We present an analysis of ethical argumentation and rhetorical elements in an article on the debate about growing genetically modified food (GMF), an issue of current interest in environmental ethics. Ethical argumentation is argumentation that a certain action is permissible, forbidden, or obligatory in terms of ethical intuitions, principles, or theories. Based on analysis of argumentation in the article, we propose several argumentation schemes for descriptive modeling of utilitarian arguments as an alternative to using more general schemes such as practical (...) reasoning and argument from consequences. We also show how the article promoted its pro-GMF stance using rhetorical elements such as quotation, argument from expert opinion, and ad hominem attacks. Pedagogical and computational implications of the analysis of argumentation and rhetoric are discussed. (shrink)

This paper examines the conceptual and terminological overlap between theories and models of practical deliberation developed within the fields of Practical Reasoning (PR) and Practical Argumentation (PA). It carefully delineates the volitional, epistemic, normative, and social commitments invoked and explicates various rationales for attributing the label ‘practical’ to instances of reasoning and argumentation. Based on these analyses, the paper develops a new approach to practical deliberation called the Stakeholder Commitment Approach (SCA). By distinguishing between ‘problem holder’ and ‘problem solver’, and (...) specifying the distributions of attributable commitments among the stakeholders, the SCA introduces an extension and refinement of the grounds for assigning the label ‘practical’ that brings PR and PA closer together. (shrink)

The paper presents an analysis of the cultural embeddedness of arguments, raised as a part of the Bulgarian debate about the ratification of the Istanbul convention. The method I employed was the localization procedure of Generalized Argumentation theory. Through a qualitative analysis of empirical argumentation data, I identified arguments in favour of or against the ratification of the Istanbul convention. Information about the cultural background against which these arguments were raised, i.e. about Bulgarian culture, was gathered from the part of (...) the ninth wave of the European Social Survey that used the Portrait Value Questionnaire—an instrument for measuring human values, based on Schwartz’s theory of human values. By establishing a certain relationship between the arguments and the cultural background information, I came to the conclusion that the debate between the proponents and the opponents of the ratification represented a conflict between the basic values of universalism and tradition, and more particularly, between the lower-order values of equality and respect for tradition. (shrink)

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)

El propósito de este artículo es explicar la acción colectiva que realizan las organizaciones de movimientos sociales mediante procesos de enmarcado entendidos como el resultado de un diálogo deliberativo. Para lograrlo, el texto se divide en cuatro apartados: en el primero se introduce la teoría del enmarcado de los estudios sobre movimientos sociales. En el segundo se pasa revista sobre distintas explicaciones a propósito de la creación de un marco de acción colectiva; en el tercero se apela a la caracterización (...) de diálogo deliberativo de Walton y Krabbe y al esquema de razonamiento práctico de Fairclough y Fairclough, para trazar una relación entre el enmarcado de acción colectiva y aquel diálogo. En el último, se concluye que la acción colectiva de los activistas que se involucran en los procesos de enmarcado puede comprenderse como una acción colectiva deliberada. (shrink)

Donald Trump’s speeches and messages are characterized by terms that are commonly referred to as “thick” or “emotive,” meaning that they are characterized by a tendency to be used to generate emotive reactions. This paper investigates how emotive meaning is related to emotions, and how it is generated or manipulated. Emotive meaning is analyzed as an evaluative conclusion that results from inferences triggered by the use of a term, which can be represented and assessed using argumentation schemes. The evaluative inferences (...) are regarded as part of the connotation of emotive words, which can be modified and stabilized by means of recontextualizations. The manipulative risks underlying the misuse and the redefinition of emotive words are accounted for in terms of presuppositions and implicit modifications of the interlocutors’ commitments. (shrink)

Abstract: The article presents and critically discusses Walton's (and Reed's and Macagno's) argument scheme approach to a theory of good argumentation. In particular, four characteristics of Walton's approach are presented: 1. It presents normative requirements for argumentation in the form of argument schemes, i.e. relatively concrete type descriptions. 2. These schemata are enthymematic, i.e. they omit some of the premises required by other approaches. 3. The actual argument schemes are usually supplemented by critical questions. 4. The method is inductive, bottom-up, (...) gaining the normative schemata by abstraction from empirically collected groups of similar arguments. These characteristics, among others, are then discussed on the basis of four adequacy conditions: AC1: effectiveness in achieving the epistemic goal of obtaining and communicating justified acceptable opinions; AC2: completeness in capturing the good argument types; AC3: efficiency in achieving the goals; AC4: justification of the argument schemes. The discussion then reveals a number of weaknesses in Walton's argument schemes; among other things, they are neither effective (in the defined sense) nor truly justified. Contributing factors to these problems include the schema approach, i.e. not looking at the form of arguments, and the lack of epistemological foundations in the development of good types of arguments. However, the critical analyses reveal a better alternative: an epistemological approach based on epistemological principles. The article concludes with a detailed analysis of the scheme Practical Inference, which confirms the general criticism in detail. (shrink)

The paper relates two different fields of research: the historiography of generative linguistics and argumentation theory, a central topic of which is the investigation of fallacies. Relating the two fields is a challenge: Since fallacies seem to be at the heart of the historiography of generative linguistics, any thorough evaluation of its present state of the art also involves accounting for fallacies. The paper applies Kertész and Rákosi’s p-model of plausible argumentation to a case study on heated discussions in the (...) historiography of generative linguistics. As a result, basic properties of fallacious argumentation are revealed and delimited from plausible argumentation in linguistic historiography. In addition, the paper also draws generalizable conclusions that may affect the historiography of other human sciences as well. (shrink)

Muchos problemas deliberativos son multidimensionales: los argumentos a favor y en contra de las soluciones propuestas apelan a valores que pertenecen a distintas dimensiones. Así, por ejemplo, los argumentos a favor de la propuesta de negociar para resolver el problema de un conflicto armado interno pueden apelar a la paz mientras que los argumentos en contra pueden apelar a la justicia. Esto hace posible que los interlocutores acepten las premisas de un argumento sin comprometerse con su conclusión y que lo (...) justifiquen haciendo énfasis en las premisas del argumento contrario – “sí, una negociación reduciría el número de los muertos por violencia política, pero generaría impunidad, así que no debemos negociar”-. Si esta situación fuera insuperable, los argumentos en la deliberación nunca podrían ser válidos, nunca podrían ser tales que la aceptación de las premisas comprometiera a quien las acepta con las conclusiones. En este artículo considero algunas respuestas a este problema: las respuestas de C. Kock, T. Govier, P. Olmos y la respuesta de F. Macagno y D. Walton; señalo algunos problemas que encuentro en estas respuestas e intento resolverlos distinguiendo los casos en que es posible de los casos en los que no es posible superar el problema de la multidimensionalidad en la deliberación. (shrink)

Philosophers deny a proposal for actions can be deduced from arguments for or against the proposal because they may be incompatible. Nevertheless, people in general, and politicians especially, make decisions and present arguments they believe are convincing. We studied politicians who made decisions in complex situations. They spoke about possible actions, their consequences, the probabilities of these consequences and their evaluations, but rarely indicated why their arguments led to their choice. We hypothesized implicit argumentation rules involved and checked whether they (...) predicted those choices. We found seven implicit informal logic rules involved. We also found a random sample of people made the same choices based on the same arguments, suggesting basic warrants by which people argue about decisions. (shrink)

What type of speech act is a norm of action, when the norm is agreed upon as the conclusion of an argumentative dialogue? My hypothesis is that, whenever a norm of action is the conclusion of an argument, it should be analyzed as the statement of a norm and thus as a verdictive speech act. If the context is appropriate, and the interlocutors are sincerely (or institutionally) committed to their argumentative exchange and its conclusion, then this verdictive motivates and institutes (...) a new one with the force of an exercitive. The interlocutors’ recognition and acceptance that the new illocution has been performed lends the norm its exercitive force. (shrink)

Ethotic arguments, such as arguments from expert opinion and ad hominem arguments, play an important role in communication practice. In this paper, we argue that there is another type of reasoning from ethos, in which people argue about actions in the world. These subspecies of ethotic arguments are very common in public debates: societies are involved in heated disputes about what should be done with monuments of historical figures such as Stalin or Colston: Should we demolish the building they funded? (...) Should we revere their statues? Should the street named after them be renamed?; and the general public vividly argue about what should be done with the legacy of producers, directors and actors in debates of the #MeToo movement: Should their new movies be distributed? Should their scenes be deleted from motion pictures? Should their stars from the Hollywood Walk of Fame be removed? Many arguments in these debates boil down to the character of the public figures: He was a slave trader!—But he is a part of our history; He harassed a young girl!—But he is an important actor. The reasoning step here is legitimised by the association between a person and an extra-linguistic object: the association between a historical figure and their statue or between an actor and their movie. The nature of this association is explained in the paper using Peirce’s theory of signs. We propose to extend an existing approach to patterns of reasoning from ethos that will help us to shed new light on ethotic argumentation and open an avenue for a systematic account of these unexplored argument forms. (shrink)

The detection of hate speech and fake news in political discourse is at the same time a crucial necessity for democratic societies and a challenge for several areas of study. However, most of the studies have focused on what is explicitly stated: false article information, language that expresses hatred, derogatory expressions. This paper argues that the explicit dimension of manipulation is only one – and the least problematic – of the risks of political discourse. The language of the unsaid is (...) much more dangerous and incomparably more difficult to detect, hidden in different types of fallacies and inappropriate uses of emotive language. Through a threefold coding scheme based on the instruments of argumentation theory and pragmatics, a corpus of argumentative tweets published by 4 politicians (Matteo Salvini, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Joseph Biden) within 6 months from their taking office (corresponding to the official end of their election campaign) is analyzed, detecting the types of argument, the fallacies, and the uses and misuses of “emotive words.” This coding results in the argumentation profiles of the speakers, which are compared statistically to show their different implicit strategies and deceptive tactics. (shrink)

Metaphors are considered as instruments crucial for persuasion. However, while their emotive, communicative and persuasive effects are the focus of different studies and discussions, the core of their persuasive function, namely their argumentative dimension, is almost neglected. This paper addresses the problem of explaining how metaphors can communicate arguments, and how it is possible to reconstruct and justify them. To this purpose, a distinction is drawn between the arguments that are communicated metaphorically and reconstructed “top down,” namely based on relevance (...) considerations, and the ones that are triggered implicitly by the use of a metaphorical expression. In both cases, metaphorical arguments are reconstructed through different patterns of argument, called argumentation schemes (Walton, Reed & Macagno 2008). However, while the purpose of a metaphorical sequence of discourse (called metaphorical move) can guide and justify the reconstruction of the argument that can sufficiently support the intended conclusion in a persuasive move, a more complex analysis is needed for analyzing the inferences that a metaphorical move can trigger. These inferences are claimed to represent part of the connotation of the metaphorical expression and can be captured through its most frequent collocations, determinable using some tools of the corpus linguistics. (shrink)

The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)