Topoi DOI 10.1007/s11245-013-9174-y

The Virtues of Ingenuity: Reasoning and Arguing without Bias Olivier Morin

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract This paper describes and defends the ‘‘virtues of ingenuity’’: detachment, lucidity, thoroughness. Philosophers traditionally praise these virtues for their role in the practice of using reasoning to solve problems and gather information. Yet, reasoning has other, no less important uses. Conviction is one of them. A recent revival of rhetoric and argumentative approaches to reasoning (in psychology, philosophy and science studies) has highlighted the virtues of persuasiveness and cast a new light on some of its apparent vices—bad faith, deluded confidence, confirmation and myside biases. Those traits, it is often argued, will no longer look so detrimental once we grasp their proper function: arguing in order to persuade, rather than thinking in order to solve problems. Some of these biases may even have a positive impact on intellectual life. Seen in this light, the virtues of ingenuity may well seem redundant. Defending them, I argue that the vices of conviction are not innocuous. If generalized, they would destabilize argumentative practices. Argumentation is a common good that is threatened when every arguer pursues conviction at the expense of ingenuity. Bad faith, myside biases and delusions of all sorts are neither called for nor explained by argumentative practices. To avoid a collapse of argumentation, mere civil virtues (respect, humility or honesty) do not suffice: we need virtues that specifically attach to the practice of making conscious inferences. Keywords Virtue epistemology
Argumentative theory of reasoning
Objectivity
Rhetoric
Argumentation

O. Morin (&) Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, 30–34, Frankel Leo´ utca, 1023 Budapest, Hungary e-mail: [email protected]

Ingenuity is the use of reasoning to gather information and to solve problems. This paper is about its virtues, in both senses of the term: the things that ingenuity is good for, and the qualities that it takes to be good at it. The philosophical tradition, particularly since Bacon and Descartes, has praised detachment, freedom from prejudice, and objectivity, in terms that may sound quaintly excessive today. The celebration of ingenuity often went along with a demotion of other uses of reasoning. Conviction, or persuasion—the use of reasoning to change other people’s minds—was one of them. Conviction and ingenuity arguably require different dispositions: a convincing argumentation benefits from a sensitivity to other people’s views and feelings, and from a certain firmness of belief, which may not serve individual cognition. These rhetorical virtues were all but forgotten by the champions of ingenuity. Things have changed. The last few decades have seen a reappraisal of the persuasive side of reasoning. Social psychologists (Billig 1996; Mercier and Sperber 2011), philosophers (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969; Rorty 1996) as well as economists (McCloskey 1998) and sociologists of science (Shapin and Schaffer 2011) have revived an argumentative view of thought that could also be found in ancient rhetoric. Reasoning, they claim, is social and argumentative through and through. In this light, the whole Enlightenment plan to change the way reasoning is used—to focus it on ingenuity rather than persuasion—, would appear misguided. This paper is a defense of the virtues of ingenuity. It tries to take into account the good points raised by this argumentative turn. While agreeing that reasoning is social and argumentative, I will argue that this does not make ingenuity redundant: on their own, the virtues of conviction cannot sustain a healthy practice of public reasoning.

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The first part will describe different virtues and vices associated with conviction and ingenuity. That part draws on recent work in virtue epistemology (Zagzebski 1996; Roberts and Wood 2007). Part 2 lays down the case against the virtues of ingenuity. In line with a rhetorical revival in philosophy and sociology of science, some authors have claimed that debates may not benefit much from detachment, lucidity, or thoroughness. Even better, their absence could prove beneficial: a deluded self-confidence brings strength and focus to discussions, by forcing everyone to sharpen their arguments. Parts 3 and 4 defend the virtues of reasoning against these charges. Part 3 argues that argumentation is a hybrid activity: It is concerned with ingenuity as much as conviction. An argumentative practice cannot survive if every arguer prefers to persuade others, rather than change their own views. Reasons need sellers, but they need buyers as well. Part 4 argues that delusion and bad faith have a purely negative impact on the practice of argumentation, a practice that would not exist if it relied on the virtues of conviction alone.

1 The Virtues of Reasoning 1.1 Two Thinkers Imagine two thinkers, Ms. L. and Ms. G. G. is a philosopher, L. is an activist. Both reason about abortion. Both of them have come to think that it is morally permissible, and the argument they have developed to show it is exactly the same. In short, they hold that even if embryos were conscious human persons, there would be no obligation for mothers to sacrifice an important part of their lives to them, should they refuse to do so. Ms. L. and Ms. G. may or may not be right. For some interlocutors, their argument will raise a disturbing implication. If abortion is permissible regardless of the psychological or moral status of the embryo, what keeps L. and G. from condoning certain cases of infanticide? L. and G.’s argument may authorize several answers to that question. This story does not tell whether their line is compatible with an absolute condemnation of infanticide. The point is: neither G. nor L. can know the answer for certain without investing a great deal of intellectual resources into the issue. Should they do so? It depends. To Ms. G., a connection between abortion and infanticide means either that her argument on abortion is wrong, or that killing babies is permissible—two challenging results. She starts looking closely at the reasons why her views could render infanticide permissible. If she finds out that she was wrong, she will simply give up on her claims about abortion. Should her conclusion go the other way,

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she will not hesitate to defend the permissibility of infanticide, in some cases.1 Ms. L. realizes that condoning infanticide in some cases, or even contemplating the possibility, would disqualify her. Whatever sound arguments she might summon would be no match for the audience’s outrage. She decides to find reasons to dissociate the two issues, should opponents ever raise that objection. Having done so, she can free her mind from a disturbing thought, and keep her opponents from creating a polemical diversion. The story does not say whether the philosophers’ argument entails the permissibility of infanticide. It may or it may not. What if it does? Then Ms. G. made a winning move, and Ms. L. took a risk. Ms. G. made a breakthrough in her ethical research. Ms. L.’s opponents may accuse her of bad faith: she tried to sell them an argument whose consequences appear much stronger than the permissibility of abortion. What if it does not? Then Ms. L. made the winning move, and Ms. G. took the risk. Ms. G. was lead astray on a slightly disreputable path. At best, she lost her time. At worse, she may have given false arguments to an unjust cause. Ms. L., on the other hand, was deft enough to disregard an irrelevant issue that would have muddled her message. Both decisions—to investigate the permissibility of infanticide, or to dodge the issue—are risky. The costs and benefits, however, are not the same for Ms. G. and for Ms. L. Their goals are different. Ms. G. does not care to persuade anyone that abortion is permissible (or not). She wants to build a coherent ethical system with far-ranging implications, the more challenging the better. Ms. L. is not trying to generalize her view on abortion to solve other ethical problems. She is defending abortion against passionate opponents. Ms. G. and Ms. L. are engaged in two different cognitive activities. Each of them has a distinct way of exploring the way propositions and representations relate, and support one another. They exemplify different virtues of reasoning: the ‘‘scholarly virtues’’ of ingenuity, and the ‘‘lawyerly virtues’’ of conviction. 1.2 A System of the Virtues Virtues have been defined as ‘‘deep and enduring acquired excellences of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and a reliable success in bringing about that end’’ (Zagzebski 1996 p. 137). The virtues of reasoning that this paper discusses differ from intellectual virtues as traditionally construed 1

For a real example of what G.’s argument might be, see Giubilini and Minerva 2012. .

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(Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1106b—Aristotle 2004a), in two respects at least. First, the virtues of reasoning are not (or not merely) cognitive skills or faculties. They have a crucial motivational component that is absent from intellectual virtues as defined by most virtue epistemologists since Aristotle (Annas 2003). In this I agree with some virtue epistemologists (Zagzebski 1996; Fricker 2007: 72–83; Roberts and Wood 2007) and with many psychologists, who have claimed that solving certain problems requires dispositions over and above mere cognitive capacities (Stanovich and West 2000; Ennis 1996). Second, most of them are neither purely deliberative nor purely epistemic, although some of them may incorporate some aspect of prudence, others some aspects of intellection, etc. They all have to do with reasoning, i.e., the practice of exploring relations (entailment, contradiction, support, compatibility) between thoughts, in oneself or in one’s interlocutors (reasoning and its uses are further characterized in Sect. 3). Reasoning may be used to form true representations, but this is not the only (or the most interesting) use we can make of it—therefore, the virtues of reasoning are not epistemic in the strict sense of that term—they do not necessarily aim at the formation of justified true beliefs. 1.2.1 Reasoning, as a Means of Understanding and as a Means of Influence Conviction and ingenuity each belong to a wider family of social and cognitive practices that need not involve reasoning. Ingenuity can be seen as one form of understanding (Riggs 2003). ‘‘Understanding’’ so construed is somewhat broader than the acquisition of knowledge, or justified true beliefs. I subscribe to Riggs’ opinion that ‘‘[w]e are not collectors of random or trivial truths. Nor does the acquisition of knowledge exhaust our epistemological pursuits’’ (p. 214). In this spirit, the aim of ingenuity will be described, quite broadly as ‘‘information acquisition and problem-solving’’, and the virtues of reasoning will be studied as intellectual virtues in a broad sense (following such authors as Zagzebski or Roberts and Wood). Understanding need not involve reasoning—in other words, it may take many other forms beside ingenuity. Vision is a way of gathering information that often requires no conscious inference. Likewise, conviction is a form of the broader practice of ‘‘influence’’: changing the beliefs and desires of others. The varieties of influence may include coercion, the use of incentives, subliminal manipulation, seduction, etc. What sets conviction apart is the fact that it relies on the reasoning capacities of its targets, to change their mind about

something. Conviction is often contrasted with persuasion: whilst conviction is thought to rely on logically sound arguments, persuasion often describes those varieties of influence that do not rely on reasoning at all (but rely on other tools—such as incentives, emotional mechanisms, etc.), or that rely on defective reasoning (sophistry, superficial rhetoric). This paper makes no such distinction, and the words ‘‘persuade’’ and ‘‘convince’’ are used interchangeably. This is not to say that the distinction is pointless. The goal of this paper, however, is not to draw a normative boundary between legitimate or illegitimate forms of influence (a task on which much has been done already). Ingenuity and argumentation can thus be seen as one single faculty (reasoning) used in the first case as a means of understanding, as an instrument of influence in the second. The two purposes may overlap or conflict. The following typology (Fig. 1) is proposed to clarify my argument. It is not meant to capture deep psychological regularities, although I do think that such regularities can be found (see Sect. 1.3). Psychologists specializing in critical thinking or in reasoning have proposed several typologies, often inspired from questionnaires, to capture interpersonal differences in ‘‘thinking styles’’ (Ennis 1996; Sa´ et al. 1999; Kruglanski and Webster 1996). The list proposed here is much less inclusive than theirs.2 1.2.2 Detachment/Sensitivity Persuading an audience demands some attention to that audience’s opinions. Those same opinions may distract someone who simply wants to solve a problem. The icon of detachment in philosophy is, of course, Socrates, with his ostensive indifference to public opinion, his habit of freezing in mid-conversation to think something over, and his final plea in front of the Athenian tribunal. Socrates could have convinced the jury (he eventually lost by a rather narrow margin of 60 votes out of 501), had he not alienated them by demanding a reward for his services to the city. Like Ms. G. (the philosopher in our example), Socrates was undaunted by the predictable reactions of his audience. In contrast, Ms. L. takes never loses track of her audience’s feelings, thus showing sensitivity. Sensitive conviction has its heroes, just like detachment. Zhou En Lai knew one or two things about argumentation, from the debating team variety (he won awards as a student) to the more dangerous kind. During the Civil War, he persuaded Chang Kai-shek’s top general to turn up against his master. 2

For instance, Ennis’ list (1996) includes a disposition to ‘‘Care about the dignity and worth of every person’’, and a ‘‘concern about others’ welfare’’.

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O. Morin Fig. 1 The virtues of reasoning (Presentation inspired by McCloskey 2010)

The volte-face did not pay and the general ended up in prison, his army dismantled, his officers killed. Zhou did not care: he had worked out a spectacular reconciliation with Chang (in a few days of conversation). Still, the general’s former army was outraged. Some of his men forced into Zhou’s home to kill him. An unarmed Zhou simply persuaded them to walk away. Zhou’s ability to put himself in his interlocutor’s shoes proved crucial in his dealings with Mao Zedong. Twice at least, Zhou managed to moderate disastrous policies, while retaining Mao’s trust. Twice at least, he came close to breaking point and had to self-criticize his way back to power. Though he lost many relatives and friends at the hand of politicians he had many reasons to despise, Zhou retained the ability to see what the world looked like in their eyes. The task was complicated by the fact that his main interlocutor was often as rational and predictable as a suicide bomber (on all this, see Wilson 1984). To philosophers trained in the Enlightenment tradition, Zhou’s sensitivity may seem less than genuinely virtuous. Socratic detachment serves as the reference. Yet Zhou truly exemplified a form of excellence in reasoning. It required, not just prudence and courage, but a remarkable ability to use some actions and ideas to justify other actions and ideas in the eyes of someone else. Still, our prototype of excellent reasoning is detached. One can see at least two reasons for that. One is the fight that Early Enlightenment thinkers like Bacon or Descartes led against the medieval and jesuitic practice of disputatio.3 In their wake, philosophical moderns redefined

reasoning as an individual activity rather than a dialogic one (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969). A second reason is that, even in argumentative contexts, they favored another virtue: thoroughness. 1.2.3 Thoroughness/Strategy When investigating the connections between the permissibility of abortion and the permissibility of infanticide, Ms. G. is thorough: she follows the implications of her ideas to whatever interesting conclusion they may lead. Russell’s attitude towards what became known as ‘‘Russell’s paradox’’showed thoroughness. Apparently, Russell stumbled upon the problem while trying to refute Cantor (Coffa 1979). Whether it was a real issue or not was not obvious to him, but he nevertheless decided to bury his refutation in a file-drawer. At that point, no one knew that the puzzle of self-including sets had the potential to destroy a system that Russell had spent decades building. Had he chosen to dismiss it, few if any people would have noticed. Yet he went ahead. Conviction requires a different kind of focus. Persuaders are not interested in the complete set of interesting inferences they may draw from a given set of premises. They are merely concerned with those their interlocutors will find cogent. They must restrict their exploration of the space of reasons and implications accordingly. Ms. L. knows that her case for the permissibility of abortion will not be easy to make, and she does not burden herself with the useless risk of venturing an opinion of infanticide: she fights the fight that she can win.

3

See Bacon, New Organon (aphorism 71). Descartes on disputations: ‘‘Et je n’ai jamais remarque´ non plus que par le moyen des disputes qui se pratiquent dans les e´coles, on ait de´couvert aucune ve´rite´ qu’on ignoraˆt auparavant : car pendant que chacun taˆche de vaincre, on s’exerce bien plus a` faire valoir la vraisemblance qu’a` peser les raisons de part et d’autre ; et ceux qui ont e´te´ longtemps bons avocats

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Footnote 3 continued ne sont pas pour cela par apre`s meilleurs juges. ‘‘(Descartes 1824: 206–207).

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Early Enlightenment figures were nearly unanimous in their praise of what Locke called ‘‘unbiased indifferency’’.4 The public image of science was shaped by this discourse. As Stephen Shapin (2009) documents, detachment almost defined the popular image of the scientist, at least until the first half of the twentieth century. He cites as an example Max Gottlieb, a medical scientist who mentors the hero of Sinclair-Lewis’ widely read Arrowsmith. Here is Gottlieb’s morning prayer: God give me unclouded eyes and freedom from haste. God give me a quiet and relentless anger against all pretense and all pretentious work and all work left slack and unfinished. God give me a restlessness whereby I may neither sleep nor accept praise till my observed results equate my calculated results or in pious glee I discover and assault my error. (


) (cited by Shapin 2009, p. 62) 1.2.4 Lucidity/Firmness Max Gottlieb was praying for God to give him the strength to ignore positive and negative opinions from outside, but he also asked something else: the ability to correct one’s mistakes with ‘‘pious glee’’. Glee is what Socrates claimed he felt whenever his view were refuted (which was suspiciously rare) (Plato, Gorgias, 458a—Plato 1987). Gottlieb did not ask for mere thoroughness (the will to follow inferences to all their relevant conclusions), but also for lucidity—the will to go against his own opinions, and update his beliefs as he acquired new information. Firmness can be defined as the opposite of lucidity: the capacity to resist updating certain beliefs. It was, perhaps, the first virtue of conviction to get rehabilitated in philosophy, when Thomas Kuhn showed that a disregard for contrary evidence could foster scientific progress in some cases (Kuhn 1977: 225–239). Paradigms, he argued, should enjoy a favourable handicap when faced with contrary arguments. Darwin and his followers held firmly against Lord Kelvin’s refutation of natural selection, although Kelvin had made quite a convincing case that the earth could not be ancient enough for evolution to be true. His 4

: ‘‘(…) as a lover of truth, and not a worshipper of my own doctrine, I own some change of my opinion, which I think I have discovered ground for. In what I first writ, I with an unbiassed indifferency followed truth, whither I thought she led me. But neither being so vain as to fancy infallibility, nor so disingenuous as to dissemble my mistakes for fear of blemishing my reputation, I have, with the same sincere desire for truth only, not been ashamed to publish what a severer enquirer has suggested. ‘‘(Essay concerning human understanding, chap. XXI, § 72 —Locke 1706). (Locke is discussing Descartes’ concept of indifferency, a central piece of the Cartesian conception of free will.) See also Section 34 of Locke’s Conduct of the Understanding, a user’s guide to the virtues of ingenuity.

argument, based on a state-of-the-art model of Earth temperature, had been confirmed or re-discovered by many others. (Darwin himself stealthily retracted a wrong-headed refutation.) Yet, in this case, firmness arguably did research a favor. Importantly, Kuhn did not commend conservatism to everyone. Engineers, in his view, did not have to be particularly firm in upholding the scientific dogma of their day. Tesla and Edison were quick to embrace fanciful theories—but they did no harm. They were not the ones in charge of updating the scientific tradition. Edison and Tesla were just asked to be ingenious: to produce devices that would immediately work, not to defend ideas that made sense in the scientific culture as a whole (Kuhn, op. cit.: 238–239). 1.3 The Virtues and Vices of Reasoning are (Partly) Inherent Personal Dispositions Philosophers and psychologists from the Situationist school have voiced strong doubts about the psychological reality of virtues, understood as fixed psychological dispositions possessed by persons (Doris 2002). Character traits, the critics argue, are not reliable enough to warrant the claims of virtue theorists. They remark that honesty, courage, or generosity can be suppressed (or elicited) in most people, depending on the situation. Whether virtue theorists should care about this objection is a debated point. Some estimate that virtues need not take the form of fixed personal traits. They may depend on specific social contexts and institutions (Peterson and Seligman 2004, chapter 2). On the other hand, virtue psychologists do need to demonstrate some inter-individual consistency in honesty or generosity: how well does my honesty in a given situation predict my honesty in the future? If the answer is ‘‘not much’’, it makes little sense to speak of honesty as a personal quality. Fortunately, it may not be necessary to take a stance in this debate here. The psychological case for the virtues of reasoning is relatively clear-cut. As far as lucidity, thoroughness and detachment are concerned, there is massive evidence that individuals differ in important and reliable ways. Stanovich and West (1998—exp. 1 and 2) demonstrate the existence of ‘‘enormous’’ and robustly correlated inter-individual differences across seven different reasoning tasks. Those inter-personal differences cannot be accounted for by differences in cognitive capacities alone, and a substantial share of the variability is predicted by the subjects’ performance on questionnaires designed to probe their ‘‘cognitive style’’: ‘‘factors such as dispositions toward premature closure, cognitive confidence, reflectivity, dispositions toward confirmation bias, ideational generativity, and so on.’’ (Stanovich and West 2000: 664). Responses to different ‘Open-Mindedness’ questionnaires

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display a substantial internal consistency (see Peterson and Seligman 2004 for a review), can be correlated between questionnaires (ibid.), and predict behavior in ecological argumentative tasks (Sa´ et al. 2005). The critical thinking community has come to the same conclusion: stable dispositions and habits (as distinct from mere cognitive abilities) underlie good argumentation (Ennis 1996). Openminded subjects (who, though a minority, are not so rare) show a robust tendency to outperform others on a range of tasks (Stanovich and West 2000). Certainly, measures of open-mindedness or critical thinking skills are diverse, and may mix measures of ingenuity with less relevant features, but the consistency that they exhibit puts the burden of proof on the Situationists’ shoulders. 1.4 The Virtues of Reasoning are Sui Generis Intellectual Virtues How do these virtues relate to other virtues? I would venture to say that they are sui generis virtues of reasoning, in that they attach specifically to the practice of drawing conscious inferences. In this, they differ from the ‘‘civic virtues’’ of scientists (as studied by sociologists like Steven Shapin), from ‘‘civil virtues’’ in conversation (Rorty 1994), or from Merton’s ‘‘scientific ethos’’ (Merton 1942/1996). The virtues of conviction resemble Amelie Rorty’s ‘‘civic virtues’’ (Rorty 1994). Rorty’s tact and respect, in particular, resemble what I called sensitivity: … respect (…) requires explaining ourselves to [others] in terms they can understand. It not only involves responding to their challenges but also presenting considerations to address their concerns, concerns that they may not themselves have articulated and that we may not share. (Rorty 1994: 309) Yet in other places, Rorty’s respect also implies an inclination to be persuaded by others. Such a propensity is quite absent from sensitivity as defined in this paper. Inwardly at least, good persuaders are firm. They need not have any special esteem for the people they are trying to persuade. Likewise, there is nothing particularly respectful about the virtues of ingenuity (detachment being a case in point). They are not norms of polite conversation. Perhaps the virtues of reasoning could be linked with intellectual humility (Roberts and Wood 2003; Merton 1996a)—but then again, I doubt it. Intellectual humility may be one form of lucidity, but not all acts of humility are lucid. Gogol, who destroyed his life’s work because he believed it to be worthless and inspired by Satan, was intellectually humble, in a way—but do we want to call him lucid? Another set of virtues that fails to capture the essence of ingenuity, is Merton’s ‘‘scientific ethos’’ (Merton 1996b),

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which he defines as a combination of universalism (science has no nationality), communism (‘‘property rights in science are whittled down to a bare minimum’’), disinterestedness (‘Do No Fraud’) and organized skepticism. That last trait (rather rapidly sketched by Merton) may correspond to the virtue of lucidity. The other three traits, however, are not specifically intellectual virtues. Universalism, communism and disinterestedness would promote the common good in many spheres of activity that have little to do with reasoning, or indeed with intellectual pursuits of any kind: it would be generally beneficial, for instance, if nations could freely share water in a spirit of disinterested cooperation. Such public goods have little to do with the quality of reasoning. James Watson’s self-portrait in The Double Helix (Watson 2012) illustrates the dissociation between the virtues of ingenuity and merely civil virtues. Watson wants to beat Linus Pauling in the race for DNA; in so doing he upsets many colleagues—notoriously including Rosalind Franklin, whose crucial data he uses without her knowledge or consent, while indulging in misogynistic slandering. Yet he does possess some virtues of ingenuity. He proposes several models for DNA that are thrashed by various colleagues without Watson so much as arguing back—even in one case where all textbooks agreed with him.5

2 One Case Against Ingenuity Many anti-rationalist authors have attacked the virtues of ingenuity or declared them redundant. This paper will deal with another class of worries, one that is suggested by a growing body of argumentative approaches to science, reasoning and public affairs (McCloskey 1998; Billig 1996; Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969), with a focus on Mercier and Sperber’s ‘‘argumentative theory of reasoning’’. These approaches are quite diverse, but they share an ambition to treat the persuasive uses of reasoning as functional rather than pathological. They do so by emphasizing the social and argumentative character of reasoning. One of their target is an individualistic view of problem-solving, a` la Descartes or Bacon. ‘‘Good science’’, the slogan goes, ‘‘is good conversation’’ (McCloskey 1998: 162): a lively debate of skilled persuaders is much preferable to a collection of ingenious individuals. In this light, the lawyerly virtues deserve some rehabilitation. What is more, some vices of conviction may also need to be reappraised. Before seeing why, let us take a 5

(On Watson’s intellectual virtues, see Haack 2003 pp. 109 sq.; on Watson’s intellectual vices see Shapin 2009, Robert Roberts and Jay Wood 2007).

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2.1 How the Vices of Conviction Affect Reasoning

evaluating other people’s reasons in a lucid way, and updating our beliefs accordingly. The problem is, we are not always so willing. Reasoners often obey the demands of conviction before those of ingenuity: they will ‘‘look for reasons to justify an opinion they are eager to uphold’’ (Mercier and Sperber 2011). Such motivated reasoning is clearly a form of delusion, since it prevents reasoners from considering arguments that may help them update their views for the better.

2.1.1 Bad Faith

2.1.3 The ‘Myside Bias’

First, people are exceedingly sensitive to the opinions of others; as a result, they will take decisions that they can justify rather than decisions that would truly satisfy them. One may call bad faith (in the Sartrean sense of mauvaise foi) this excessive concern for the public justification of one’s choices, since it arguably prevents us from choosing more authentic options. In common parlance, bad faith also refers to hypocrisy; negotiation theory uses the phrase to describe negotiations where one of the parties is just pretending to negotiate but has no intention to yield anything. Bad faith in that sense is a vice of sensitivity in two ways. First, an individual of bad faith is too concerned with what his interlocutors may think to be sincere with them. Second, the desire not to yield to other’s arguments may indicate an excessive concern for one’s own reputation (excessive, that is, as far as pure ingenuity is concerned).

Lastly, there are also many reasons to think that we are too strategic in our search for arguments. I mean that our search for reasons is unduly restricted to reasons that might serve as arguments for our view or counter-arguments to others’ views. This tendency corresponds to what is sometimes called the myside bias, in the narrowest sense of that term (Wolfe 2011). It is often (and confusingly) associated with the confirmation bias, a much broader term that usually denotes a lack of lucidity mixed with a lack of thoroughness. Nickerson defines the confirmation bias as ‘‘the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand’’ (Nickerson 1998). The myside bias only has to do with the ‘‘seeking’’ part. If conviction is your sole purpose, there is nothing wrong with bad faith, delusion, and the myside bias. They can help. (Arguably, they also backfire.) The vices of conviction are not deficient forms of conviction, they just stand in the way of other uses of reasoning (I follow Amelie Rorty’s definition: a virtue becomes vicious when it blocks the proper aim of other virtues—Rorty 1994: 307). If and when conviction is the name of the game, delusion and bad faith are functional; but what about ingenuity?

closer look at the vices of conviction, and their impact on reasoning. The following discussion roughly follows Mercier and Sperber’s recent review. They take another look at psychological findings that had sometimes been interpreted as indicating a lack of rationality, and show that they can be described as functional features of persuasive reasoning.

2.1.2 Delusion Many reasoners are prey to a firmness of views that sometimes borders on delusion. This impaired capacity to revise our beliefs when faced with fresh evidence is called by various names in the psychological literature, from ‘‘belief perseverance’’ to ‘‘overconfidence’’. While partiality in seeking evidence is a vice of strategy, interpreting fresh evidence in ways that are partial to one’s own views is a form of firmness that can prove excessive. To cite only some of the evidence mentioned by Mercier and Sperber (2011) in their discussion of motivated reasoning (Sect. 4.1.), we discount data offered by an experimenter if the data would favor a conclusion we dislike. When arguing with editors, scientific reviewers discount a paper’s strong points and focus on its weaknesses. Partisans of the death penalty massively discount arguments against it. Opponents do the opposite. More generally, people are more likely to scrutinize arguments when they go against their initial position. In all those cases people prioritize conviction over ingenuity. Importantly, such delusions need not impair people’s capacity to evaluate arguments. The argumentative theory insists that, if we want to do so, we are quite capable of

2.2 Perhaps, the Virtues of Conviction are all We Need Two possibilities should worry any defender of the virtues of ingenuity. First, we may not need to add anything to the psychology of the argumentative reasoners that have just been described (skilled reasoners who suffer from delusion, bad faith, and a myside bias), to make them ingenious. The second possibility is that some of the vices of argumentative reasoners may in fact help them solve problems and acquire informations. If these two claims are true, the virtues of ingenuity are at best redundant, at worst noxious. Both claims are plausible. Our argumentative reasoner may not need the virtues of ingenuity at all, because in some contexts, he gets all the lucidity, detachment or thoroughness that he needs from the conversation around him. His interlocutors will provide

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counter-arguments to his views, which he is quite capable of using to update his beliefs (that is, if he thinks they need updating). If the conversation around him aggregates a sufficient variety of viewpoints, it can help him see all the sides of the arguments that he had failed to consider because of his myside bias. The only thing that a lively and civil conversation may fail to provide is detachment—the capacity to judge independently of other people’s views. But given the importance of society and reputation in human life, one may question the relevance of such a disposition. Perhaps, argumentative reasoners are ecologically ingenious. Their psychological dispositions incline them towards the vices of conviction, but in the context of argumentation this does not matter much: the conversation compensates for those flaws. Ecological rationality is made possible by psychological dispositions that share some traits with classic rationality, without being quite as demanding. Those dispositions can mimic rationality in most contexts (Simon 1996: 51–85; Gigerenzer 2000: 59–76). Likewise, ecological ingenuity would be made possible by the fact that argumentative reasoners are not entirely deprived of the virtues of ingenuity. If, and when, they evaluate arguments with the intention of gathering information (or of solving problems), they do so lucidly, thoroughly, and with detachment. Otherwise they could never profit from the conversation around them. There is a downside. Ecological ingenuity only works in a conversation that is rich and tolerant enough to include a great variety of viewpoints. How often is that the case? Sunstein (2009) documents dozens of cases of collective reasoning where a relative homogeneity of beliefs results in polarization. Each individual myside bias reinforces similar beliefs in others, sometimes causing impressive departures from common opinions. Those results are spectacular, but not unintuitive. Many groups of arguers do not present a sufficient variety of viewpoints to avoid polarization. In those cases, a lack of thoroughness will harm collective problem-solving. True, there are exceptions. Most of these, however, are elaborate institutional inventions: fair trials, scientific debates, democratic politics. They were designed (or evolved) precisely as attempts to avoid the negative effects of the vices of conviction. The presence of competing viewpoints in such debates is a design feature—we cannot assume that it reflects a state of nature. Outside these institutions of debate, there are, of course, strong disagreements, but dissent can arguably not be voiced as easily. For one thing, dissenting people may not want to talk with one another unless an institution forces them to do so (on the adverse consequences of conflict for open discussion, see Hardin 2002). Some defenders of argumentative views are much more optimistic about the availability of pluralistic conversations.

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We can agree with them, at least, on one thing: ecological ingenuity is possible. This should worry the champions of ingenuity. Why? Because argumentative reasoners fail to possess the ‘‘scholarly virtues’’. Thoroughness requires ingenuity in the production of reasons. Detachment cannot come from considering other people’s opinions. And, most importantly, lucidity is not simply an ability—there is a motivational component to it—a readiness to let an argument change one’s mind, for instance. The argumentative reasoner is like a corrupt judge. If the state gave him strong incentives to do his job properly, he would examine your case with impeccable fairness. But every so often he is bribed. He is no less discerning for that, but his goal changes: he will pronounce you guilty before having seen your file. He might not open your file. If he opens it, he will only look at the evidence in your favor, and then he will not so much take it in, as use it to support the decision that he has already come to. The corrupt judge lacks something. If that something can be dispensed with, then the virtues of ingenuity are in trouble. 2.3 In Collective Reasoning, Private Vices Could Breed Public Prosperity Some defenders of argumentative views seem willing to go even further: they actually praise excessive firmness, sensitivity and strategy. (…) from our point of view, the rhetorical value of a statement is not destroyed by the fact that the argument appears to have been built post hoc (that is, after an intimate decision had been made), or by the fact that the argument is based on premises that the orator does not share. (…) it is legitimate, when one has acquired a certain opinion, to try and make it more firm for one’s self, but above all, to strengthen it against attacks that may come from outside. It is normal that one should consider all the arguments one could use to strengthen one’s opinions.6 (Perelman & Tyteca, §9) The most interesting defenses of the vices of conviction are the ones which show how, in argumentation, private 6

‘‘(…) de notre point de vue, la valeur rhe´torique d’un e´nonce´ ne saurait eˆtre annihile´e par le fait qu’il s’agirait d’une argumentation que l’on estime baˆtie apre`s coup, alors que la de´cision intime e´tait prise, ou par le fait qu’il s’agit d’une argumentation base´e sur des pre´misses auxquelles l’orateur n’adhe`re pas lui-meˆme. (…) il est le´gitime que celui qui a acquis une certaine conviction s’attache a` l’affermir vis-a`-vis de lui-meˆme, et surtout vis-a`-vis des attaques pouvant venir de l’exte´rieur; il est normal qu’il envisage tous les arguments susceptibles de la renforcer. ‘‘.

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vices may breed public prosperity.7 This theme underlies many argumentative views of science, in the wake of Kuhn’s rehabilitation of firmness. Amelie Rorty’s, for instance: Normal science is, for instance, served by training scientists to follow a conservative epistemic policy, one that makes them susceptible to self-deceptive denials of evidence contrary to dominant theory. (Rorty 1994: 224) The notion that some measure of delusion is a normal part of the scientific mindset was made popular by sociologists of science. Bruno Latour, in his ethnography of the French Conseil d’E´tat, argues that scientists lack the kind of dispassionate detachment that judges possess. Why? Because scientists have other scientists arguing back, if they go too far, while a judge is often the sole and ultimate authority on a given matter (Latour 2004: 207–255).8 This is in line with a view, common even among orthodox philosophers of science, that the division of cognitive labor, in ‘‘allowing (…) scientists to depart from the highminded goals of individual rationality (and act on baser motives), might actually help the community’s project’’(Kitcher 1990, p. 14). Mercier and Sperber’s argumentative theory of reasoning offers a sophisticated version of this argument, when they claim that ‘‘in group settings, reasoning biases can become a positive force and contribute to a kind of division of cognitive labor’’ (2011, p. 73). What are those biases? They are often grouped under the label ‘‘confirmation bias’’. I think we can easily recognize some of them as being vices of conviction: Skilled arguers (…) are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views. This explains the notorious confirmation bias. This bias is apparent not only when people are actually arguing, but also when they are reasoning proactively from the perspective 7

The view that intellectual vices may cancel each other out is common among students of intellectual virtues. Woods and Roberts (2007: loc. 2645 sq.) argue, for instance, that the intellectual vices of a brilliant, but impatient and dominating scientist may balance opposite vices in his team (excessive conservatism and laziness, for instance) (Hookway 2003 makes a similar point, as well as Rorty 1996). In such cases, opposite vices would cancel each other. Here, I focus on the notion that identical biases in individuals may create virtuous collective dynamics. 8 Latour’s reasoning offers interesting similarities with Kuhn’s discussion of firmness in the sciences (op. cit., 1977). As we saw, Kuhn did not see firmness in upholding the scientific consensus as a virtue in everyone: engineers, in his view, have a right to neglect tradition, because what they produce is not ideas that time will eventually test, but designs that must work here and now. In a similar vein, Latour notes that judges need to be ingenious because their decision is likely to be final, and will (in most cases at the Conseil d’E´tat) not be corrected later.

of having to defend their opinions. Reasoning so motivated can distort evaluations and attitudes and allow erroneous beliefs to persist. Proactively used reasoning also favors decisions that are easy to justify but not necessarily better. In all these instances traditionally described as failures or flaws, reasoning does exactly what can be expected of an argumentative device (…) (Mercier and Sperber 2011—abstract) To let other people’s reasons interfere with one’s choices is a definition of bad faith; neglecting to search for counter-arguments constitutes the myside bias. Lastly, motivated reasoning prevents people from considering counter-arguments—motivated reasoners will ignore them, or they will argue against them instead of evaluating them (Mercier and Sperber 2011 Sect. 4.1.) A delusive failure to revise some beliefs must be the result. If Mercier and Sperber are right, these downsides are more than compensated by the positive impact that reasoning biases have on conversation. What, then, would remain of the virtues of ingenuity? Some view the ethos of the clear-sighted inquirer as just one more rhetorical tool (Perelman & Tyteca §6, §96). For some, it is a rhetoric that is all the more pernicious for denying its rhetorical nature (Frye cited by McCloskey 1998: 60). Others agree that the vices of conviction have significant drawbacks, but those drawbacks are nothing that civil virtues—honesty, thoughtfulness, humility—cannot remedy. Here is how psychologist Jonathan Haidt sums up the argumentative theory of reasoning: (…) the confirmation bias is a built-in feature (of an argumentative mind), not a bug that can be removed (from a platonic mind). (…) Each individual reasoner is really good at one thing: finding evidence to support the position he or she already holds, usually for intuitive reasons. We should not expect individuals to produce good, open-minded, truth-seeking reasoning, particularly when self-interest or reputational concerns are in play. But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. (Haidt 2013 loc. 218) In what follows, I would like to show that an argumentative view of reasoning, properly understood, must nuance this view. Argumentative reasoners (even when blessed with civil virtues) cannot sustain a stable practice of argumentation. Their vices of conviction play no useful

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role in collective ingenuity. The reason, in short, is that argumentation is a hybrid practice. It requires a balance of virtues.

3 Some Uses of Reasoning Following Mercier and Sperber, reasoning will be characterized as any conscious thought process in which a thinker represents entailment or support between representations. Reasoning is thus a psychological faculty whose proper domain is relations such as contradiction, entailment, support, mutual compatibility, etc. Reasoning thus characterized is a rather narrow phenomenon, much narrower than ‘‘thought’’ or ‘‘inference’’. An inference may be unreasoned in two ways: one can make it without being aware of making it, or one can be aware of making the inference, without knowing why—in other words, without being aware of the relations that bind different representations together. The virtues of ingenuity are virtues of reasoning first and foremost: they have to do with a capacity to judge how a representation is or is not entailed by another, how consistent a set of representations may be, etc. Thoroughness is required to detect hidden inconsistencies or discover unexpected implications. Detachment is needed to confront implications or inconsistencies that one’s audience may not notice or care about. Lucidity is required to accept inferences that may threaten one’s former opinions. The virtues of conviction are also forms of excellence in the exercise of reasoning, but differ from ingenuity in one crucial respect: the reasons we consider are not our own but those that would look plausible to others.9 This characterization does without two important features that ingenuity often possesses in the Enlightenment tradition, where ingenuity is supposed to be individual and heuristic. 3.1 Reasoning: Individual Versus Collective, Heuristic Versus Critical Using reasoning to solve problems may be a public activity, but it is mostly thought of as a solitary venture. A departure from this individualistic conception is one of the most important contributions of argumentative views. One can follow Mercier and Sperber, who cite results showing that, when subjects have to solve logical puzzles as a group (rather than individually) their performance is much improved, because those who guess right easily convince others. This is a clear instance of collective ingenuity.10 9

There is, of course, not much that is original here (cf. Aristotle Rhetoric 1.1., 1355b—Aristotle 1991).

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Reasoning can serve problem-solving in two ways: as a means of combining representations to yield other representations, and as a means to test ideas for consistency. The first form is heuristic: it aims at generating new ideas. Its prototype would be the activity of a geometer trying to arrive at a given conclusion by combining a set of axioms. Ms. G. is engaging in heuristic reasoning when she tries to work out challenging implications from her work on abortion. The Cartesian method of reasoning is 100 % heuristic, since it is supposed to work only by drawing consequences that cannot be doubted (their premises being certain). Yet, as modern defenders of the rhetoric tradition insist (in particular Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969), a critical use of reasoning (the second form) exists as well. In that case, reasoning works as a crash-test for ideas that may or may not come from reasoning. One can also distinguish two modes of conviction: a heuristic one, concerned with finding arguments for a given position, and a critical one, that consists in debunking arguments made against a given position. What distinguishes critical conviction from critical ingenuity is that critical persuaders should only invest in destroying arguments (as opposed to learning anything from them). When critical ingenuity fails to find an inconsistency with a given argument, it takes the argument in: it uses it to update one’s understanding of the world. If critical conviction fails to find fault with an argument, on the contrary, it will simply move on to demolish the next one. The argumentative reasoners described in Sect. 2 possess skills that are appropriate for critical conviction (including a capacity to evaluate arguments fairly), but their proneness for delusion, bad faith and the myside bias stand in the way of both individual and collective ingenuity. 3.2 Reasoning as a Hybrid Practice In practice, all four modes of reasoning are likely to mingle. The development of industrial scientific research in American pharmaceutical firms is a case in point (Shapin 2009: 94 sq.). The firms started to hire scientific researchers because they needed specialists to deal with such bodies as the Food and Drugs Administration. Those scientists hired to respond to the FDA’s critiques originally served a persuasive purpose. It made sense to ask scientists what governmental reactions to such or such a product might be, and anticipate costly procedures. This work of pre-emptive legal control was quite similar to the task of 10

Just like ingenuity may be collective, conviction might be individual. Persuaders are typically distinct from their target, but there may be such a thing as solitary self-conviction. A smoker who forces herself to think of all the unpleasant consequences if smoking is not exactly pondering whether to stop smoking. In a sense, she is trying to bring a recalcitrant brain to follow her decision.

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the FDA itself. As the scientists became increasingly knowledgeable about the medicines’ effects and sideeffects, this allowed them to evaluate drug projects not just from the perspective of the FDA, but from that of the industry as well (critical ingenuity). Eventually the knowledge they had used to smooth the relations between the firms and the government proved very useful in devising new drugs—closing the loop from critical conviction to heuristic ingenuity without quitting their job. For an individual instance of hybrid reasoning, consider Tom Hagen, from Mario Puzo’s series The Godfather. As the only non-Italian figure of the clan, and the legal vitrine of an illegal group, Hagen’ hybrid status is a major theme of the series. He exemplifies the duality of reasoning. He is, first of all, the lawyer of the family. In that capacity, he defends it in Senate hearings. His true position within the clan is more specific, but similar in spirit: he is the consigliere, the dedicated go-between in charge of diplomatic dealings with other Cosa Nostra families, and chief advisor to the Don. As lawyer and as consigliere, Hagen uses conviction to rebuke accusations and to advance Corleone interests, but that is not all: he also advises the family on its illegal activities. Hagen generally provides conservative guidance: he tries to prevent actions that he may not be able to defend (in court, or in negotiations with other clans). As he tries to make the Corleone cause easier to argue for, he is most keenly aware of the legal or diplomatic risks and opportunities offered by different moves. This is precisely what makes him a good Mafia Don—a function that he happens to fulfil for a while. People like Tom Hagen may need, above all, an additional virtue of reasoning, the Aristotelian skill of mediete: the ability to steer a course between two extremes. ‘Tom Hagens’ need not seek the virtues of ingenuity or conviction, but they do need to avoid the excesses of both.

Reasons, in the argumentative theory, are like quality labels. Like labels, they serve partially competing ends: producers use them to sell their products, and consumers to buy better quality products. Obviously, the objectives of better sales and better quality are compatible only to a point. Beyond that point, the use of labels is unstable—they will not be produced, or they will not be trusted. Likewise, argumentation cannot be a stable practice unless a concern for ingenuity balances the search for conviction. The only reason why people listen to arguments is because it may further their understanding of some relevant matter. Argumentation is impossible without a practice of collective ingenuity (or without people at least believing that they are engaged in such a practice). No walkies, no talkies. In other words, argumentation only makes sense because participants chiefly use it to acquire information or to solve problems. Those participants may be somewhat peripheral to the conversation (as happens when we listen to a political debate where participants are really trying to convince us, and not their interlocutors). Still, their presence is essential. The motivation to persuade others, on the other hand, is not essential to the stability of the practice. Quite the opposite. There is nothing contradictory with a debate of altruistic, ingenious arguers, where each participant would be motivated to move the conversation towards better solutions, and let the chips fall where they may. There is something of a contradiction in a debate where nobody (not even peripheral participants) could ever be made to accept any argument. Some argumentative theories would say as much, but they may have a problem.

3.3 Argumentation is a Form of Collective Ingenuity

4 What the Virtues of Ingenuity Bring to Argumentation

How does argumentation fit in all this? I contend that argumentation is similarly hybrid. Arguers are not the Bertrand Russels that the classical Enlightenment view depicts. Neither are they like Zhou En Lai. Less gloriously, perhaps, they are Tom Hagens—they need to combine the virtues of conviction with those of ingenuity, without giving in to the vices of either. Argumentation, this suggests, is not served well when most arguers put the demands of conviction above everything else. The two functions of reasoning are like the two parts of a walkie-talkie system: the point of having a talkie is that others use a walkie, and vice versa. In the case at hand, what ‘walkies’ seek in others’ arguments is informations and solutions to problems— i.e., ingenuity.

The problem is: There is nothing in the psychology of argumentative reasoners that drives them specifically towards ingenuity. Argumentative reasoners are capable of changing their mind in response to others’ arguments. But they have no specific drive to use this ability. They readily fail to evaluate other people’s reasons; they decide to invent elaborate counter-arguments instead of considering them. Or they accept favourable arguments as a matter of course, and scrutinize only those that oppose their views. In short, nothing prevents them from behaving as pure critical persuaders. This does not mean conversation may not occasionally change their mind. (They may switch to positions are easier to argue for.) Such changes, however, would happen only in the interest of conviction.

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4.1 What Argumentation Does not Explain About Our Biases Why should people put the interests of conviction above those ingenuity? Argumentative views of reasoning are sometimes interpreted as defending two positions: a.

An argumentative view implies that people should prioritize conviction over ingenuity. b. Therefore, an argumentative view explains why they do so: it explains bad faith, myside biases, and various delusions. Position (a) is a misinterpretation. Most argumentative views reject it (Mercier and Sperber 2011: 94 sq., McCloskey 1998: 160 sq.). Argumentation is a hybrid practice: it cannot be sustained if everyone wishes to be a persuader above all. The status of position (b) is not so clear. It is worth insisting, therefore, that the argumentative nature of reasoning does not account for bad faith, delusion, overconfidence, motivated reasoning, belief perseveration, etc. It does not tell us what makes some people shut their ears and argue every objection away. Mercier and Sperber’s argumentative theory, for instance, is in my view best seen as treating reasoning, in good Humean fashion, as a purely instrumental faculty—a gun for hire.11 People will lucidly evaluate arguments when they have no axe to grind. Otherwise, they will be biased. This tells us very little about the motivations that compel us, sometimes, to use reasoning for conviction rather than ingenuity, rather than the other way round.12 If argumentation does not explain bad faith, delusion, and the myside bias, what might? Many students of argumentative disagreement have suggested that a concern for our reputation or self-image may explain why we cling to our views when faced with cogent counter-arguments (Haidt 2013; Kurzban 2012; Piper 1988). Robert Kurzban (2012) argues that the main function of consciousness is to 11

The expression is Herbert Simon’s (1983: 8). This personal intepretation is, I think, both coherent and charitable. Mercier and Sperber attribute a variety of contradictory motivations to reasoners, depending on the context. The abstract tells us that ‘‘Skilled arguers (…) are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views’’, and many readers have found this a reason to conclude that the argumentative theory puts a premium on conviction rather than ingenuity. However, Mercier & Sperber often make what looks like the opposite claim. In the ‘‘normal context’’ of argumentative reasoning, ‘‘people (…) disagree but have a common interest in the truth’’(2011, p. 65). It is not clear exactly what motivations an argumentative context should trigger—a preoccupation for truth, or a tendency to disregard the truth. The answer seems to be that it all depends on people’s motivations : on whether or not they have ‘‘an axe to grind’’ (see Mercier and Sperber 2011, section 6). Why people may or may not want to grind that axe is left unspecified by the theory. 12

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serve as a kind of ‘‘press secretary’’ of the mind. Our main goal in many conversations is to project an image of coherence, confidence, and competence, for others but also for ourselves. As a result, collective ingenuity will have to take second place to egotic concerns. To put this in the language of vices and virtues, delusion, bad faith and the myside bias would come from pride. In a similar spirit (but with very different arguments) Adam Piper (1988) argues that ‘‘pseudorationality’’ , the tendency to rationalize away dissonant experiences, stems from a drive to maintain one’s image as a coherent mind: ‘‘we have a deeply ingrained, motivationally effective aversion to rational unintellegibility, because it threatens the rational coherence of the self as having that experience’’ (p. 301). Thus the urge to justify ourselves to others would come from a desire to appear coherent. In both these views, it should be stressed, the drive to persuade does not explain the vices. Protecting one’s reputation, or one’s self-esteem, is not the same thing as persuading others. Conviction can be a humbling task. One might have to persuade people that they have won an argument (even when they haven’t). Sometimes it is essential to appear not to win. Thus, when Tom Hagen convinces Frank Pentangeli to commit suicide (in exchange for Corleone protection for his clan after his death) he offers only vague suggestions. Pentangeli is allowed to believe that he won a good bargain. Being persuasive and scoring points in a conversation are two different things. Whether the vices of conviction are born for pride or originate elsewhere does not matter much for the point made here. Suffice it to say that an argumentative view of reasoning is no argument for the view that people should put conviction first, and no explanation for the fact that they so often do so. 4.2 The Argumentative Case for Being Ingenious To summarize, argumentative reasoners do lack something: a motivation to put ingenuity first. Most argumentative views do not say that we are exclusively moved by conviction. On the other hand, they do focus on the persuasive uses of reasoning, to the point where some readers end up thinking that conviction and ingenuity are at least equally important for argumentation. In fact the two motivations are not equally valuable. An excessive focus on conviction may harm, even destroy, the practice of argumentation, while the reverse is less likely. Argumentation would collapse if every arguer pursued conviction only. It would remain stable if people merely wanted to engage in collective ingenuity regardless of whether the process ended up in persuading others or not. True, their arguments may be much less vivid, much less

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accessible in that case, but the practice itself would not be jeopardized. Argumentation is collective problem-solving, with the occasional benefits of influencing others—not the other way round. The hybrid character of reasoning also makes ingenious motivations more valuable. Collective ingenuity has side benefits for individual reasoning (in the form of critical ingenuity). They have been theorized since Aristotle (Aristotle, Sophistic Refutations p. 175a—Aristotle 2004b): a lucid appraisal of other people’s reasons may help us evaluate our own thoughts. Persuasive reasoning does not have such wide-ranging benefits; on the contrary, the argumentative theory of reasoning shows how a disposition to put conviction first can harm individual ingenuity. Admittedly, ingenuity has vices as well. Critics of scientism and of the ‘‘engineering mentality’’ have denounced at length the obscurity of callous technicians, the over-reach of political extremists, the folly of thinking that certain issues can be ‘‘solved’’ as though they were jigsaw puzzles (McCloskey 1998; Hayek 1955; Gambetta and Hertog 2009). Those vices are most threatening in minorities—experts, avant-gardes, activists—insulated from the broader conversation. Argumentative approaches are right to stress the limits of isolated reasoners, and the perils of impoverished diversity of opinions in a group. Yet, just like a balanced conversation offering a rich collection of views can redeem the vices of conviction, the vices of ingenuity may be mitigated in many conversations.

5 Conclusion While commenting on Enlightenment rationalists and the way they praised detachment, thoroughness and lucidity, Deirdre McCloskey notes that this tradition was ‘‘not much more than an appeal to be honest and thoughtful’’ (1998: 145). I have tried to show that praising the scholarly virtues implies more than that. Being honest and thoughtful, perhaps, is not the point. Some authors (as diverse as Jonathan Haidt, Amelia Rorty, or Stephen Shapin) argue that our propensities for delusion, bad faith and myside bias can be countered by civility. When trust and respect prevail in a discussion, when participants are humble, open-minded, intellectually fair, then the vices that often come with conviction can do little harm. They may even be used to serve a greater good. If this view is correct, we should not care much about being systematic or clear-sighted. Less specific virtues should suffice: be honest, be thoughtful, and do what you will. This paper proposes a different view: collective reasoning without the virtues of ingenuity is vulnerable—and

no amount of civility can change this. Reasoners who fail to be thorough will let themselves be guided by the assumptions of those around them. Institutions of pluralistic debate were invented to counter this problem, but outside of these, people are prisoners of parochial opinions. Reasoners lacking in detachment will similarly fail to reap the benefits of public argument: they will prefer convincing solutions to satisfactory ones. A lack of lucidity, at first, may not be strongly felt, but delusion is like inflation. In the long run, overconfidence debases argumentation. Inflated arguments are not worth paying attention to—and deluded arguers are unable to revise their beliefs anyhow. The consequences for argumentation are worrying. Lucidity, thoroughness and detachment are, after all, dominant only in a minority (albeit a quite substantial one—Stanovich and West 2000). Methods for ‘‘debiasing’’ people have yielded mixed (though not hopeless) results (Lilienfeld et al. 2009). Socrates’ bliss is not within the reach of everyone. Some doubt that it can be acquired at all. This seems to imply that argumentation is doomed. Although I do think that fruitful argumentation is less stable or natural than some might assume, this paper should not end on a pessimistic note. The heroic cases of ingenuity that we have come across may be too remote to emulate, but we can be satisfied with less ambitious goals. One such goal is moderation—Tom Hagen’s skill. Reasoning and argumentation, I have argued, are hybrid practices, best served by a mix of ingenuity and conviction. We need not cultivate the virtues of both, just avoid most of their vices. Furthermore, domain-specific ingenuity, some studies suggest (Kruglanski and Webster 1996), is easier to reach than across-the-board ingenuity. Perhaps this is not so worrying: we could rein our biases in in some domains only, and give in to bad faith when, say, talking about football or food. Thomas Kuhn suggested such a selective allocation of the virtues of reasoning when he commended firmness to scientists, but not to engineers. One other realistic goal is ecological ingenuity. Current scientific institutions could find better ways of promoting it: scientists who try their best to refute their own precious results (like Bertrand Russell did) are hardly rewarded at all. Concerns are rising that current institutions promote superficially persuasive results which fail to withstand further scrutiny (Ioannidis 2012, see also Merton 1996b). In this context, the old-fashioned rhetoric of the Enlightenment may be more relevant than it seems. Norms of good reasoning are not just for show: the norms that people explicitly endorse are reflected in their way of thinking, especially in their vulnerability to the myside bias (Baron 1995; Stanovich and West 2000). Bacon and Descartes’ ingenuity-mongering may have been excessive, but its

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cultural significance was deep13: The vices of persuasion are not in our genes, nor are they demanded by the practice of argumentation. Ingenuity is not praised in vain. References Annas J (2003) The structure of virtue. In: DePaul MR, Zagzebski L (eds) Intellectual virtue: perspectives from ethics and epistemology. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp 15–34 Aristotle (1991) The art of rhetoric. Penguin Books, Westminster Aristotle (2004a) The nicomachean ethics. Penguin Books, Westminster Aristotle (2004b) On sophistical refutations. Kessinger Publishing, Whitefish Bacon F (2000) Francis Bacon: the new organon. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Baron J (1995) Myside bias in thinking about abortion. Think Reason 1:221–235 Billig M (1996) Arguing and thinking: a rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Coffa A (1979) The humble origins of Russell’s Paradox. Russell (33–34):31–37 Descartes R (1824) Discours de la me´thode. In: Victor C (ed) Œuvres. Paris, Levrault Doris JM (2002) Lack of character: personality and moral behavior. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Ennis RH (1996) Critical thinking dispositions: their nature and assessability. Informal Log 18(2–3):165–182 Fricker M (2007) Epistemic injustice. Oxford University Press, Cambridge Gambetta D, Hertog S (2009) Why are there so many engineers among islamic radicals? Eur J Sociol. http://journals.cambridge. org/action/displayJournal?jid=EUR, Accessed March 22, 2013 Gigerenzer G (2000) Adaptive thinking: rationality in the real world. Oxford University Press, Oxford Giubilini A, Minerva F (2012) After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? J Med Ethics. doi:10.1136/medethics-2011-100411 Haidt J (2013) The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, NewYork Hardin R (2002) The crippled epistemology of extremism. In: Breton A, Galeotti G, Salmon P, Wintrobe R (eds) Political extremism and rationality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp 3–23 Hayek F (1955) The counter-revolution of science: studies on the abuse of reason. Free Press, New York Hookway C (2003) How to be a virtue epistemologist. In: DePaul MR, Zagzebski L (eds) Intellectual virtue: perspectives from ethics and epistemology. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp 183–203 Ioannidis JPA (2012) Why science is not necessarily self-correcting. Perspect Psychol Sci 7(6):645–654 Kitcher P (1990) The division of cognitive labor. J Philos 87(1):5–22 Kruglanski AW, Webster DM (1996) Motivated closing of the mind: ‘‘Seizing’’ and ‘‘Freezing’’. Psychol Rev 103(2):263–283 Kuhn TS (1977) The essential tension: selected studies in scientific tradition and change. University Chicago Press, Chicago Kurzban R (2012) Why everyone (else) is a hypocrite: evolution and the modular mind. Princeton University Press, Princeton Latour B (2004) La fabrique du droit: une ethnographie du conseil d’e´tat. De´couverte/Poche; Sciences Humaines Et Sociales, 191. Paris: La De´couverte Lilienfeld S, Ammirati R, Landfield K (2009) Giving debiasing away: can psychological research on cognitive errors promote human welfare? Perspect Psychol Sci 4(4):390–398 13

Joel Mokyr, for instance, argues that the ‘‘Industrial Enlightenment’’ inspired by the Baconian programme helped spread a culture of ingenuity that had an unprecedented economic impact.

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