We develop a novel argument scheme tailored to debates surrounding public votes on a state action. It can be used to propose reasons for voting “yes” or “no” and allows for natural reconstructions of such debates. These reconstructions are of particular use to voters trying to weigh the pros and cons of the proposed state action. The scheme for proposing reasons helps answering two questions: What changes will the proposed state action bring with it? And are these changes good or (...) not? Using the scheme, we derive a three-layered structure of public debates surrounding votes that aides in constructing systematic and comprehensive overviews. The scheme for proposing reasons also lends itself to concise summaries for voter information and can be incorporated into more general deliberation dialogues. (shrink)

I argue that the logical perspective—the study of arguments as products—is not well integrated into pragma-dialectics. I show that the Validity Rule and the Argumentation Scheme Rule, despite being procedural rules, are, in a certain sense, “logical” rules. Subsequently, I distinguish and review three successive periods in the development of the logical dimension of pragma-dialectics: conventionalist, inferentialist and dualist, to reveal that none of them is completely satisfactory. I contend that, given the assumptions and conceptual apparatus of pragma-dialectics, the integration (...) of the logical perspective, and especially of a suitable account of counterargumentation, requires the adoption of a conception of logic as a theory of reasons, as opposed to the traditional conception of logic as a theory of inferences. Understanding logic as a theory of the dialogical construction of reasons enables us to approach the study of the relationships between arguments and the weighing of opposing arguments. (shrink)