Giving
Reasons in Intricate Cases: An Empirical Study in the Sociology of
Argumentation
Laszlo Lakatos
Introduction
No, at the moment there is no
such thing as a sociology of argumentation; but it would be nice to have one.
The aim of this paper is to show how a sociological approach could possibly
enrich our understanding of argumentation.
This is the fourth Amsterdam conference on argumentation, but
sociology is still missing from the wide range of disciplines present in
argumentation studies. There is a whole branch of sociology, the sociology of
knowledge, which should have been interested in argumentation studies from the
very beginning -- but it was not. Habermas' landmark work, The Theory of
Communicative Action,
should have drawn a crowd of sociologists into argumentation theory -- but it
did not. I think this is an unfortunate situation but one that will change
soon. Sociologists are already active in such neighboring fields as discourse
analysis, conversation analysis -- even rhetorical studies. It is only a matter
of time that they discover the importance of argumentation.
We cannot foresee how a future sociology of
argumentation will look like, but we can be pretty sure that it will be
organized around two main questions: first, how social reality shapes
argumentation; and second, how argumentation shapes social reality.
The first question is easier to answer. The
unequal distribution of knowledge and skills is a commonplace in sociology. It
would be easy to show that the willingness to argue and the skills of arguing
as well as the types of arguments actually used are unequally distributed in
society and depend on social factors like the gender, the educational level and
other social characteristics of the arguers. Standard statistical methods can
be used to show the correlation between the social characteristics of the
arguers and their arguments.
The second part of this paper will present
some exercises of this kind. I will analyze the responses given to an
open-ended why-question in a survey on political opinions conducted recently in
Hungary. The question first asks whether the 1992 decision of Hungary to
abandon the building of the Danube Dam -- a huge and environmentally risky
barrage system on the border river, a “joint investment” with former
Czechoslovakia -- was good or bad,
and then asks why the respondent thinks so.
This question was recently discussed in the
Hague International Court of Justice by experts of international law. The
negotiations between the two countries were unfruitful, so they opted for the
judgment of this supranational institution. The judgment came out last year and
was solomonic. It said that Hungary was not right when it abandoned the project
unilaterally, but Czechoslovakia was not right either when it continued it
unilaterally.
The mere fact that there is an international
court of justice and that the controversy between Hungary and Slovakia had a
happy ending, that the end of the conflict was not a bloody war, but a
scholarly dispute between polite lawyers, brings us back to the second main
question of the sociology of argumentation: how argumentation shapes social
reality. I will address this question in the first part of my paper. Taking the
decade-long debate on the building of the Danube Dam as a historical example, I
will show why the use of arguments (instead of force) was one of the most
important stakes of the debate.
1 How
Argumentation Shapes Social Reality
The Case
In 1977 the Hungarian and the
Czechoslovakian government signed an agreement on the joint construction of a
river barrage and hydroelectric station on the Danube, between Gabcikovo and
Nagymaros, where the river forms the common border of the two countries. The
plan was a typical example of those gigantic industrial projects that have been
built in the socialist countries since the Stalinist era.
There is no need to tell here the whole
history of the project. It is a long and sometimes boring history, with lot of
dates and names and technical details. However, I have to tell the beginning of
the story to show how an economic issue became first an environmental and then
a political one. The following narrative is based on an excellent political
science article (Galambos, 1992), which summarizes the history of the debate
well.
Czechoslovakia started construction already
in April 1978, two months before official ratification. The Hungarians were
less enthusiastic: shortly after work began on the Hungarian side, public
debates over the project began, first in professional associations.
In November 1981, an article harshly
criticizing the project was published by a biologist, Janos Vargha, who later became a leading
figure of the environmental movement in Hungary. Czechoslovakia resented that
the publication of such an article was allowed in Hungary. The nervousness of
the Czechoslovakian government was understandable. Two months earlier, the two
countries agreed to suspend construction work, because of lack of necessary
financing. The Hungarian government unilaterally decided to postpone all work
until 1990, and initiated a study on the ecological consequences of the dam
system. However, in the several expert committees that were formed, dam
engineers managed to assert their point of view.
The Hungarian state and party leaders were
more concerned about the lack of investment capital than about ecological
consequences. Therefore they proposed that Czechoslovakia should build the
whole project alone -- in exchange
Hungary would pay off half of the investment costs with electric energy.
The Hungarians also approached Austria. In
November 1983, Chancellor Sinowatz and the Hungarian government began to
negotiate an Austrian loan and participation of Austrian companies in the
construction work.
The Hungarians did not manage to “escape”
from the project -- Czechoslovakia only agreed to take over some of the work.
In October 1983 the prime ministers of the two countries signed a modification
of the 1977 treaty, according to which the completion of the project was
postponed by five years. The Hungarian Politburo had already made a secret
decision in favor of project completion in June.
In December of 1983 the Hungarian Academy of
Science completed a report, according to which construction should not be
continued until an environmental impact assessment is prepared. In the spring
of 1984 public debates were held in university clubs and professional
associations.
The first grass-root environmental group in
Hungary, the Danube Committee, was established in January 1984. The movement collected
more than 10,000 signatures in support of a petition, addressed to the
Parliament and government, demanding a halt to the construction. The movement
grew in size but was not structured. It was therefore sought -- unsuccessfully
-- to found an official association. But the political leadership toughened its
position, prohibiting public discussion and publications against the dam
system. Finding itself unable to be registered as an association, the movement
founded the unofficial Danube Circle.[1] The Danube Circle broke the ban on public
discussion of the dam system by publishing the News of the Danube Circle in samizdat. The bulletin
contained documents of debates, information on the historical and political
background of the project, and an account of the debate in Austria on the
Hainburg hydroelectric plant. In December 1985 the Danube Circle received the Right Livelihood
Award (the so-called Alternative Nobel Prize).
Three other movements appeared for a short
period: one gathered signatures, demanding a referendum; the Blues demanded that Parliament
should discuss the case and decide on it; the Friends of the Danube demanded that at least the
construction of the dam at Nagymaros should be stopped. In January 1986, a
letter with 2,500 signatures, protesting the project and calling for a
referendum, was submitted to the Hungarian Presidential Council (a body which
exercised the functions of the head of state.)
Negotiations between Hungary and Austria for
a credit agreement were underway. The government would not have been able to
continue the construction without finding a solution for the financial
problems: it came from Austria, where the construction of the Hainburg water
power station had failed to materialize due to the citizens’ protest. [2]
In January 1986 the Danube Circle, together with Austrian and
German environmentalists, held a press conference, protesting against the
Austrian financing of the project. The Danube Circle also sent a petition to the
Austrian Parliament. In February a “Danube Walk” was organized by the Danube
Circle and
the Austrian Greens, which was violently disrupted by the Hungarian police. The
government’s action was internationally condemned and the European Parliament
passed a protest resolution.
In April prominent Hungarian intellectuals
published an advertisement in an Austrian daily, Die Presse, asking the Austrians to
protest against their government’s involvement in the dam system. However, the
agreement between Austria and Hungary was signed in May 1986. Austrian banks
were to supply loans for the construction of the project, and Austrian companies
were to be given 70% of all building contracts; Hungary was to repay the loans
by delivering electric energy to Austria, from 1996. Two thirds of Hungary’s
share of electricity produced by dam system was to be paid to Austria over a
period of 20 years, mainly during the winter months, when the level and the
flow of the Danube are at its lowest, therefore the dam system alone could not
have provided the required amount of electricity, and new Hungarian power
stations would have had to be built in order to amortize the energy debt. The
Austrian companies began construction at Nagymaros in August 1988.
I stop the story at this point. Now we are
in 1998. Ten years after the construction began at Nagymaros, and half a year
after the decision of the Hague International Court of Justice, the debate
still goes on. This year, the liberal-socialist coalition has lost the
elections -- partly because some leaders of the Socialist Party and some bosses
of the water-management bureaucracy had the bad idea that it was time to return
to the project and realize it. It is not without symbolic significance that one
of the first moves of the new government was to nominate Janos Vargha as chief adviser
in environmental issues.
Before analyzing the debate,
we should have a look at the arguments themselves.
The Arguments[3]
|
PRO |
CON |
Energy Production |
#1 The presumed energy needs of the Hungarian and the
Slovakian economy could not be met without the energy produced by the
hydroelectric stations of the dam system. |
#1 If a more efficient use of energy was implemented the
energy produced by the dam system would not be needed. |
|
|
#2 The amount of energy produced is insignificant when
compared to the enormous ecological harm it causes. |
|
|
#3 Energy could be produced by cheaper and safer means. |
Flood Control |
#1 The Dam would protect the Danube lowlands from floods. |
#1 Flood control could be solved by cheaper and safer means
and, above all, the construction of the Dam creates new, even more serious
risks: the level of water in the storage lake will be 6-16 meters above the
surface. In case of accidents the engendered flood would be bigger than ever. |
|
#2 Concerning ecological impacts, it was claimed that they
could be mitigated by more technology. (On the other hand, dam builders
argued that those risks were not proved, therefore they did not have to be
taken into account.) |
#2 Geological and seismological considerations were neglected
in the plans, although huge reservoirs often cause earthquakes. |
Navigation |
#1 The project would result in improved navigability on a
section of the Danube that is otherwise the most difficult to navigate, and
where the necessary navigation depth could not be reached without damming.
With the dams the depth recommended by the Danube Commission can be reached,
and the two countries would be connected to Europe through the Danube and the
Danube-Rhine-Main Canal. |
#1 Navigation conditions could be improved by much cheaper
and simpler means. The Danube-Rhine-Main canal does not reach the desired
navigation depth at certain points either. |
Agriculture |
#1 The project would promote the irrigation of agricultural
lands above the dams. |
#1 The agriculture, forestry, and fishing of the region --
the economic prerequisite of the local population -- would suffer serious
losses. |
Environment |
#1 The dam system would produce electricity at peak
consumption times, replacing the air-polluting brown coal operated
power-stations in Slovakia. |
#1 The dam system would jeopardize the fresh water supplies
of millions of people both in Hungary and Slovakia, through the complete loss
of possibilities for water production by bank-filtration in the area, and
through the contamination of subterranean water reserves in the area. |
|
#2 Hydroelectricity is a renewable source of energy. |
#2 The Dam would destroy valuable natural flora and fauna by
upsetting the ecological balance of the river and radically changing the
level of the subterranean water. |
|
#3 The Dam would offer recreation and sport opportunities. |
#3 The construction of Gabcikovo and Nagymaros would result
in the disappearance or dramatic transformation of a historic and natural
landscape and ruin valuable archeological remains. |
Financial |
#1 The argument of waste: abandonment of the project is
impossible because the money already invested would be lost. Further high
costs would be caused by the restoration and the payment of compensation to
Austria and Czechoslovakia, not to mention the political and economic harm
caused to Hungary by not fulfilling its international legal obligations. |
#1 A modified version of the argument of waste: It is true
that abandoning the project causes economic losses, but continuing it will cause
even more losses. |
|
|
#2 The project is an economic nonsense, since Hungary will
have to hand over two-thirds of its share in the produced energy to amortize
its debts to Austria for 20 years, which is normally the life-span of such
dams. |
|
|
#3 All the stated benefits of the project could have been
realized by safer and cheaper means, without raising credits, without
diverting resources from more important goals and without ruining other --
more valuable -- resources. |
With the exception of the argument of waste,
all other arguments are strictly professional. It is difficult to asses their
respective strength, but some of the counter-arguments are definitely stronger
than the corresponding pro-arguments and in general the counter-argumentation as
a whole seems to be stronger. This is probably so because the opponents can
propose cheaper and safer alternatives while the supporters must defend an
obviously costly and risky project. An other advantage of the opponents is the
possibility to use irony and paradox: for instance in showing that the benefits
are actually harmful, that the proposed good thing is actually a bad thing.
As expected, and as it is indicated by the
number of arguments, the two critical points are the environmental risks and
the financial losses. We find here the weakest pro-arguments and the strongest
counter-arguments.[4] The weakest point of the
supporter side is the financial one. It is significant that besides the
argument of waste, they do not have any financial argument to defend the
project. In fact, they can not have any: profitability was out of question from
the beginning.
However, in spite of these weaknesses on the
supporter side, the two sides were in equilibrium. The arguments on the
opponent were somewhat stronger, but this was balanced by the power position of
the other side: the dam builders had all the support of the State and the
Party.
A Note on the Argument of Waste
It is interesting to note that
the argument of waste has two forms: it can be used as a pro-argument and as a
counter-argument as well. As a pro-argument, it says that if you have already
invested in a project, you have to continue, because abandoning it means losing
money and losing money is bad. But, with a little modification, by adding the
choice between more and less, the same argument can be used as a
counter-argument. If losing money is bad, then losing less is better than
losing more. So, if we must choose between losing less and losing more, we have
to choose losing less. Note that the use of the modified form presupposes that
in any case, there will be no returns, only losses.
Actually, when the Hungarian government had
to decide about the eventual abandonment of the project, an independent expert
committee made a cost-benefit analysis. They found that both continuing the
project and abandoning it will cause economic losses, but the highest losses
would be caused by delaying the decision. On the short run it is more
advantageous to abandon the project, on the long run there is no significant
difference between its continuation and halting.
If this analysis was correct, the use of
both forms of the argument of waste was right, although, again, the
counter-argument seems slightly better grounded. The moral of this case is that
expert opinions are not always better than those of lay people. In this case,
scientific expertise could not really help the politicians, who, not
surprisingly, opted for the worst alternative, that of delaying the decision.
That was certainly wrong from a financial point of view, but politics has its
own priorities. Hungary did not abandon the project until 1992.
Weapons and Reasons
Saying that argumentation
shapes social reality may mean many things. It is clear for instance, that
public debates can have great influence, but this is trivial. In this trivial
sense the debate on the Dam shaped social reality because a little group of
concerned scientists, ecologically minded people and political dissidents
succeeded to build a strong opposition movement and to activate the public
opinion against the project.
What is perhaps more interesting from a
sociological point of view is the interplay between the use of power and the
use of arguments in society.
In our case it is clear for instance, that
the possibility of resolving a major conflict between states with arguments,
that is without weapons, was not always granted in history. International law
is a relatively recent invention (a Dutch invention, by the way), the Court of
Hague is only ninety years old and its real working only started after WW2.
Nevertheless, it seems to be a general characteristic of modern societies that
they tend to resolve all kind of conflicts in a peaceful way, that is by
negotiations. We have got diplomacy and international law to prevent war, parliamentary
debates to prevent revolution and civil war, collective bargaining to prevent
industrial conflicts, and family therapy to prevent indoor killing, that is,
domestic violence. The substitution of weapons with reasons can be viewed as
part of this general tendency of rationalization already familiar from Max Weber. The success of these
nonviolent solutions, and the fact that they are a lot cheaper than the violent
versions, has surely contributed to their diffusion.
However, in spite of this general tendency
of rationalization, our society is still very violent. The use of arguments is
still an exception, the use of weapons being the rule. Considering
argumentation from this point of view, it seems that the most interesting
things happen not inside the argumentative framework, but rather on the unsure
frontier between the peaceful oasis of argumentation and the large outside
world of violence. The most interesting moves, at least from a sociological
point of view, are those the aim of which is to force the opponent into the
oasis, that is, to transform the bloody war into a rational discussion --
where, in principle at least, only the force of arguments counts. This is
always difficult, because the opponent has other choices, for instance he/she can
use his/her weapons instead.
Now this is America: everybody has weapons,
but some people have more powerful weapons than others. We live in a social
world where power is unevenly distributed. In this hierarchy of power
positions, each of us, even those on the top of the top, can find him/herself
in an underdog position if his/her opponent has more power than he/she has. And
this is our luck, because as an underdog, we are more interested in rational
discussion than in war-making. So we propose cease-fire and rational
discussion. The problem is that our opponent, being more powerful than we are,
has the opposite interest: he/she is more interested in war-making than in
rational discussion. What can we do in this situation? We have three choices:
(1) We
can try to persuade him/her that rational discussion is a much better solution.
This is pure
argumentation. It works in the textbooks, but rarely in real life.
(2) We
can try to force him/her into a rational discussion by using non-argumentative
means: this is not argumentation, but it works. The only problem is that, as
Habermas says, a constrained consensus does not count as consensus.
(3) We
can use a mixture of argument and force to drive him/her into a rational
discussion. I call this dirty argumentation. It has the best results.
Anyway, in the first and third cases, we use
arguments -- exclusively or in a combination with other, non-argumentative
means -- to persuade. This means that arguments are used not only inside but
outside the oasis as well.
In fact, we have three concentric circles.
Forget the oasis; imagine instead a hotel where the mafia bosses have their
annual meeting. They are sitting in a big conference room, where weapons are
not allowed. Here argument rules. Anyone who wants to enter the room, has to
leave his weapons in the lobby. Outside, in the street, there is war. There are
no arguments here, only weapons against weapons. And between the two, the
lobby. Here we find weapons and arguments as well: armed gorillas try to
persuade mafia bosses to leave their weapons outside. They use arguments to
persuade them, but they can use their weapons, if necessary.
In fact, reality is a little bit more
complex, because sometimes there are shootings in the conference room and
rational discussions take place in the street; but these are exceptions and we
do not have to deal with them here. What is important for us is that we are all
members of the mafia and spend most of our life in the street and in the lobby.
Occasionally, we enter the conference room and spend there some time, but not
very often.
Now Argumentation Theory, as far as I can
see, spends most of its time in the conference room. This is OK, since most
pure argumentation occurs there. There is nothing wrong with this choice: if
you want to study pure argumentation, this is the right place for you. Even if
some interesting dirty argumentation occurs in the lobby, Argumentation Theory
has all the right to say: there is nothing wrong with me; it is true that I am
sitting in the conference room, but I can see very well from here what happens
in the lobby. Well, maybe it can. But my point is just this: Argumentation
Theory observes the whole world from the conference room. That is, the whole
world of argumentation from the point of view of pure argumentation. I am
afraid this is not the best perspective, since in real life, most argumentation
belongs to the dirty type. I accept that pure argumentation is an important
subject and even that dirty argumentation can be studied -- maybe with some extra work -- from
the perspective of pure argumentation. The problem is that things look
different from this conference room perspective; I mean different from what
they really are.
I take the example of pragma-dialectics, the
version of Argumentation Theory I know the best, and I like the best. In
pragma-dialectics the world of argumentation looks as if scientific discussion
was the dominant type of argumentation. For this clean world of pure
argumentation to exist, the whole problem of violence and power must be
eliminated at the very beginning. And in fact, it is. The only place where this
world of violence is mentioned at all is in the first rule of the "Ten
Commandments" where it is treated as the ad baculum fallacy. (van Eemeren and
Grootendorst, 1992: 107-110)
Of course, if the use of force makes any
kind of rational discussion impossible, the appeal to force is a fallacy of the
worst kind and must be treated as one. However, eliminating it analytically
will not resolve the problem. The problem is that the possibility of using
force instead of arguments is always present in real life situations and its
presence influences argumentation to a great extent. Even in a real conference
room, the persuasive force of an argument depends not only on its inherent
quality, but also on the real life power of the arguer. Everybody is aware that
life continues after the end of the discussion and arguments are evaluated in
the light of this knowledge. Arguments tend to be perceived as strong if they
are advanced by someone who has power and weak if they are advanced by someone
who has not.
Social life is a power game and
argumentation is only a remarkably nonviolent variety of it.[5] Sometimes we opt for the nonviolent variety and it can be
very consequential what happens in these short argumentative interludes. This
is why the study of pure argumentation is so important.
However, these episodes of pure
argumentation are always embedded in and preceded by vast bodies of dirty
argumentation. Perhaps we should pay more attention to dirty argumentation and
to these rare but critical moments when the rules of the game suddenly and
unexpectedly become more powerful then the most powerful of the players; when
those who are armed put aside, for some reason, their arms and accept to fight
with naked hands; when the players, even those who could do otherwise, really
give a chance to the best argument to win. They may have many reasons to do
this: to save their face, their dignity, to show their talents, their ability,
to gain popularity -- or simply because they are too stupid to recognize the
danger. Anyway, these are great moments, because they let us pass in a
different world where we are all equals, there is no violence and the best
argument wins.
After this short theoretical introduction,
we will see in a different light what happened in the debate about the Dam.
Dirty Moves: Case Analysis
Perhaps the most important
observation we can make is that the conference room situation is
characteristically absent from the public debate. It appears only outside the
debate, as the working of the Hague International Court of Justice for example,
or in its pores, as the expert discussions in the committees of the Academy of
Sciences. But the debate as a whole was not a rational discussion. It was about
the need and the possibility of a rational discussion, but it was a lobby
debate. The protest movement people tried to persuade the public and the
decision-makers that there is a risk situation and that is good reason enough
to begin a rational discussion about the project. On the other side, the
decision-makers tried to persuade the public that there is no risk and persuade
the protest people that, even in a soft dictatorship, they have much to lose.
The most important consequence of the first
few moves of the protest group was the politicization of the debate, something
what probably was not intended by the group. At the beginning, the group was
composed of concerned scientists and a few green activists, but members of the
democratic opposition were absent yet. The group desperately needed freedom of
press and freedom of expression as means to realize its main goal, the
activation of the general public. Now freedom of press and freedom in general
were the main goals of the democratic opposition, so environmentalists and
dissidents discovered that they share some important common goals. This made
the partial fusion of the two movements possible.
One of the consequences of this fusion was
the activation of quite large fractions of the civil society. People who
sympathized with the democratic opposition but did not manifest these
sympathies because they were afraid to lose their job or to be harassed by the
police, now recognized the opportunity and became followers of the movement.
They exploited the opportunity that now they could be proud members of the
opposition without taking too much risk. After all, protection of the
environment is a non-political issue, and every concerned citizen has the right
to express his anxiety if the environment is in danger. Both the
environmentalist and the political dissident wings of the movement were happy
with this reaction because the growth of the movement was their common
interest.
However, the Politburo and the government
were not so stupid to believe that this suddenly discovered concern for the
environment was without political motives. They perceived the growth of the
movement as a politically dangerous development and wanted to react
accordingly. Nevertheless, their situation was delicate. On the one hand, the
movement was politically dangerous, but it seemed even more dangerous to ban
every manifestation. After all, it was not an outright political movement.
Persecuting it would mean to recognize it as an authentic political opposition
movement, and to declare war. Now the government was not interested in making
war because the image of the late Kadar era was that of a tolerant,
laissez-faire reform regime. On the other hand, the government realized that
the movement could be used as an argument, together with the reports of the
expert committees, in its discussions with Czechoslovakia. The government was
not concerned by the ecological risks of the Dam, but it was concerned by an
eventual financial crisis, and wanted to abandon this costly project.
Nevertheless, it desperately needed good arguments, so it made some concessions
to the opposition in order to gain popularity and be able to use the ecological
argument in its discussions with Czechoslovakia. It was in this complex
situation that the opposition succeeded to force the government to enter into a
dialogue with the movement and with the civil society.
Both sides used dirty argumentation in this
dialogue, because it was a real life, public debate with great risks, so they
could not permit the luxury of a fair and rational discussion. Arguments and
force were equally used, and most of the arguments were fallacious.
There is no need here to discuss the use of
force. It is evident that both sides used non-argumentative means, the most spectacular
examples being the violent dissolution of the “Danube Walk” by the police and
the prohibition of public discussions and publications against the Dam. There
is a difference, though: the protest movement has never used violence. The
non-argumentative means used by them consisted almost exclusively of the force
of public sphere: collecting signatures in support of a petition, founding an unofficial pressure group
(the Danube Circle), or publishing samizdat literature, etc., they used and at
the same time created their only "weapon": the activation of the
general public. Ironically, however, their use of non-argumentative means
threatened the government more, than the use of violence by the government
threatened them.
Now let us see the basic argumentation of
the two parties.
Although ad hominem and ad baculum arguments were abundantly and
routinely used, I will focus here on the appeal to expertise.
At the beginning, the protest movement is
powerless, so their main strategy is to challenge the government. The implicit
but unmistakable challenge behind their actions reads something like this:
"Let us talk about your project! If it is really good, you do not have to
be afraid of discussing it."
At first sight, it seems that the government
must face a dilemma. If it does not accept the challenge, this is a proof that
the project is not good enough; but accepting it may also suggest that the
project is not good enough, and, in addition, proves the weakness of the
government. Moreover, accepting the challenge and entering into a discussion
may lead to a disastrous defeat.
However, the government does not have to
face the dilemma: it has other choices as well. One of its possible responses
is this: "The project is good, and we are not afraid of discussing it. But
this is experts' business and you are not experts. So we will not discuss it
with you." This is the classical form of evading a challenge without
losing face. It is very common, even young children use it: "You are not
strong enough to fight with me." Basically, this is an appeal to equality
and fairness: only equals can have a fair fight; we are not equals; so we will
not fight. If the challenged uses it well, he/she can save his/her own dignity
without insulting the other, but it can be used as an insult or as a face
saving device as well.
The appeal to expertise is frequently used
in public debates. It has formally the same structure as the appeal to equality
and fairness, but it is applied usually as a face saving device. Ironically
enough, the appeal to equality is used here to make the transition into a
rational discussion impossible. The invitation of the weaker party to fight with naked hands, that is, with
arguments, so that both parties have equal chances to win, is rejected by the
stronger on the ground that the weaker party lacks the necessary expertise.
The appeal to expertise used by the
government was really a combination of an ad hominem and an appeal to authority:
|
(1) This is experts'
business. |
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||
(2) What experts say in experts'
business is true. |
|
(4) Only experts can have a say in
experts' business. |
|
|||||
(3) Experts say that the
project is good. |
|
(5) You are not an expert. |
|
|||||
Therefore it is good. |
|
Therefore you cannot have a
say in this business. |
|
|||||
This combination of the two
arguments seems to be strong, but it has five premises, which gives five points of attack to
the opponents. In fact, the protest movement attacked all five premises. First,
by recruiting a large number of scientists from a great variety of specialties,
they succesfully refuted (5). Second, by introducing the environmental issue,
they refuted (1) and (4) on the ground that the protection of the environment
is everybody's business. Finally, by pointing out the contradictions and the
divergences between various expert opinions, they discredited (2) and (3).
As the image of the protest movement
changed, the government also changed its strategy. For example, when the
expertise of the opponents could not be denied any more, the government used a
slightly modified version of the appeal to expertise: "Yes, you are
experts, but this is a political (a foreign relations) affair and you do not
know about politics (foreign relations)." When the movement found an ally
in the democratic opposition, the government used a circumstancial ad
hominem:
"Yes, you are experts, but you have a political interest in the
matter."
Unfortunately, there is no room here to give
a more detailed analysis. I hope that I said enough to show the general
direction of my argument and to justify my critical position concerning the
perspective of Argumentation Theory.
2 How
Social reality shapes Argumentation
The Data
The data I am going to analyze
here are from a representative survey made in Hungary, in December 1997. It was
conducted by Róbert Angelusz (ELTE University of Budapest, Institute of Sociology) and
Róbert Tardos
(Academy of Sciences, Communication Theory Research Team).[6] The sample consisted of
thousand persons. The questionnaire consisted of ten parts. Parts G, H and I were
about political opinions. Part G asked questions about foreign relations, for
example about Hungary’s plans to join the NATO and the EC. At the end of this
panel there was a question about the decision of the Hague International Court,
and another one about Hungary’s decision to abandon the building of the Dam in
1992. This second question was open-ended and formulated in these words: What
is your opinion about Hungary’s 1992 decision to denounce the treaty with
Slovakia; was it right?
If the person answered yes or no, he/she was asked to argue in defense of
his/her standpoint: Why do you think so?
Among the 995 people who answered the
questionnaire, a rather high percentage, 38.5 % did not answer this question or
answered by “I do not know.” The rest, 61.5 % answered by yes or no and most of
them advanced at least one reason to defend their standpoint. As this was an
open-ended question, they were allowed to advance several arguments, but only a
minority of them advanced more than one.[7] The distribution was the
following:
14.1 % said only yes or no,
but had no arguments;
39.6 % advanced one argument,
and
7.8 % advanced two arguments.
The Arguments
During the coding process, the
researchers found no less than 17 different types of argument. Here I present
only the five most frequently mentioned pro-arguments and the five most
frequently mentioned counter-arguments.
The pro-arguments:[8]
14.8 % said yes, it was a good
decision because of ecological reasons;
7.0 % said yes, because it was a bad treaty anyway;
2.6 % said yes, because the project was a waste of money;
1.2 % said yes, because there was no way to negotiate with
the Slovaks;
0.6 % said yes, because that was what the opposition was
fighting for;
and finally 1.8 % advanced
other reasons.
On the other side,
10.9 % said no, it was a bad
decision because it would have been better to finish the project;
6.8 % said no, because we already invested a lot of money in
the project;
3.0 % said no, because we need the electric energy the Dam
will produce;
1.7 % advanced the argument of pacta sunt servanda, that is, if you have a
contract, you have to observe it;
1.1 % said no, because the Hague decision found that Hungary
had no right to abandon the project unilaterally;
and finally 2.1 % advanced
other arguments.[9]
The second and third pro-arguments and the
first and second counter-arguments are different versions of the argument of
waste. (Although the bad treaty and the better to finish arguments can be
interpreted as cases of petitio principii as well.) Here too, it is used in both
senses: as a pro-argument and as a counter-argument as well.
There are two political
arguments on the side of the opponents. We may feel the taste of some ethnic
prejudice in one of them, but I think there is no prejudice here: in fact there
was no way to find a solution with the Slovak party.[10] The other political argument
introduces the role of the opposition: this one is something between a petitio
principii and an appeal to authority. (It was good because it was good and it
was good because an authority said so.)
It is interesting that on the supporter side
there are no less than four arguments appealing to the law. There is only one
making explicit reference to the Hague decision, (an appeal to authority and/or
to law,) but there is the pacta sunt servanda argument and there are two others between
the less frequently mentioned arguments that have roughly the same character:
one says that it is not good to go to court, the other says that it is better
to negotiate. These are what rhetoricians call sententia. The pacta sunt servanda
argument makes appeal to an age-old legal principle, the two others are
proverb-like principles of common sense, but all three are used here as appeals
to common sense.
Finally, we can find here the two most
important arguments used by the experts: the appeal to ecological damages on
the opponent side and the appeal to energy needs on the supporter side.
Strictly speaking, only these two are issue-dependent arguments. If we compare this
pattern with that of the expert debate, where only the argument of waste was
more or less issue-independent, we can venture the conclusion that lay people
are more likely to use issue-independent arguments.
One more word about the relationship between
social characteristics and argument types. Regression analysis has shown that
the use of the most frequently mentioned ecological argument is determined by
the age of the respondents: young people (under 30) are two times more likely
to use the ecological argument than senior citizens (over 60).[11] However, there is a
difference here between men and women: in the case of women, there is no
significant relationship between young age and the use of the ecological
argument.
Argumentative Skills and
the Willingness to Argue
Theoretically, we may suppose
that the ability to choose a standpoint and to advance arguments in defense of
it depends on certain learned skills, on something we may call argumentative
competence. Those who perform well, that is those who have fewer difficulties
to choose a standpoint and to advance arguments when they are explicitly asked
to do so, can be considered more skilled, more competent. But it is not sure at
all that this is really so. We know from sociolinguistical studies -- especially
important are here the studies of William Labov -- that the situation influences
enormously the performance of the speakers. (Labov 1972) As a result, there is
very little ground to say anything sure on the competence of the speakers on
the basis of their performance.
People from lower social strata (or -- and
this is quite the same -- with lower educational level) especially tend to
employ risk-evading strategies in situations they feel menacing -- for instance
in exam situations. Now a survey interview situation is much like an exam
situation, at least for some people -- again, especially for people from lower
social strata. If they feel that a question is “too difficult,” that answering
it demands some political knowledge, they are more likely not to answer it at
all or to take only minimal risks. The question about the Dam was definitely of
this kind, so it is not surprising that the rate of non-answering was high.
Those people did not take any risk at all. The same can be said about differences
in presenting arguments. Those who opted for minimal risk-taking, advanced a
standpoint, but were not willing to advance arguments in defense of it.
That is why I use the expression “the
willingness to argue” instead of “argumentative skills.” Argumentative skills
can be very good even if the given performance is poor. At other times, at
other places, the performance of the same people can be surprisingly good.
People who did not answer this question or did only with minimal risk-taking,
are perhaps very talkative on the same issue in a pub or between friends. In
general, it can be said that survey data give very little ground to evaluate
argumentative skills. If we really want to know about skills, direct
observation is a much better method.
On the other side, it can be said that
people have to use their skills in real, sometimes menacing social situations,
so the question of competence is not really important, because in real life,
only the performance counts. So survey data are perhaps more informative on
real life, then data from direct observation or from laboratory experiments.[12]
This is only to say that, after all, survey
data can be interesting.
The only thing I want to show here is that
argumentative skills -- measured
by the willingness to argue -- are unevenly distributed in society. I use a
very simple indicator for measuring the willingness to argue: I suppose that
providing two arguments is better than providing one, one is better than none,
and opting for a standpoint is better than saying nothing.
Regression analysis has shown that the
willingness to argue depends on three factors: the respondent’s gender,
educational level and degree of political interest.
Table 1. Factors determining the willingness to
argue - results of a step-by-step regression analysis
beta
coefficients and R Square
Political
interest . 25
Gender
-. 14
School . 12
R2 13%
Here are some simple tables. They show how
the independent variables influence the argumentative performance of the
respondents.
Table 2.
Willingness to argue by gender (in percentage)
willingness
to argue gender |
no
standpoint |
standpoint |
one
argument |
two
arguments |
men |
27 |
13 |
49 |
10 |
women |
48 |
15 |
32 |
5 |
While the non-response rate of men is less
than 30 %, half of the women had no answer to this question. Sixty per cent of
the men present one or two arguments, while only 37 % of the women do this.
This is not surprising. As Bourdieu says in his famous article “L’opinion
publique n’existe pas” (Bourdieu, 1973), if we want to know which questions
have political coloring, we only have to examine the response rates of men and
women: the bigger the difference between the response rates, the more political
a question is. I have to note that there is no significant difference between
men and women at the lowest and highest educational level, which probably means
that men with unfinished elementary school behave more like women, that is they
are timid, while women with university level behave more like men, that is they
feel strong enough to argue, even about politics.
Table 3. Willingness to argue by political
interest (in percentage)
willingness
to argue political
interest |
no
standpoint |
standpoint |
one
argument |
two
arguments |
very low |
61 |
13 |
22 |
4 |
low |
47 |
12 |
34 |
7 |
average |
34 |
19 |
40 |
7 |
high |
22 |
11 |
56 |
11 |
very high |
14 |
11 |
61 |
14 |
As this is a political question, there is a
significant relationship between the level of political interest and the
willingness to argue. If the level of political interest is very low, only one
quart of the respondents present arguments, if it is moderate, half of them,
and if it is very high, three quarts of them presents arguments.
Now, the influence of schooling:
Table 4. Willingness to argue by educational
level (in percentage)
willingness
to argue educational
level |
no
standpoint |
standpoint |
one
argument |
two
arguments |
some
elementary |
68 |
10 |
19 |
3 |
finished
elementary |
41 |
10 |
43 |
6 |
technical
school |
38 |
14 |
40 |
9 |
secondary |
32 |
16 |
43 |
9 |
high school |
23 |
19 |
55 |
3 |
university |
20 |
27 |
29 |
24 |
This is a very clear picture. The big gaps
are between “some elementary” and the others and between "university” and
the others. Almost seventy percent of those who have not finished elementary
school, have no standpoint. At the other end of the hierarchy, we can note the
extremely high percentage of university level respondents who advanced a second
argument.
There is no need to say that political
interest itself is a dependent variable. Regression analysis has shown that it
depends on three factors: gender, educational level and age.
Table 5. Factors determining political interest
-- results of a step-by-step regression analysis
beta
coefficients and R Square
Education .33
Gender -.
21
Age
. 07
R2 15%
Men and educated people are
significantly more interested in politics, than women and less educated people.
While the percentage of men interested or very interested in politics is 36.2,
the same value for women is only 20.5. The following table shows that education
has an even stronger influence on the level of political interest: the
percentage of people with higher education interested or very interested in
politics is 53, while the same value for people with unfinished elementary
school is only 5.
Table 6. Level of political interest by educational
level (in percentage)
political
interest educational
level |
very low |
low |
average |
high |
very high |
some
elementary |
52 |
20 |
23 |
4 |
1 |
finished
elementary |
21 |
16 |
38 |
21 |
4 |
secondary |
16 |
14 |
39 |
26 |
5 |
higher
education |
11 |
6 |
30 |
37 |
16 |
Here too, the big gaps are between “some
elementary” and the others and between "higher education" and the
others.
To summarize: according to our data,
argumentative performance --
measured here by the willingness to argue -- depends on the respondents'
level of political interest, educational level and gender. As political
interest itself depends on the respondents' educational level and gender (the
effect of age being negligible), and as gender itself is the product of
education (or socialization), the single most important factor determining
argumentative performance is education (or socialization).
A Lesson from Simmel
A received view in rhetorical
studies is that the ability to use rhetorical devices is evenly distributed
among the members of a society. A scholar of rhetoric says somewhere that the
language of the fish market is as rich in tropes and other rhetorical devices
as the language of the most educated class.
If this is true, and if rhetoric has
something to do with argumentation (and we know it has), we should infer that
argumentative skills too, are evenly distributed among the members of a
society. Unfortunately, this is not so. Sociology can show us that these
skills, like most other goods and privileges, are unevenly distributed.
This has clearly to do something with power
relationships. Women are more timid than men not by nature: they are socialized
this way. Men have more power and so they have more self-confidence, more
self-esteem. This is why they are more likely to answer questions, to choose a
standpoint, to advance arguments. The same is true for people with higher
educational levels or with higher social status.
There is an interesting contradiction here.
On the one hand, argumentation presupposes the equality of participants, the neglect
of power differentials, the suspension of the use of power and violence. On the
other hand, it is clear that the social context is always a power context and
that even the ability of arguing is determined by the place of the individual
or the group in the hierarchy of power relations.
In his famous study on 'Sociability', Simmel analyzes a somewhat analogous
situation. A social gathering, just as a rational discussion, presupposes the
equality of the participants. Socializing, just like the resolution of
differences by using persuasive arguments, has an essentially democratic
character. In both cases, one has to leave his/her social status outside to be
able to play the game and let the others play. This is a difficult thing to do,
and even in the case of socializing, it cannot be done but within certain
limits. Here is what Simmel says:
Sociability emerges as a very
peculiar sociological structure. The fact is that whatever the participants in
the gathering may possess in terms of objective attributes -- attributes that
are centered outside the particular gathering in question -- must not enter it.
Wealth, social position, erudition, fame, exceptional capabilities and merits,
may not play any part in sociability. (...)
[The
principle of sociability] shows the democratic structure of all sociability.
Yet, this democratic character can be realized only within a given social
stratum: sociability among members of very different social strata often is
inconsistent and painful. (...)
Yet the democracy of sociability even among social equals is only
something played.
(...)
Yet,
this world of sociability -- the only world in which a democracy of the equally
privileged is possible without frictions -- is an artificial world. (...)
Sociability
is a game in which one 'does as if' all were equal... (Simmel, 1950:45-49) (All emphases from Simmel.)
What Simmel says here about
"sociability" is highly relevant for us. One can even replace the
word "sociability" with "rational discussion" and reread
the citation above. It makes perfectly sense, because a rational discussion
must meet the same requirements of equality. Just like socializing, a rational
discussion is "a social work of art", a game in which one does as if
all were equal, an artificial world in which the strong makes himself the equal
of the weaker.
But the analogy is not perfect. Even
sociability, says Simmel, can only be realized within a given social stratum,
because to play the game, people must take no notice of the different social
status of the participants, which can be difficult if members of very different
social strata are present. However, with some extra work, it can be done.
Although equality is faked, and each of the participants knows this, they still
may want to play the game, because it is rewarding.
In the case of a rational discussion, the
name of the game is the same -- “we are all equals now” --, but one should be
able to leave outside not only his/her social status, but his/her socialized
self as well; and this cannot be done. People entering in a rational discussion
cannot change themselves for this occasion: they were socialized in a
particular way, according to their position in the power hierarchy, and now
they act according to their different habitus. It is not surprising then that
their argumentative skills are unequal and, consequently, they have unequal
chances to participate in the discussion and to advance good arguments. Their
current performance in the discussion is limited by their competence, which was
forged before and outside the equality conditions of the discussion.
Conclusion
In argumentation studies, it
is a common presumption that arguments have some inner persuasive force. Some
arguments are strong, some others are weak. Moreover, there are bad and good
arguments. Fallacies, for example, are bad arguments. We assume that in a
rational discussion, bad arguments are eliminated and the best argument has to
win.
This is certainly so in an ideal
speech-situation, and I think Habermas is not wrong when he says that even in
normal conditions, when the situation is far from the ideal, these expectations
work and regulate somehow our behavior. We know how it should be done, even if
it cannot be done that way.
This is a great insight, but it does not
change the fact that in real life debates, the inner force of arguments is
rarely as important as the power position of the arguers. This does not mean
that arguments do not have some inherent force; they do, but in real life
situations they have this extra force as well. The inner force of arguments can
make a difference, but only if certain very special conditions are met.
These conditions are, of course, social conditions. In some cases it
is so important to make a distinction between bad and good arguments, that
there are a few strictly regulated forms of communication specifically designed
for pure argumentation. A few important social activities, like law or
sciences, are expressly organized around the requirements of pure
argumentation. From time to time, pure argumentation occurs even in everyday
life, but only as an exception. Otherwise, we use power, and, at the very best, dirty argumentation.
When, in a
discourse on 'Argumentation and Democracy', van Eemeren introduces certain
"higher order conditions" as preconditions of a rational discussion
(the respect of the rules of conduct prescribed in the pragma-dialectical model
being a "first order" condition), he implicitly acknowledges that the
inner force of arguments makes a difference only if certain very special
conditions are met. According to his distinction, "second order"
conditions are the "psychological conditions" of the arguers, among
them "their ability to reason validly". "Third order"
conditions are the social conditions of the discussion, among them the
"socio-political" equality of the arguers. Here is the relevant
section of his text:
We can think of the assumed
attitudes and intentions of the arguers as 'second order' conditions that are
preconditions to the 'first order' rules of the code of conduct. The 'second
order' conditions correspond, roughly, to the psychological make-up of the
arguer and they are constraints on the way the discourse is conducted. Second
order conditions concern the internal states of arguers: their motivations to
engage in rational discussion and their dispositional characteristics as to
their ability to engage in rational discussion.
Second
order conditions require that participants be able to reason validly, to take
into account multiple lines of argument, to integrate coordinate sets of
arguments, and to balance competing directions of argumentation. The
dialectical model assumes skills and competence in the subject matter under
discussion and on the issues raised. (...)
But
not only must participants be willing and able to enter in a certain attitude,
they must be enabled to claim the rights and responsibilities associated with
the argumentative roles defined by the dialectical model. To say that in
dialectical discourse everyone should have the right to advance his view to the
best of his ability is to presuppose a surrounding socio-political context of
equality. This means that there are conditions of a still higher order to be
fulfilled than second order conditions: 'third order' conditions. Third order
conditions involve ideals such as non-violence, freedom of speech, and
intellectual pluralism. The dialectical model assumes the absence of practical
constraints on matters of presumption in standpoints. The goal of resolution of
differences 'on the merits' is incompatible with situations in which one
standpoint or another may enjoy a privileged position by virtue of representing
the status quo or being associated with a particular person or group.... [T]he
conditions I am referring to are also among the necessary conditions for the
operation of the democratic method... (van Eemeren, 1996:13)
Van Eemeren admits that the dialectical
approach is "a little bit" --
"but not too much" -- "Utopian", but he hopes that
with more and better education the idealistic requirements of the
pragma-dialectical model can be met (van Eemeren, 1996:14).
It must be clear for now that the author of
this paper entertains doubts as to the validity of the above assumptions and
the well-foundedness of this hope. We have to realize that these assumptions
are really theoretical postulates:
they have very little to do with the reality of social life. For it is simply
not true that people are equally motivated and able to engage in rational
discussion; that they are equally able to reason validly, to take into account
multiple lines of argument, and so on; that they all have the assumed skills
and competence; that they always have the right to advance their view to the
best of their ability -- and so on.
What Argumentation Theory presupposes --
equality -- Sociology has to deny. Society -- and there is countless empirical
evidence for this -- is a system of inequalities. The real question, for
Sociology, is the following: How in this
system of inequalities argumentation is possible at all? As I see it,
this question can only be answered from a power perspective. Interestingly
enough, what makes dirty argumentation possible or frequent is the same thing what makes pure
argumentation impossible or, at least, rare and limited, namely, the unequal
distribution of power in society.
The Sociology of Argumentation has to begin
its work where Argumentation Theory abandons it: at the frontier of pure and
dirty argumentations. In this way, with the cooperation of Argumentation Theory
and the Sociology of Argumentation, a coherent and tenable theory of
argumentation can be built, based on more realistic assumptions.
For this future Sociology of Argumentation,
I propose the following theses to consider:
(1) The ability to reason validly is in a great measure socially
determined. Social inequalities (reproduced first by primary socialization,
then by the educational system) make the
distribution of reasoning abilities uneven, which
(2) makes the equality of the participants of most discussions
illusory, and, as a result,
(3) makes the problem solving capacity of most discussions
limited.
(4) However, the same social
inequalities -- especially the uneven distribution of power in society -- make
the use of arguments (instead of power) necessary and desirable for the
powerless (that is, for each of us), while, on the other hand,
(5) the uneven distribution of
power in society makes the practice of resolving disputes by means of pure
argumentation socially limited.
REFERENCES
Bourdieu P. (1973) L'Opinion
publique n'existe pas. Les Temps Modernes, Janvier 1973. 1292-1309.
van Eemeren F.H. and
Grootendorst R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies. A
Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Hove and London)
van Eemeren F.H. (1996).
Argumentation and Democracy. Speech Communication and Argumentation 2, 4-19.
Galambos J. (1992). Political
Aspects of an Environmental Conflict: The Case of the Gabcicovo-Nagymaros Dam
System. In Perspectives on Environmental Conflict and International
Relations.
Käkönen J., ed. (Pinter Publishers, London and New York).
Labov W. (1972). The Logic of
Nonstandard English. In Language and Social Context. Giglioli P.P., ed. (Penguin
Books, New York).
Lakoff G.J. and Johnson, M.
(1980). Metaphores We Live By. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago).
Simmel G. (1950) The
Sociology of Georg Simmel.
(The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois).
[1] It only became a registered organization in 1988.
[2] The Austrian companies were looking for new opportunities after the construction of the Hainburg hydroelectric plant had been stopped by popular protest in 1984. The well-established Austrian dam-building industry, facing a decreasing selection of new sites and growing public opposition at home, became a major dam-builder abroad, especially in the Third World and in Eastern Europe. Several controversial hydropower projects have been built with the contribution of Austrian money and technology all over the world. Dam-builders had to face fewer obstacles in countries where public protest was illegal, decision-making was done in secrecy, and economic and ecological considerations were overrun by political ones.
[3] This presentation of arguments is also based on (Galambos, 1992).
[4] To evaluate the strength of ecological counter-argument #1, one have to know that the underground fresh water reserve in question is the largest in Europe, and that the expected climatic changes caused by the greenhouse effect make water a strategic asset.
[5] In a way, and paraphrasing Clausewitz, argumentation is nothing but the continuation of war with other means. This is why we talk about arguments in terms of war. "We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new line of attack. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war." (Lakoff, 1980 : 4) On the other hand, and this is one of the main points of this paper, argumentation is just the cessation of war.
[6] I would like to thank Róbert Angelusz and Mária Székelyi for their invaluable help in writing this part of the paper.
[7] Maybe some of them advanced more than two, but only the first and second arguments were coded.
[8] Here, the pro-arguments are those in favor of the decision, that is those of the opponents of the project.
[9] Namely, that it is not good go to court; that it is better to negotiate; that it would be better for the environment to continue the project; that we lost the Danube; that we lost workplaces; and so on.
[10] The argument was used by a few people with some elementary education. I have no room here to argue in defense of my opinion that there is no prejudice here, but I have some, well, rather weak, arguments.
[11] Ecology response contra others in different age groups (in percentage)
ecology others
age
18-29 39 61
30-44 28 72
45-59 24 76
60- 19 81
[12] This is a difficult
question, because we have to deal here with two kinds of “reality”. Both are
social, but in a way different. One can say that we have to observe
argumentation in a pub, because the real argumentative competence of people
appears only there. In a sense, this is true, but this is a different kind of
reality. No doubt, this is real life, too, but has very little to do with this
other “real life” outside the pub, where we have exams sometimes. Let me use an
analogy: a survey on party preferences may say very little about “real
preferences,” because some people do not want to talk about their preferences.
But the survey can give a pretty good prognosis on the results of the next
elections, because most of these people will be absent, and most of the other
people will vote for the party they preferred . And what is more real then the
results of an election?