Abstract
This paper will highlight how the existing approaches to the Strawman Fallacy and the Principle of Charity are unable to fully accommodate the problems of interpreting children’s arguments. A lack of charity is as problematic as an excess of charity when arguing with children, and can contribute to misinterpretation of arguments. An application of moderate charity avoids the pitfalls of misrepresenting children. However, interpreting children’s arguments with the appropriate amount of charity is a challenging task. The argumentative context is relevant in determining the interpretive approach and the extent of charity that can be justified. The context of arguing with children necessitates an Ethics of Care-based approach to interpretation. Michael Gilbert’s concept of coalescent argumentation exemplifies how Ethics of Care can be realized during argumentative exchanges involving children.
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Notes
I want to clarify that (a) ‘adults’ are a heterogenous group and (b) even typical, competent adults can be vulnerable. Adults can be situated in different social realities, all of which can render them more or less vulnerable.
This paper roughly focuses on children from the age when they have acquired some ability to express their attempts at arguing until adolescence. Adolescence involves a great deal of social and cognitive development and would require different considerations.
Young children argue differently depending on whether their interlocutors are adults or their peers. This paper only focuses on adult-child argumentation (Muller Mirza et al. 2009).
Aikin and Casey (2015;2016) describe a form of non-fallacious strawmanning called “ironmanning” where the interpreter makes the argument more defensible. Ironmanning is similar to the notion of toxic charity. However, for toxic charity the arguer finds the strengthened interpretation unacceptable. Ironmanning children’s arguments may have educational uses.
Given the scope of my paper, I will limit my discussion to instances of toxic charity.
I have to point out that this vignette could also be interpreted as an instance of toxic charity. It seems that whether it is an instance of strawmanning or toxic charity depends on the goal of the interpreter here: Does she attempt to understand the child’s utterances as reasonable? Or does she attempt to refute the child’s claims? As Stevens (2021b) points out, toxic charity can lead to an interpretation that ends up making the argument weaker than a correct interpretation would have. This is because the interpreter who engages in toxic charity does not invest enough effort in seeing the world from the arguer’s point of view, instead constructing an argument that makes sense to the interpreter and fits the arguer’s utterance. It is possible that the best argument which can be constructed out of the arguer’s utterances from the interpreter’s point of view is still weaker than the argument, correctly interpreted, from the arguer’s point of view.
I would like to stress the fact that Stevens (2021a) highlights that even typical and competent adults can experience hermeneutical lacunae. Moreover, in certain situations, even typical adults may not realize they are being misrepresented and they may doubt their own credibility, e.g. a distressing police interrogation can present such a situation to an adult who might end up falsely believing they committed a crime as a result of the exchange. However, given that such situational vulnerabilities are difficult to navigate for typical adults, it obviously presents more challenges to young children.
This exchange between the mother and the child can be read as an argument, or as a conversation about rules. I think discerning whether this is an argument or not requires wider context than was provided in the original source. I invite the reader to read the exchange as an argument for the purpose of this paper.
In claiming that children deserve care, I do not want to undermine the fact that adults also deserve care. It’s true that certain individuals’ natural and situational vulnerabilities may increase the obligations we have towards them. For instance, if I find a three year old wandering alone on the street, then I have an obligation to check if they are lost or to help them get to safety. Similarly, if I have someone making racist comments about a person of colour in front of me, I have an obligation to intervene in some way. However, if dependency necessitates care then all persons under all circumstances deserve care, because as Dodds (2014) argues, all persons are inevitably dependent on others as a condition of their “embodied human existence” (p.194). The point I wish to make in my paper is that the kind of vulnerability children present automatically places certain obligations on adults. These obligations should govern how the adult communicates and argues with children.
I find it plausible that arguing with adults also involves a moral obligation to apply the PC, because adults are also vulnerable, albeit differently than children. For a discussion on why adults might have a moral obligation to be charitable to each other, please see Stevens (2021b), “Charity for Moral Reasons? -A defense of the principle of charity in argumentation”. Particular socially constructed vulnerabilities (according to gender, race, cultures, etc.) may also give rise to moral obligations to being charitable, however this requires more consideration, and is beyond the scope of the present paper.
One important pitfall for Gilbert’s view is that analyzing a person’s underlying beliefs, attitudes and emotional reasons can uncover personal information about a person’s life and experiences. Addressing these underlying factors may be distressing for a person. Uncovering such personal details must be done with caution since it would be completely unethical to bring any triggering information to light before a person is psychologically prepared to process them, and may cause the person more harm than good.
In the analysis of the vignettes that follow, an assumption of the children’s honesty is being made. Children can be deceptive. However, both scenarios 1 and 2 happen to be fictional and real life cases respectively, where the children were being truthful.
I think the mother should explain to the girl that she should reserve self-defense for more desperate times, perhaps when there is no one to seek help from. If her friends bother her in the future, she could, instead, talk to her teachers or to the mother.
Given that children are likely to encounter ‘other’ minds, identities, and positions, some of which will likely even conflict with their individual beliefs and worldviews, and given the cost and labour involved in applying moderate charity to children, it will be even more laborious to teach children to internalize arguing charitably all the time. Therefore, parents and caregivers alone cannot be held responsible for shouldering this burden. Arguing charitably should become a part of children’s education early on in life, and should be continued into post secondary education. I also recognize that it would perhaps be best if all adults could be educated to be able to communicate with care with children, further reducing the burden on parents and caregivers, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this paper.
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Bauri, S. Arguing with Children: Exploring Problems of Charity and Strawmanning. Argumentation 36, 415–438 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-022-09572-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-022-09572-8