Stevens, Katharina

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Browsing Stevens, Katharina by Subject "Argument"

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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.
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    Charity for moral reasons? – A defense of the principle of charity in argumentation
    (Taylor & Francis, 2021) Stevens, Katharina
    In this paper I argue for a pro tanto moral duty to be charitable in argument. Further, I argue that the amount of charitable effort required varies depending on the type of dialogue arguers are engaged in. In non-institutionalized contexts, arguers have influence over the type of dialogue that will be adopted. Arguers are therefore responsible with respect to charity on two levels: First, they need to take reasons for charity into account when determining the dialogue-type. Second, they need to invest the amount of effort towards charity required by the dialogue-type.
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    The attraction of the ideal has no traction on the real: on adversariality and roles in argument
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018) Stevens, Katharina; Cohen, Daniel
    If circumstances were always simple and all arguers were always exclusively concerned with cognitive improvement, arguments would probably always be cooperative. However, we have other goals and there are other arguers, so in practice the default seems to be adversarial argumentation. We naturally inhabit the heuristically helpful but cooperation-inhibiting roles of proponents and opponents. We can, however, opt for more cooperative roles. The resources of virtue argumentation theory are used to explain when proactive cooperation is permissible, advisable, and even mandatory – and also when it is not.