Arguments cannot solve our problems all by themselves. Even good seed cannot grow on infertile soil, so audiences must be receptive before arguments can accomplish anything. To nurture their receptivity, we need many other virtues, including modesty, graciousness, civility, patience and forgiveness. But if all of that has to be present in advance, what further good can arguments really do that these other virtues have not already done?

Who is the slave?

Many cynics and sceptics will dismiss reasoning right from the start. They deny that reason and argument have as much power as I claim. Sometimes these sceptics deny that reason and argument have any power at all. In their view, reason does nothing – because they believe that emotion does it all. According to them, we are driven completely by our emotions, feelings and desires rather than by reason or beliefs – much less arguments.

In support of this view, such critics often quote the early modern philosopher David Hume, who notoriously said, ‘Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.’1 This simple slogan is catchy, but Hume’s considered views are much more complex and subtle:

[I]n order to pave the way for such a sentiment [or emotion], and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained … [I]n many orders of beauty, particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ much reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be corrected by argument and reflection. There are just grounds to conclude, that moral beauty partakes much of this latter species, and demands the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in order to give it a suitable influence on the human mind.2

Hume here explains how reasoning often precedes, influences and corrects emotions, especially on moral matters. If reason is a slave, this slave sometimes guides its master.

One lesson from Hume’s passage is that the contrast between reason and emotion is a false dichotomy. We need not – and should not – hold either that emotion does everything and reason does nothing, or that reason does everything and emotion does nothing. Instead, emotion can be guided by reason. Indeed, emotions can be reasons, such as when fear indicates danger or happiness is evidence of having made a good choice. And strong emotion can be backed by strong reasons, such as when I get very angry that someone raped my friend. Reason does not always require us to remain calm and cold. The rational and emotional aspects of our nature do and should work together as allies in shaping our judgements and decisions. They need not conflict or compete.

Hume was analysing moral and aesthetic judgements, but his point applies as well to personal, political and religious disputes. Cynics often claim that people pick their friends, political parties and religious stances on the basis of their feelings – fear, anger, hatred and disgust, but also positive attraction. They feel their way into their positions instead of reasoning or thinking about facts. They move from ‘ought’ to ‘is’ – from their beliefs about how the world ought to be to beliefs that the world really is that way.

Of course, nobody denies or should deny that emotion is crucial to hot issues. Emotion is what makes hot issues hot. Nonetheless, reason and argument also have some role to play. People would not become active and risk alienating others if they did not feel strongly about their personal, political or religious positions. At the same time, they might not feel that way if they did not think and reason about the relevant facts in the ways they do. Reason thereby affects actions, because actions are based on motivations and emotions, and those motivations and emotions are shaped by beliefs and reasoning.

To see this in a personal example, just imagine that an informant tells you that your rival for promotion in your job lied about you to your bosses, and then she got the promotion instead of you. ‘That demon! I hate her! I am going to get back at her!’ Your emotions are aroused, and they lead you to undermine her career. Your anger leads you to lie about her, but you are caught. Your boss then fires you for undermining her and the group.

The fact that your acts were so counterproductive and destructive would lead many to tag your acts as irrational and emotional. Emotions are seen as preventing reasoning that would have stopped you from getting into trouble. You would never act that way towards your rival if you did not have those emotions.

Still, you would also never have acted in that way if you did not believe that your rival had lied about you and that her lie was the reason you did not get the promotion. You trust your informant, so you reasoned from his report to reach the conclusion that your rival lied about you. Then you assumed that her lie was the best explanation for your failure to get promoted. This reasoning was what led you to feel strong negative emotions towards your rival. If you had not trusted your informant – or if you had not believed that your rival’s lie made any difference to your promotion – you would not have been nearly so angry and vengeful. Then you would have kept your job.

In this way, reason and emotion together shape behaviour. Emotions sometimes arise from aspects of the situation that have little or nothing to do with the relevant facts. However, we usually get mad at people because we believe that they have done something wrong. Our anger might then lead us to act in irrational ways, but it arises originally from a belief about the other person, and that belief can be the product of the process of reasoning. If the reasoning is faulty, then the emotion is unjustified and can lead us astray. Even if the reasoning is good, the emotion can become so strong that it prevents reasoning later on. Either way, we need to take account of both reasoning and emotion in order to understand the action. It is a mistake to think that the act results from either reason or emotion alone.

The same point holds at the social level in politics. Consider the recent Brexit vote in the UK. Opponents of Brexit, who lost the referendum, claimed that the vote was fuelled by emotions – fear of immigration, frustration with politicians and so on – which made voters forget or ignore the arguments for the economic costs of Brexit. This pattern is common. Voters who lose typically say that their opponents acted on emotion instead of reason. But think about it. There really were a lot of immigrants flooding into Europe and Britain.3 They really did have an impact on British citizens. It is true that the vote might have gone differently if British citizens had welcomed them instead of fearing them. But it is also true that the outcome of the vote would have been different if the facts had been different, for example if there had been fewer immigrants – assuming that citizens would have changed their beliefs accordingly. The vote might also have gone the other way if the British people had been convinced that the immigrants were helping them instead of taking their jobs and using up public services. These matters need to be decided by cognition, reasoning and argument. Thus, both arguments to settle the facts and emotions to see how we react to those facts play a role in determining the response. Here there is no either/or. Cynical commentators have gone too far to emphasize emotions and downplay reasoning. Reason also plays a role – not instead of but in addition to emotion.

In many cases like these, reason is not the slave of the passions, nor is passion the slave of reason. Instead of being slaves and masters, they work together as peers and allies – or at least they can.

Is there any hope?

Critics of this point of view will not give up yet. Sure, they will admit, our beliefs guide our emotions. But why think that reasoning or arguments really determine our beliefs? Our beliefs might just be post-hoc rationalizations that we make up to fit our feelings. We might really believe what we do because we want to believe that. Or we might believe it for no reason at all. Then reason and argument have nothing to do with what we believe.

This sentiment has been expressed by cynics through the ages who deny that arguments do any good:

I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument – and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes. Dale Carnegie4

Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing. Oscar Wilde⁵

Witty, huh?

It is fun to make such extreme claims, but now we need to ask whether they are correct or accurate. Of course not: they are snarky exaggerations. The truth is that, although we cannot always reason with everyone, that limitation does not prove that arguments and reasoning are never useful.

Admittedly, arguing (especially online) can be frustrating. Opponents often do not listen at all. But they do listen sometimes. I used to think that mammals did not lay eggs. Then I read on Wikipedia that monotremes are mammals that lay eggs. I could have resisted, but I didn’t. I reasoned my way to the conclusion that some mammals lay eggs, because I wanted to get it right.

I didn’t care much about monotremes – but some arguments can change our lives in major ways and lead us to act contrary to basic desires. Once I taught a course on applied ethics that discussed animal rights and vegetarianism. After the course, one student thanked me by saying, ‘Your course has made my whole family happier.’ His parents were both vegetarians, but he had not been a vegetarian himself. During the course, he had come to appreciate the arguments for vegetarianism, so he understood his parents better. Moreover, he decided to become a vegetarian. ‘Why?’ I asked. He claimed that the arguments on that side seemed stronger to him. Of course, he could have been deluded. It is possible that the arguments really had no effect. Perhaps he really wanted to get along better with his family. It’s possible, but he reported that he already got along with them very well. Maybe some horrific picture of animals suffering in a factory farm is what really turned him around. And yet I did not show any horrific pictures of animals suffering in factory farms, and he did not report seeing such pictures himself (and why would he lie or forget?). In this case, then, the arguments did at least some of the work. He became a vegetarian because the arguments gave him reasons to become a vegetarian.

Many other examples of radical conversion in the light of evidence are well documented. Megan Phelps-Roper reports that she gave up her allegiance to Westboro Baptist Church partly because:

My friends on Twitter took the time to understand Westboro’s doctrines, and in doing so, they were able to find inconsistencies I’d missed my entire life. Why did we advocate the death penalty for gays when Jesus said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?’ How could we claim to love our neighbour while at the same time praying for God to destroy them? The truth is that the care shown to me by these strangers on the internet was itself a contradiction. It was growing evidence that people on the other side were not the demons I’d been led to believe.6

Of course, her emotions towards her Twitter friends as well as her compassion for her neighbours played a large role in her conversion. But that does not mean that reason played no role. Her emotion made her listen to her Twitter friends, but she reports that the content of what they said also made a difference: ‘they were able to find inconsistencies’. She was convinced by ‘growing evidence’.

Admittedly, other members of Westboro Baptist Church did not change their beliefs. Maybe they did not listen. This shows that arguments are not always enough by themselves to ensure a certain belief or action. But nobody should expect that much. A match does not light every time you strike it. Sometimes the match or the matchbook is wet. Sometimes there is not enough friction where you strike it. Sometimes there is not enough oxygen. Moreover, sometimes the match lights without striking, such as when you light one match with another match. Thus, a cause does not have to be strictly necessary or sufficient for the effect in all circumstances. Nonetheless, when the match does light, striking the match is what causes it to light. Analogously, giving someone an argument for a conclusion can cause the audience to believe that conclusion.

Then why do cynics deny that arguments affect beliefs? This simplistic view is appealing because everyone has had the frustrating experience of giving a good argument that convinces nobody. But what does that show? Perhaps only that no one listened or understood. Maybe only that the argument was not as good as it seemed. Possibly only that the audience needed time to mull it over.

Cynicism results from unrealistic expectations. If we expect an argument to be a knock-down proof that convinces everyone immediately on first hearing, then we are bound to be disappointed. Almost no arguments work like that. If we trim our expectations to make them more realistic, and if we are patient enough to wait for effects that take a while instead of demanding immediate capitulation, then we will find that reasons and arguments can have some influence. Sometimes some arguments do change some people’s beliefs and actions slowly and partially. That weak claim might disappoint cynics who demand more, but it might also be enough to give us hope for progress.

What do we get out of arguing?

My overall goal here is to show how fascinating and important arguments are and to undermine common misunderstandings about reasons and arguments. Most people see arguments as ways to persuade other people or to beat them in some kind of verbal fight, debate or competition. That view is not all wrong, but it is limited and incomplete. Some people do present arguments as displays of prowess or power, but arguments can also play more constructive roles in social interactions.

LEARNING

Imagine that I argue with you about negotiations regarding sanctions against North Korea. I argue that China should be kept out of the negotiations. You argue that China should be allowed into the negotiations, because China will make the sanctions more effective. You refute my arguments and convince me that China should be brought in. If arguments are like fights or competitions, then you won. You convinced me. I did not convince you.

This view is backwards. You did not win much, if anything. After all, you ended up with the same view that you started with. You might not have learned anything because you refuted all of my arguments against your position. You might not even understand me or my initial position any better. Thus you gained little or nothing from our interaction, except perhaps some good feeling about winning a competition or showing me the error of my ways. That is why I doubt that you won.

In contrast, I gained a lot. I improved my view. I gained new evidence and new arguments. I understood the situation and my new position better than I did before our arguments. If what I wanted was truth, reason and understanding, then I got what I wanted. That makes me the real winner. Instead of resenting the person who refuted my arguments, I should thank them for teaching me. But to see why, we need to realize that arguments are not like fights, debates or competitions.

RESPECT

Another positive benefit of providing an argument or of asking for an argument is that doing so expresses respect for one’s audience. When you are walking your dog on a leash, and the dog turns left when you want to turn right, what do you do? You pull on the leash. What do you not do? You do not say, ‘Fido, listen to reason.’

Contrast walking your dog with walking with your partner. Your plan is to go for a pleasant evening stroll around the block in a city that you are visiting for the first time. When you get to an intersection, your partner turns left when you want to turn right. What do you do? You had better not just pull your partner to the right. Instead, you would, I hope, reason with your partner. You might say something like, ‘I think our hotel is in this direction.’ If they disagree, you might argue, ‘Didn’t we turn right, then right again, and then right again? If I remember that much correctly, then now we need to turn right in order to get back. Don’t you agree?’ You present reasons for turning right instead of just forcing your partner to turn right. The aim of giving reasons is not simply to get them to turn in the way that you want. The purpose is also to show them that you appreciate that they can understand and respond to those reasons, unlike a dog. It also shows them that you recognize that you might be wrong and they might be right. You give them a chance to respond by showing that you are wrong or that something is wrong with your argument. This kind of exchange of reasons happens between equals who respect each other and admit their own fallibility. One benefit of providing an argument is to signal that you see your relationship to the other person in this light.

The signal is sent not only when we give a reason but also when we ask for a reason. It can get very annoying when a child asks ‘Why?’ after everything you say. Still, it can also be annoying when someone does not ask why you disagree with them. You say, ‘Let’s turn right.’ Your partner responds, ‘No. Let’s turn left.’ That’s it. Nothing more. That would annoy most people, partly because we want other people to recognize that they owe us a reason, but also because we want them to be interested in our reasons. To ask ‘Why do you want to turn right?’ is to show a recognition that I am the kind of creature who can give a reason. It is a sign of respect.

HUMILITY

In addition to showing respect, another benefit of using reason and argument is that they can foster humility. If two people disagree without arguing, all they do is yell at each other. No progress is made. Both still think that they are right. In contrast, if both sides cite arguments that articulate reasons for their positions, then new possibilities open up. One possibility is that one of the arguments gets refuted – that is, shown to fail. In that case, the person who depended on the refuted argument learns that he needs to change his view. That is one way to achieve humility – on one side at least. Another possibility is that neither argument is refuted. Both have a degree of reason on their side. Even if neither interlocutor is convinced by the other’s argument, both can still come to appreciate the opposing view. They also realize that, even if they have some truth, they do not have the whole truth. They can gain humility when they recognize and appreciate the reasons for opposing their own view.

How can arguments induce such humility? The best way to reduce opponents’ overconfidence and make them more susceptible to your position might seem to be to make an overwhelming argument that shows them why they are wrong and why you are right. Sometimes that works, but only rarely.

What usually works better is to ask questions – in particular, to ask opponents for reasons. Questions are often more powerful than assertions. But which questions? We need to learn to ask the right kinds of questions, the ones that lead to productive conversations. In one experiment, Steven Sloman, professor of psychology at Brown University, and his colleagues found that, broadly speaking, asking people why they hold their beliefs leads to less humility and openness to conflicting views than asking them how their proposal works.7 The question of how cap and trade policies reduce global warming, for example, asks subjects to spell out a causal mechanism step-by-step. Subjects found it difficult to specify this mechanism, so they came to realize that they did not understand their own position well enough, and they became more moderate and open to alternative views. We can also ask ourselves similar questions. Questioning how our own plans are supposed to work will likely make us more humble and open-minded, because then we come to realize that we do not understand as much as we thought or as much as we need to.

Moreover, if we regularly ask others and ourselves such questions, then we will probably come to anticipate such questions in advance. Jennifer Lerner and Philip Tetlock, psychologists at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, have shown that accountability – expecting to need to give reasons for claims – leads people to base their positions more on relevant facts than on personal likes and dislikes.8 A context that creates such expectations – including a culture that encourages asking such questions about reasons – could then help to foster humility, understanding, reasoning and arguments that give answers to questions about reasons.

The goal of questioning and humility is not to make one lose confidence in cases where confidence is justified. Proper humility does not require one to lose all self-confidence, to give up all beliefs, or to grovel or debase oneself. One can still hold one’s beliefs strongly while recognizing that there are reasons to believe otherwise, that one might be wrong, and that one does not have the whole truth. Giving and expecting reasons along with asking and answering questions can help move us in this direction.

ABSTRACTION

Arguments can also undermine polarization. If people are more humble and modest, they are less likely to adopt extreme positions. They are also less likely to be so sure of their own positions that they think of their opponents as stupid or immoral, so they will not be so abusive and antagonistic.

There is also a less obvious way in which argument undermines polarization: it leads people to think more abstractly. When people formulate arguments for their position, for example their political stance, they usually appeal to abstract principles, such as general rights. Another method is to use analogies, but those analogies tend to rely on abstract similarities between otherwise distinct cases. Thus many common forms of argument require people to step back from details of a particular case and think about the issues from a more abstract perspective.

Abstract thinking then reduces polarization, at least in the right context. When people think about a political issue, they can think of themselves either as a citizen of their country or as a member of their particular political party. Research has shown that, when people identify with a particular political party, abstract thinking can increase polarization. In contrast, when people identify with their country as a whole, abstract thinking decreases polarization between groups inside that country.9 The mechanism behind this effect is unclear, but people who think abstractly in terms of their country appeal both to principles that bind together the whole country and also to interests that they share with other citizens. These appeals have, of course, just as much force for many of their opponents within their country, so the result is less polarization and more mutual understanding.

Of course, abstraction need not stop here. It is also possible for people to identify with their species, so that they view themselves as a human like other humans, extending the scope of their appeal across other countries. I would speculate that abstract thinking in this perspective might even help to overcome antagonism and polarization between countries.

The evidence does not suggest that political opponents will suddenly become best friends as soon as they think about their own arguments and those of their opponents. We need to be more patient than that. Nonetheless, a cultural shift towards more use of argument and a better appreciation of the arguments might have some effect on polarization by inducing more abstract thinking.

COMPROMISE

Last but not least, arguments can enable compromises. If I know your reasons for disagreeing with me, and you know my reasons for disagreeing with you, then we can work together to find an intermediate position that satisfies both of our concerns. Imagine that you favour an increase in the minimum wage because anyone who works full-time should not live in poverty, whereas I oppose increasing the minimum wage because it will reduce the number of jobs for the poor. You are concerned about poverty among workers, and I am concerned about jobs. Knowing our reasons, we can seek a compromise position that will raise as many workers as possible above poverty without costing too many jobs. If we had not given our reasons (if we had omitted the ‘because clauses’), then we would not know where to look for a compromise that we can both live with.

You might ask, ‘So what? Why do we need compromise anyway?’ Although 82 per cent of consistent liberals prefer leaders who compromise, 63 per cent of consistent conservatives prefer leaders who stick to their principles.10 Both positions can cite support. Failure to compromise can lead to war; but nevertheless some compromises are rotten.¹¹ Famous examples in the US include the Three-Fifths Compromise (which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person in calculating the population of states) and the Missouri Compromise (which allowed slavery in some areas but not others). The most infamous example in Europe is Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. There are instances – as in the cases of slavery and Hitler – in which we should not compromise. However, does this admission apply to compromises today? If people really hate their rivals as much as slavery and Hitler, then they might have reason to oppose such terrible compromises. But then the basic problem is that the two sides hate each other as much as slavery and Hitler. Without that extreme assumption, compromise would often be desirable.

Of course, no compromise is perfect. Compromise is not easy. It is not ideal. It is not without dangers. But it is still necessary. We need to be able to compromise in some cases in order to get anything done. The best compromises are constructive in the sense that they create more value and leave both sides better off. Competing parties will not know how to fashion such compromises unless they know what the other side values – and the best way to learn their values and there by to facilitate compromise is to listen carefully to their reasons and arguments.

Where do we stand now?

The problem of polarization pervades politics and cultures around the world today, as we saw in previous chapters. This chapter suggests that a better understanding of arguments and the reasons that they express can go some way towards ameliorating those problems. Why? Because reasoning and argument express respect, improve understanding, induce humility, undermine overconfidence and engender abstraction that reduces polarization and enables cooperation and compromise.

I realize that this proposal will strike many critics as overly optimistic and simplistic. Don’t I realize that arguments cannot change the world? Yes. Of course, merely learning more about the process of argument, plus giving and soliciting further arguments, cannot in itself solve all of the problems of the world. I admit that. Nonetheless, the beginning of a partial solution is not worthless just because it does not solve the whole problem in one fell swoop. My hope is that learning about argument can reduce some of the barriers that keep us apart and prevent us from working together.