IEP 511: Environmental Decision Making

AWAYMAVE - The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Week 8, What forms of communication are included and precluded in proper deliberation? Rhetoric and its problems.

The rhetoric of deliberation

Please read chapter 10 'The Rhetoric of deliberation' available on the discussion site.

A. Kant deliberation and rhetoric

1. Public use of reason

We noted in the last section that recent work on deliberative democracy has Kantian roots. Deliberative institutions are taken to be embodiments of the "public use of reason" that Kant takes to define the enlightenment project: the "freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters" is a condition for the emergence of maturity - the capacity and courage "to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another" (Kant (1784) pp.54-55)

In developing this position the deliberative theorist calls upon the distinction between reason and power. Thus Kant contrasts reason and "dictatorial authority" : "For reason has no dictatorial authority; its verdict is always simply the agreement of free citizens, of whom each one must be permitted to express, without let or hindrance, his objections or even his veto." (Kant (1933) A738/B766.) Similarly Habermas in drawing the distinction between strategic and communicative actions distinguishes between the force of institutional and personal power and the impersonal force of argument, "the forceless force of the better argument".

The distinction that Habermas and Kant draw upon here is an ancient one that goes back as far as Plato's criticisms of the sophists. Plato there calls upon a contrast between rhetoric and reason. He distinguishes between two forms of persuasion "one providing conviction without knowledge (rhetoric), the other providing knowledge (dialectic)" (Plato Gorgias 454e). Rhetoric is concerned with producing conviction in its audience without knowledge and without reason. Unlike specific sciences such as mathematics it persuades not by teaching but by flattery. It issues not in learning but mere conviction. It is not properly an art at all, but a mere knack.

Plato's text is still the starting point for much subsequent discussion. You can find it at:
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/Projects/digitexts/plato/gorgias/gorgias.html

This contrast between rhetoric and rational discourse is central to the Kantian model of deliberative institutions which belongs to the long anti-rhetorical tradition that can be traced back to Plato. Rhetoric is presented as an art of deceit which, since it aims at persuasions without reason, is inconsistent with respect for the autonomy of the hearer. Thus Kant himself while he allows rhetoric a place in the arts which make no claim to be making assertions of truth, it has no place in discourses that do make such claims:

'Poetry plays with illusion, which it produces at will, and yet without using illusion to deceive us, for poetry tells us that its pursuit is mere play...Oratory [on the other hand], insofar as this is taken to mean the art of persuasion (ars oratoria), i.e. of deceiving by beautiful illusion, rather than excellence of speech (eloquence and style), is a dialectic that borrows from poetry only as much as the speaker needs in order to win over people's minds for his own advantage before they can judge for themselves, and so make their judgement unfree.'

2. Public choice/rhetorical response: reason as power

There is a standard sophist response to this tradition which is to be found in both ancient and modern texts.

Ancient Sophism: The distinction between reasoned persuasion and other forms of compulsion is denied. All deliberation is ultimately an art of rhetoric understood as an art of manipulation.

A fine version of this view is to be found in Gorgias Praise of Helen. Reading the fragment that remains, especially 8-15. This can be found at: http://www.phil.vt.edu/MGifford/phil2115/Helen.htm

Question: Gorgias claims of Helen that if she was persuaded by speech she did not do wrong. Do you think this is right? Is there a contrast to be drawn between the force of speech and the other forms of force that Gorgias outlines? In particular is there a distinction to be drawn between rational dialogue and manipulative or strategic uses of language?

Modern sophism:
Some versions of postmodern theory similarly deny there is a clear distinction to drawn between rational deliberation and other forms of persuasion. Strategic uses often typical of deliberative institutions in practice should not be understood as mere mis-uses that fall short of the standards of proper deliberation. They are all one could expect. They reveal the ways in which truth and objectivity themselves are mere rhetorical ploys that are designed to move an audience.

Against the new sophism
There is a performative contradiction at operation in the authors' utterances in making these claims. If one took the claims seriously, one could not take seriously their acts of saying them.

However while there may be problems with the strong sophist rejection of the distinction between reason and rhetoric it does not follow that there are not major problems in the Kantian view. The strong rhetorical position needs to be kept distinct from weaker positions which allow the legitimacy of rhetorical dimensions of public deliberation without holding that all communication is strategic (Young's 1996, 2000 defence of rhetoric can be read in this way). There may be dimensions of communication that are a proper part of public deliberation, which are consistent with respect for the autonomy of the hearer, but which Kantian models of deliberation exclude.

Two features of public discourse highlighted by rhetorical analysis are of particular importance in this regard: testimony and the role of emotions.

1. Reason and authority: 'the only remaining authority is that of a good argument'.
There is very little we believe only on the authority of argument - most of what we believe we do so no the basis of testimony. We rely upon credible sources of knowledge and necessarily so.
In public policy this gives rise to problems of trust and credibility. In context of scientific uncertainty and contested scientific claim the citizen asks 'Who do I believe?' What sources of knowledge are trustworthy?

2. Role of appeal to emotions
Deliberation aims at decision. Hence it has to move individuals not just instruct them.

Both of these, in the Kantian perspective, are potential sources of heteronomy.

• "Testimony requires us to attend to persons, not propositions. However to believe something on the basis of the authoritativeness of the person and not on the basis of reasons is to make oneself dependent upon another.
• To be moved by emotions is likewise to be governed by something independent of judgement. Moreover, that something is not ultimately the objects of our passions but other persons" (Kant, 1974, 269-70).

Since rhetoric is concerned both with the self-presentation of the trustworthiness of the speaker and with addressing the emotions of the hearer, it is incompatible with respect for autonomy.

Questions:

Can these features of public deliberation be eliminated from public deliberation?
Are they incompatible with reasoned discourse and autonomy?

A difference between Aristotle's account of rhetoric and public deliberations is its denial of the Platonic contrast between reasoned discourse and rhetoric which the Kantian model inherits. We will consider if the Aristotelian account is more defensible.

B. Aristotle and rhetoric

Read Aristotle Rhetoric book One, chapters 1 and 2 available at
http://eserver.org/philosophy/aristotle/rhetoric.txt

It is from Aristotle that we have the standard definition of rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion: "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" (Aristotle 1946 Book I.2). But Aristotle also rejects the account of rhetoric as persuasion without reason. Hence he begins the Rhetoric with criticism of previous models of rhetoric for ignoring the place of argument in the art (Aristotle 1946 Book I.1). Rhetoric is not set in opposition to rational argument: rather rhetoric presupposes it. Rhetoric deals in those forms of persuasion that essentially employ language. Aristotle outlines three modes of persuading through words:

1. providing arguments themselves that are persuasive;
2. exhibiting the authoritative and virtuous character of the speaker;
3. moving the emotions of the audience.

1. Persuasive argument:

Dialectical and logical argument. Aristotle distinguishes logical and dialectical argument thus:

a. Logic deals in demonstrative inferences from premises that 'true and primary' that is, 'believed not on the strength of anything else but themselves' such that 'it is improper to ask any further why and wherefore of them'.

b. Dialectical argument

• Employs persuasive arguments, or to use Burnyeat's apt phrase 'relaxed arguments', that is arguments that are not deductively valid, but make justifiable claims on the rational mind.
• Reasons from endoxa, authoritative opinions: 'it reasons from opinions that are generally accepted....which are accepted by everyone or by the majority or by the philosophers - i.e. by all, or by the majority, or by the most notable and illustrious of them...'. Such opinions form the starting point for inquiry: we need to begin from 'what is known to us', not from propositions known 'unconditionally' that form the starting point for logical inquiry.

2. The presentation of character.

But since rhetoric exists to affect the giving of decisions - the hearers decides between one political speaker and another, and a legal verdict is a decision - the orator must not only try to make the argument of his speech demonstrative and worthy of belief; he must also make his own character look right and put his hearers, who are to decide, in the right frame of mind.

3. The appeal to emotions

The emotions themselves answer to reason and are open to rational persuasion. This point is a central part to what distinguishes Aristotelian defence of rhetoric from the anti-rhetorical tradition in philosophy.

C. Testimony rhetoric and character

Environment, trust and testimony
Issues of trust and credibility are central to a large number of problems in public policy which involve scientific expertise and are subject to controversy. The citizen has to make judgements about whose testimony is trustworthy, who is credible. This is a problem that the various ‘new’ deliberative institutions such as citizens’ juries and citizens’ panels often address. The problem of a decline in trust in ‘scientific expertise’ forms the starting point of many practical applications of deliberative institutions, particularly those applied to risk. It is in part for that reason that environmental spheres have been such a prominent site for experiments in deliberative democracy.

The Aristotelian model of public deliberation appears to deal better than the Kantian account with issues of testimony and trust.

Credibility:

For Aristotle credibility has two dimensions

epistemological - the speaker must have good sense and be reliable in the formation of judgements
ethical - the speaker must have the moral character that allows us to trust their utterance and there must be grounds for believing that they are not inclined to impart falsehoods to their audience

False statements and bad advice are due to one or more of the following three causes. Men either from a false opinion through want of good sense; or they form a true opinion, but because of their moral badness do not say what they really think; or finally, they are both sensible and upright, but not be well disposed to their hearers...

In contrast to the Kantian position, for Aristotle, evaluation of the character of sources of belief is central to our most basic knowledge claims.

Credibility, institutions and politics

In the modern world the issue of credible testimony has an institutional and political focus: testimony is offered to us by strangers, by 'spokespersons' and 'experts', who call upon us to believe what they say on the basis of certification from institutions - academic, industrial, commercial and political.

What institutions deserve epistemological trust in what conditions?

Any answer requires a political epistemology concerning conditions of trust, and a corresponding social and political theory about its institutional preconditions.

The association of evaluative practices with positions of social power and wealth for example induces quite proper scepticism about its reliability.

Credibility and the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK)

Much that goes by the name of anti-realism and relativism in SSK is in fact aimed at a form of intellectualism, that makes the credibility of a claim purely a matter of how well it is supported by other propositions.

Shapin:SSK rejects the view that:

The credibility and the validity [sic.] of a proposition ought to be one and the same. Truth shines by its own lights...Once upon a time...students of sciences...believed that truth was its own recommendation, or if not that, something very like it. If one wanted to know, and one rarely did, why it was that true propositions were credible, one was referred back to their truth, to the evidence for them, or to those methodical procedures the unambiguous following of which testified to the truth of the product.

If the issue is one of credibility of knowledge-claims and not their truth, then it is quite proper to point to the variety of social causes of credibility.
It does not follow that truth or knowledge are thereby social constructions unless one already accepts a naive cognitivist identification of credibility and truth.
Neither does it follow that credibility is a sufficient condition of knowledge or that it is a necessary condition - that 'no credibility, no knowledge'.

D. Autonomy, maturity and emotion

Classical distinction between rhetoric and dialectic

• Dialectic has theoretical aims - truth
• Rhetoric has practical aims - to move an audience to action.

The difference maps onto the traditional distinctions between being instructed and being moved.

Question:

Does an appeal to the emotions render deliberation irrational? Consider that question before continuing.

The anti-rhetorical tradition: the appeal to emotion renders rhetoric irrational.

Kant on the emotions:

Emotions are feelings, capacities for psychological sensations of pleasure or pain that might sometimes accompany cognitive states but they are themselves without any cognitive dimension. (Kant, The Doctrine of Virtue: Part II of The Metaphysic of Morals, 210-11)

Since the passions are non-cognitive it follows that reasoned discourse cannot appeal to the emotions.

Hence it follows that appeals to the emotion move us without engaging our judgements.

As such they render the agent passive, someone who is impelled to act without rational deliberation and choice. Hence, to move an agent by appeal to emotions is to render them unfree. Thus rhetoric is rejected as inconsistent with reason and autonomy.

Aristotle and the rationality of the emotions

The emotions themselves answer to reason and are open to rational persuasion. This point is central part to what distinguishes Aristotelian defence of rhetoric from the anti-rhetorical tradition in philosophy.

The emotions are open to the appraisal of reason:

We can be afraid, e.g., or be confident, or have appetite, or get angry, or feel pity, in general have pleasure or pain, both too much and too little, and in both ways not well; but [having these feelings] at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediate and best condition, and this is proper to virtue.

Because emotions have this dimension they are open to appraisal. They can be appropriate or inappropriate, felt at the right time, of the right things, for the right reasons or not.

I feel anger because a distant relative forgets my birthday - the emotion is irrational, since I know that no slight is intended. I feel anger at the dismissal of a colleague: the anger is quite rational for the harm is intentional and unjustified.

It follows that the emotions are not deaf to reason, but open to the rational persuasion (Aristotle 1985 Book I ch.13). Emotions are constituted by beliefs and can be roused by addressing these. I rouse your anger by pointing to unjustified harm the logging company does. I placate your anger at a farmer who destroys a valuable habitat by placing her action in the context of grinding poverty: your anger is redirected to those responsible for this, and in its place you are moved to pity the farmer and her family. Such appeals are the stuff of everyday discourse and public debate.

Emotions and political deliberation

Aristotle:

• the role of the emotions in motivating action is not simply a case of it supplying a non-rational drive or impulse to movement.
• to educate the emotions is to develop cognitive capacities of perception and judgement, not simply behavioural tendencies to movement.

Sceptical remarks

Is there something as heroic and unrealistic about the Aristotelian version of maturity as there is about the Kantian?

• The picture of a perfect harmony between practical wisdom and emotional response is implausible of empirical agents.
• As Kant notes, there is also a passivity about emotions. On occasions we are overwhelmed by emotion, and moved to act in ways in which are against our better judgements.

The Stoic

Emotions are not the kind of states that are always open to moderation. Emotions run away with us and move us to excess. Hence the disastrous role the appeal to emotions like can anger have in public life (Seneca ‘On Anger’ J. Cooper and J. Procope eds. Seneca: Moral and Political Essays)

The Problem

Against the Stoic: Neither the Stoic view of the emotions - that they are false judgements - nor the Stoic cure to such dangers - the elimination of the emotions - are plausible.
They fall together. The emotions do not always involve false judgements about what is of value - pity or anger felt appropriately involve true judgement and perception. Emotions are not eliminable just because they are capacities for proper judgement and concern about what matters in private and public life.

The response to the dangers of rhetorical appeals to the emotions that impel us to false judgement is not to imagine that good deliberation could do without appeal to emotions. Rather it is to design institutions to minimise the dangers that follow.