiating Dung’s argumentation framework. Rules of this logic are attached (...) with probabilities to describe the agents’ minds and behaviours as well as uncertain environments. Then, the equation-based model for reinforcement learning, defined over this probability distribution, allows agents to adapt to their environment and self-organise. (shrink)

We propose a revised definition of “argument scheme” that focuses on describing argumentative performances and normative assessments that occur within an argumentative context, the social context in which the scheme arises. Our premise-and-conclusion structure identifies the typical instantiation of an argument in the argumentative context, and our critical framework describes a set of normative assessments available to participants in the context, what we call _practically normative_ assessments. We distinguish this practical normativity from the _rationally or universally (...) normative_ assessment that might be imposed from outside the argumentative context. Thus, the practical norms represented in an argument scheme may still be subject to rational critique, and the scheme avoids the is/ought fallacy. We ground our theoretical discussion and observations in an empirical study of US district court opinions resolving legal questions about copyright fair use and the lawyers’ briefs that led to them, instantiating our definition of argument scheme in the “argument for classification by precedent.” Our definition addresses some criticisms the argument-scheme construct has received. For example, using our data, we show that a minimally well formed instance of this type of argument does not shift any conventional burden from the proponent of the argument to its skeptics. We also argue that these argument schemes need not be seen as dialogical. (shrink)

The idea that morality and prudence are incommensurable normative domains—a central idea in normative pluralism—tends to be rejected because of the argument from nominal–notable comparisons. The argument relies on a premise that there are situations of moral–prudential conflict where we have a clear intuition that there are things we ought to do “all things considered”. It is usually concluded that this shows that morality and prudence must be comparable. I argue that normative pluralists, who defend (...) this type of incommensurability, can account for these intuitions by arguing that an “ought all things considered” need not presuppose inter-type comparability among the reasons it covers, and by endorsing more sophisticated theories of prudence; theories for which there are good, independent reasons to endorse, in any case. By following these steps, normative pluralism does not need to have the counterintuitive implications it is often thought to have. (shrink)

Mark C. Murphy addresses the question of how God's ethics differs from human ethics. Murphy suggests that God is not subject to the moral norms to which we humans are subject. This has immediate implications for the argument from evil: we cannot assume that an absolutely perfect being is in any way bound to prevent the evils of this world.

This paper sketches a particular line of criticism targeted at Scanlon’s account of a normative reason, which is purported to kill two birds with one stone: to raise doubts about the plausibility of Scanlon’s account of a normative reason and, next, to dismiss Scanlon’s conception of what a normative reason is in the role of an argument for semantic normativism. Following Whiting I take semantic normativism to be the view, according to which linguistic meaning is intrinsically (...) normative. The key argument for semantic normativism is that a word or expression has conditions for its correct use which count, or speak in favour of using it in certain ways and not in others. Specifically, it has immediate implications for how a subject should or may employ that expression. I shall argue that if the favouring format of analysis of a normative reason is not a particularly happy proposal in itself, then it supplies a superficial support for semantic normativism. (shrink)

In her 2007 paper, “Argument Has No Function” Jean Goodwin takes exception with what she calls the “explicit function claims”, arguing that not only are function-based accounts of argumentation insufficiently motivated, but they fail to ground claims to normativity. In this paper I stake out the beginnings of a functionalist answer to Goodwin.

“Morality is relative to culture” is a descriptive claim; many people in many different cultures have different moral beliefs. When one adopts moral relativism, however, the claim accrues a normative dimension, in that what follows from relativity is the flattening out of rightness, of one moral belief being better than another regardless of culture. But in practice, humans rarely, if ever, actually behave as if certain things or beliefs are not better than others, as evidenced in everything from foreign (...) policy to religion to consumption choices. This leads to a problem of consistency: either the relativist does not act in accordance with her beliefs or her beliefs are different from what she espouses. Or so a.. (shrink)

Matti Eklund (2017) has argued that ardent realists face a serious dilemma. Ardent realists believe that there is a mind-independent fact as to which normative concepts we are to use. Eklund claims that the ardent realist cannot explain why this is so without plumping in favor of their own normative concepts or changing the topic. The paper first advances the discussion by clarifying two ways of understanding the question of which normative concepts to choose: a theoretical question (...) about which concepts have the abstract property of being normatively privileged and a further practical question of which concepts we are to choose even granting some concepts are thus privileged. I argue that the ardent realist’s best bet for answering the theoretical question while avoiding Eklund’s dilemma is to provide a real definition of this property. I point out the difficulties for providing such a definition. I then argue that even with an answer to the theoretical question, the ardent realist faces a further dilemma in answering the practical question. In sum, though I see no knock-down argument against ardent realism, it may nonetheless die a death by a thousand cuts. I close by considering a deeper reason for why ardent realism is so difficult to defend: every argument starts somewhere. It is unclear how there can be an Archimedean point that makes no reference to any normative concepts that can nonetheless be employed to convince everyone to adopt ours. I then briefly propose two options for someone still inclined towards realism: (i) accept that our normative concepts are normatively privileged without attempting to explain why this is so, or (ii) be less ardent and accept a perspective-dependent account of normativity. (shrink)

Moral realism of a paradigmatic sort -- Defending the parallel -- The parity premise -- Epistemic nihilism -- Epistemic expressivism : traditional views -- Epistemic expressivism : nontraditional views -- Epistemic reductionism -- Three objections to the core argument.

This article seeks, first, to show that much of the existing normative work on argument from expert opinion (AEO) is problematic for failing to be properly informed by empirical findings on expert performance. Second, it seeks to show how, with the analytic tool of Bayesian reasoning, the problem diagnosed can be remedied to circumvent some of the problems facing the scheme-based treatment of AEOs. To establish the first contention, we will illustrate how empirical studies on factors conditioning expert (...) reliability can be drawn upon to re-construct. Walton’s critical questions matching the scheme of AEOs. To establish the second contention, we will illustrate how Walton’s re-constructed set of critical questions can be formalized within a Bayesian network. Finally, we will highlight how the specific ways in which the Bayesian framework we propose is both continuous with and distinct from the models of source reliability put forward by theorists like Bovens and Hartmann (2003). (shrink)

This essay addresses the relationship between Kant's theory of moral motivation and theories of normativity. Constructivist or "ideal agent" theories of normativity claim that what makes a principle normative is that rational agents endorse or possess a motive of a certain kind to comply with it, or that they endorse or possess such a motive to comply with it insofar as they are rational. Korsgaard has argued that Kant's "motivational analysis" of the concept of obligation in Grundlegung I provides (...) an argument for such a constructivist theory of normativity. In this examination of Korsgaard's argument, I defend two important modifications of the concept of "intrinsic normativity" and suggests that once these modifications are made, the motivational analysis argument fails to establish the constructivist claim that the normative authority of the supreme principle of morality is constituted by or depends solely upon agents' motivational states. While Kant's motivational analysis helps to reveal the nature of the alleged internal relation between the supreme principle of morality and the nature of the rational will, it does not demand the adoption of a constructivist theory of normativity. (shrink)

Arguments may sometimes be advanced with a non-standard function. One such function, it is suggested, is the expression of identity, a practice which may play a significant role in political representation. This paper sets out to examine a number of short addresses given at the High-Level segment of the Cop26 conference, which are considered to contain instances of such argumentation. Their content is analysed and evaluated by means of the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA), and an attempt is (...) made to highlight the purposes of the delegates in addressing the conference. At a more fundamental level, the goal of this work is to assess the possibility of identifying arguments as being meant largely as statements of identity or representation, and the suitability of the CAPNA or other norm-based systems for evaluating such discourse. The speakers studied include representatives from OPEC, the Trade Unions, and the leaders of Vietnam and Liechtenstein. Ultimately, the study concludes that while further work is necessary both on understanding the relationship between argument and identity in the political arena, and on the application of argument norms to representational discourse, evaluations of this kind are meaningful and informative. (shrink)