Selective Dispute Avoidance, Deep Disagreements, and Pragmatic Meta-Arguments for Engagement

Bibliographic Data

ID21583191
AuthorsScott F Aikin (0000-0002-5358-7234, Vanderbilt University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume39
Issue4
Pages533-544
Publication date2025-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueArgumentation (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0920-427X • E-ISSN: 1572-8374
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10503-025-09672-1
OpenAlexW4414134230
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

The phenomenon of selective dispute avoidance is that there are issues we debate and issues we recoil from debating, despite the fact that they are very similar in values at stake. What accounts for this variance? That some disagreements are deep and engagements on some deep issues yields meta-argumentatively bad results is a plausible explanation. However, practical second-order rebutting reasons to these considerations are proposed, essentially that not engaging has foreseeably worse consequences than engaging. What favors engagement, then, is that only when engaged can one address the negative second-order reasons one yields on either approach. What follows is a pragmatic meta-argument for engagement, even in cases of deep disagreement

Communication studies · Motivated reasoning · Phenomenon · Political communication · Politics · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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Open DOIOpen Access