The Vices of Argument

What should a virtue theory of argumentation say about fallacious reasoning? If good arguments are virtuous, then fallacies are vicious. Yet fallacies cannot just be identified with vices, since vices are dispositional properties of agents whereas fallacies are types of argument. Rather, if the norm...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Topoi 2016-10, Vol.35 (2), p.413-422
Main Author: Aberdein, Andrew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Classification
Education
Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Technology
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Summary:What should a virtue theory of argumentation say about fallacious reasoning? If good arguments are virtuous, then fallacies are vicious. Yet fallacies cannot just be identified with vices, since vices are dispositional properties of agents whereas fallacies are types of argument. Rather, if the normativity of good argumentation is explicable in terms of virtues, we should expect the wrongness of bad argumentation to be explicable in terms of vices. This approach is defended through analysis of several fallacies, with particular emphasis on the ad misericordiam.
ISSN:0167-7411
1572-8749
DOI:10.1007/s11245-015-9346-z