Arguments

some arguments are fights

• many fights begin as arguments or “fighting words”

argumenst and conflict are related with the relationship between the world and our minds

usually we think that some conflicts are just and others conflicts are not just

• can some arguments be found as just, even very heated arguments

In order to understand whether an argument between to parties is just, we must first ask

• how the parties were conducting themselves before the fight

• how the parties are conducting themselves in the fight

• these questions are seperate and based on the answers we can determine whether the conflcit is just or fair

Fair arguments

• respectful critique→ when someone prsents their arguments and someone responds by carefully analyzing the points and reasonsed objections and not personal attacks

• staying on topic→ a fair argument stays focused on the issue at hand without introducing irrelevant information m

Clean Game→ a passionate debate with a friend over which pizza topping is best. You disagree you ‘score points’, you ‘defend’ your choice, but in the end, you’re still friends. The conflict has rules

The Dirty Fight→ An online comment section. People aren’t just disagreeing; they are trying to humiliate , misrepresent, and ‘destroy’ the other person. There are no rules

Aikin’s Core Argument:

• critics are wrong, war and sports metaphor best fit to describe argument

  • argument itself is “at its very roots adversarial”, comes from a place of disagreement, ‘to believe something is to believe that hose who deny it are wrong

Major criticism is the No-Fallacies Argument: If argument is war and “all is fair in war’ then there is no fallacies, only what works to winn

• Aikin’s Rebuttal: This is a misunderstanding of both war and argument

Just War and Just Argument

• Just War principles provide a model for Just Argument

  • Jus in Bello (Justice in War)

    • Discrimination: in war must distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. In arguments this means you attack the position not the person

      • violating this is an “unjust” attack

    • Proportionality: in war must you only the force you need to reach your goal. In argument this means your ‘adversarial heat’ should be proportional to the issue

      • do not ‘go nuclear’ over minor disagreements

The Real Task Moderation:

• the ‘nice’ metaphors (barn-raising, nurturing) are not replacements for war/sport metaphors; they are fitting complements

• Their role is to inhibit escalation. We use them to cool down the ‘adversarial heat’ when necessary. They help us manage the conflict is already there

• Sometimes, more heat is necessary and just, especially when confronting dishonestly or injustice

This is not just an academic debate

• our public discourse is saturated with conflict. Understanding the ethics of argument is more critical than ever

• aikin’s work challenges us to be more sophisticated thinkers about disagreement

The goal isnt to avoid conflict, this is impossible

the goal is to fight well, fairly: to be passionate advocates for what we believe is true and just, while holding ourselves and others to the standards of a just and honorable fight

your task as thinks is not to flee the battlefield of ideas but to become just warriors on it.