Faculty Research and Publications

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Asking before arguing? consent in argumentation
(Springer, 2023) Stevens, Katharina; Casey, John
Arguments involve, at minimum, attempts at presenting something that an audience will take to be a reason. Reasons, once understood, affect an addressee’s beliefs in ways that are in some significant sense outside of their direct voluntary control. Since such changes may impact the well-being, life projects, or sense of self of the addressee, they risk infringing upon their autonomy. We call this the “autonomy worry” of argumentation. In light of this worry, this paper asks whether one ought to seek an addressee’s consent before arguing with them. We first consider the view that arguing of any sort and on any topic requires consent. However, such a view is extreme, and we reject the general requirement of consent because argument contains its own internal permission structure. We find, however, that this permission structure is not always operative, and that consent may nonetheless be morally required in certain kinds of cases.
Avoiding toxic charity in argumentation
(Springer, 2025) Stevens, Katharina
The interpersonal argumentative principle of charity is widely regarded as a legitimate norm for argumentation. Still, even a cursory look into the literature on argumentative charity reveals that charitable interpretations can easily become toxic. This means that they generate epistemic and moral losses by leading to distorting interpretations instead of preventing them, as the arguments for charity promise. This paper explores why argumentative charity becomes toxic and offers an attempt at identifying a kind of argumentative charity that fulfills the promises that make argumentative charity attractive. It does so by distinguishing three kinds of charity: Egocentric charity, which interprets the argument as strong from the interpreter’s point of view, emic charity, which interprets it as strong from the arguer’s point of view, and complex charity, which unites the two. Only complex charity can avoid toxicity.
Does rhetoric have a place in Wolhrapp's theory of argument?
(University of Windsor, 2017) Stevens, Katharina
This paper aims to determine whether rhetoric has a place in Wohlrapp's theory of argumentation. Wohlrapp's own attitude towards rhetoric is ambiguous. There are passages in his book where he grants that rhetoric might have a role to play when it comes to the subjective side of argumentation. Overall, however, he views rhetoric with deep suspicion. I argue that in spite of Wohlrapp's negative attitude, his theory of argumentation would benefit from integrating a theory of rhetoric. I take Wohlrapp's concepts of frame and insight as a starting point to make my case.
Humility as a necessary virtue in common-law decision making
(Taylor & Francis, 2023) Stevens, Katharina
Humility holds a modest but important place among the judicial virtues. But in spite of its growing popularity, it does not yet have a place on the ‘central judicial virtues’ lists. This paper provides an argument that judicial humility, especially institutional judicial humility, should be considered a necessary judicial virtue at least in common-law jurisdictions. This is because it is a necessary ingredient in precedent-based decisions that are fully justified from the point of view of the law and of political morality. Further, while it is sufficient that individual judges make decisions that a humble judge would have made, the judicial community must in fact be humble in order to produce fully justified common-law decisions – humility is therefore necessary as a community-virtue.
On the puzzling death of the sanctity-of-life argument
(Springer, 2020) Stevens, Katharina
The passage of time influences the content of the law and therefore also the validity of legal arguments. This is true even for charter-arguments, despite the widely held view that constitutional law is made to last. In this paper, I investigate the reason why the sanctity-of life argument against physician assisted suicide lost its validity between the Supreme Court decision in Rodriguez v. British Columbia in 1993 and Carter v. Canada in 2015. I suggest that a rhetorical approach to argument evaluation is the best basis for a satisfying explanation
Silence at the meta-level: a story about argumentative cruelty
(Penn State University Press, 2022) Stevens, Katharina
One way in which we may be able to legitimately determine the norms that will guide our arguments is by using meta-dialogues. Unfortunately, situations where meta-dialogues are actually needed are also often situations of power inequality so that arguers may feel that it is too risky to attempt initiating a meta-dialogue. I argue that argumentative smothering is a high risk here, and that we therefore cannot rely on meta-dialogues to solve the problems of determining argumentative norms.
Sophisms and contempt for autonomy
(Penn State University Press, 2024) Stevens, Katharina
Argumentation theory tends to treat the distinction between intentional and unin- tentional fallacies—sophisms and paralogisms—as unimportant for the evaluation of argumentation. The article author believes this is so because argumentation the- ory tends to be focused on the epistemic functions of argumentation and fallacious arguments pose the same threat to the production of epistemic goods whether they are intentional or not, so the distinction is not needed for the epistemic evalua- tion of argumentation. This article argues that argumentation has a special connec- tion to respect for autonomy, one that enables it to also produce distinctly moral goods. Sophisms, but not paralogisms, spoil these goods. Worse—sophisms produce potentially continuing moral harms, while paralogisms do not. Therefore, the paralogism/sophism distinction should be reintegrated into argumentation theory's evaluative toolbox. duce potentially continuing moral harms, while paralogisms do not. Therefore, the paralogism/sophism distinction should be reintegrated into argumentation theory’s
Trump, snakes, and the power of fables
(University of Windsor, 2018) Stevens, Katharina
At a recent rally, Donald Trump resumed a habit he had developed during his election-rallies and read out the lyrics to a song. It tells the Aesopian fable of The Farmer and the Snake: A half frozen snake is taken in by a kind-hearted person but bites them the moment it is revived. Trump tells the fable to make a point about Islamic immigrants and undocumented immigrants from Southern and Central America: He claims the immigrants will cause problems and much stricter immigration-policies are needed. I assume that Trump treats the fable as an argumentative device for supporting his stance on immigration. He uses it as a source-analogue both for the conclusion that immigrants will cause problems and for changing the frame in which immigrants and those willing to let them enter are seen. This gives me opportunity to examine the effect fables have as argumentative devices. Fables are a popular and effective choice for political argumentation. They are slimmed down, semi-abstract narratives, well suited for directing the audience's attention to a few properties of an otherwise complex situation. However, this also makes it easy to use them for manipulating an audience into oversimplifying complex contexts and stereotyping human beings.