ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Argumentative Framework Of Imperial Righteousness: The War Discourse Of George W. Bush

• by: Ann E. Burnette & Wayne L. Kraemer - Texas State University-San Marcos

On May 25, 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a joint press conference in Washington, D.C. In response to a reporter’s question whether either leader thought he had made any mistakes during the War on Terror, Bush said that his “tough talk” might have “sent the wrong signal to people.” He noted that his use of phrases such as “bring it on” and “wanted, dead or alive” could have been “misinterpreted” in “certain parts of the world” (Bush, May 25, 2006). Bush’s statement seemed to signal a new, more nuanced phase of rhetoric in the War on Terror. Yet with the exception of Bush’s contrition on May 25, his rhetoric concerning the War on Terror during the first half of 2006 has supported a grand strategy that seeks to foster American empire. As the War on Terror continues in its fifth year, Bush’s rhetoric has had to shift from the crisis response rhetoric he employed immediately after September 11th to a rhetoric that we call imperial righteousness. The rhetoric of imperial righteousness validates the American prerogative to utilize military power in the cause of right. This rhetoric features four themes: democracy and freedom, national security, the nature of the enemy, and American morality.

While American foreign policy objectives such as the quest to extend and maintain the American empire may remain stable, such objectives cannot be achieved without a grand strategy. A grand strategy “tells a nation’s leaders what goals they should aim for and how best they can use their military power to attain those goals” (Art as cited in Brower, 2004, p. vii). Rhetoric is essential for the execution of a grand strategy and the rhetoric of imperial righteousness is a critical component of the Bush administration’s grand strategy for the War on Terror. This paper will discuss the nature of American empire, examine the construct of a grand strategy, and describe the four rhetorical themes of imperial righteousness.
Bacevich argues that the drive toward empire is the controlling and unifying force underlying American foreign policy across every administration of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Spokespersons and critics of a presidential administration often argue that the administration is implementing new (either bold or misguided) foreign policy. Bacevich, however, argues, “Those who chart America’s course do so with a clearly defined purpose in mind. That purpose is to preserve and, where feasible and conducive to U.S. interests, to expand an American imperium” (2002, p. 3) Historian William Appleman Williams called U.S. foreign policy “Open Door imperialism,” naming it for Secretary of State John Hay’s Open Door Notes in 1899 and 1900 (Bacevich, 2002, pp. 25-26). Contemporary American foreign policy continues in the Open Door tradition of seeking to expand and strengthen economic markets as well as monitoring traditional military and security issues.

The rhetorical nature of American empire rests on several premises. These include Americans’ belief in the unique capacity and responsibility the U.S. has “not simply to discern but to direct history” (Bacevich, 2002, p. 33), the assumption of American good will and reluctance to become entangled, and faith in the military power of the U.S. These premises are also expressed within the framework of grand strategy.
Hart offers an explanation of the concept of grand strategy by positing that the role of a grand strategy is to “coordinate and direct all of the resources of a nation or a band of nations towards the attainment of the political object of the war” (as cited in Brower, 2004, p. viii). This implementation would employ the military machine but additionally rely on the economic power, diplomacy, and national will with a vision that encompasses a “farsighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow” (Hart as cited in Brower, 2004, p. viii). Hart defines grand strategy as the complete utilization of the implements a nation has at its disposal to wage war militarily and rhetorically. The balance of the two is important so that the destructive power of force that might produce a backlash in public opinion is buffered by the rhetorical strategies that justify a nation’s use of power in the international arena.
Richards believes that a grand strategy should indeed include action that produces positive effects on morale and public/world opinion (n.d.). Boyd suggested four functions of a “sensible” grand strategy that should guide nations in their formulation of a grand strategy (as cited in Richards, n.d.). First, the grand strategy should support the national goal, and indeed Gaddis concurs when he argues that The National Security Strategy of the United States of America published almost a year after September 11th was evidence of a crisis begetting a “grand strategy of transformation”, in this case signaling the most sweeping shift in U.S. grand strategy since 1947 (as cited in Hentz, 2004, p. 7). Second, Boyd believes a grand strategy should bolster a nation’s resolve while diffusing the adversary’s resolve and attracting the uncommitted. Third, it should end the conflict on favorable terms, and fourth, sow the seeds to prevent future conflict. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Domain Of Rhetorical Argumentation

• by: Christian Kock - University of Copenhagen

Several contemporary argumentation theorists have tried to define a relationship with rhetoric, or even to integrate rhetoric in their theories. This is of course a welcome development seen from a rhetorician’s point of view. However, I am going to argue that these theories miss important insights because they tend to define rhetorical argumentation too narrowly.
Typically, they define it with reference to the attitude that the arguer takes to arguing; being rhetorical means that one aims to win. In defining rhetoric this way, they overlook the fact that rhetorical argumentation as conceived by its leading thinkers, notably Aristotle, is defined with reference to a particular domain of issues. As a result, rhetorical argumentation has particular properties and a particular set of rules.
These properties which follow from the essential identity of rhetorical argumentation are the ones that modern theorists single out, mistakenly, as its essential features.

I will comment on three important contemporary theories of argumentation. I shall consider them in ascending order of their “friendliness” towards rhetoric.
First, there is Ralph Johnson’s theory as set forth, primarily, in Manifest Rationality (Johnson, 2000). Johnson is one of the originators of “Informal logic” and has made valuable contributions to theory, focusing on the “dialectical” aspect of rhetoric; particularly well known is his distinction between the “illative core” and the “dialectical tier” of argumentation. I wish to emphasize that I see these contributions as highly needed and insightful; however, in this paper I concentrate on Johnson’s attempt to define the difference between the rhetorical view of argumentation and the Informal Logic that he represents; here, I think Johnson’s theory is inadequate.
He sees three main differences between the two views. First, Rhetoric emphasizes “the need to take into account the role of Ethos and Pathos. To be effectively rational, rhetoric will insist that the argument takes account of the human environment and that it, as well, connects with human sentiment. Informal Logic, on the other hand, sees the telos of rational persuasion as governed especially by Logos” (269). Secondly, “Rhetoric will not generally require a dialectical tier in the argument” (270). And thirdly, “Informal Logic should tend to favor the truth requirement over the acceptability requirement, whereas rhetoric will, I believe, take the reverse view” (271). So let us call a spade a spade: “rhetorical” argumentation as Johnson sees it involves a willingness to set aside truth for the sake of acceptance by the audience, i.e., for efficiency.
This view is arguably tantamount to saying that rhetoric is (at least partly) defined by an unethical attitude; what matters in the present context is mainly that Johnson sees rhetorical argumentation as defined by the arguer’s attitude rather than by a distinctive domain.

Secondly, I will take a look at some of the recent writings of Frans van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser, dealing with the integration of rhetoric into argumentation theory (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002). What we see here is a stage in the development of the pragma-dialectical theory. With a background in “speech act” philosophy and a belief in the rational resolution of disputes that has much in common with Habermas, this school has taken an increasingly friendly stance towards rhetoric, and one that seems a good deal friendlier than Johnson’s. But essentially they take the same view as in Johnson’s third point: they see rhetoric as persuasive efforts aimed at “winning”, i.e., at resolving a difference of opinion in one’s own favour. As a result of this wish in the arguer to “win”, rhetorical argumentation involves what they call “Strategic Manoeuvring”, which manifests itself in three respects: 1) topical selectivity, 2) audience adaptation, and 3) presentational devices. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – ‘Status Groups’ Or A ‘Free Market Of Ideas’? An Analysis Of A Romanian Intellectual Polemic In Pragma-Dialectical And Critical Discourse-Analytical Terms

• by: Isabela Ieţcu-Fairclough - University of Bucharest, Romania

In 2004 a controversial book appeared in Romania, Boierii minţii: intelectualii români între grupurile de prestigiu şi piaţa liberă a ideilor (Boyars of the Mind: Romanian intellectuals between status groups and the free market of ideas) by Sorin-Adam Matei, a Romanian academic working in the USA. Drawing on Weber’s concepts of ‘charisma’ and ‘status’, Matei claimed that Romanian public intellectuals are organized in terms of ‘status groups’, a so-called ‘paramodern’ type of social organization, combining traditional, ‘aristocratic’ elements and modern ones. He also used this claim to explain the perceived dysfunctions of the Romanian public sphere after 1989: instead of a democratic ‘free market of ideas’, a space distorted by power relations linked to the charismatic cultural capital of certain intellectuals, to group loyalties, interests and rivalries, a space where individual prestige is less a matter of the quality and quantity of cultural goods produced, than a matter of belonging to the ‘right’ intellectual caste.
The predominance of status groups in the cultural world, Matei argued, as well as the way in which they exploit market mechanisms, are ‘distorting’ the process of ‘remodernization’ after 1989 and only aggravate what others have called Romania’s deficit of modernity. As an illustration of this alleged mechanism, Matei discusses the way in which H.-R. Patapievici (now a well-known writer and director of the Romanian Cultural Institute) was ‘launched’, some 10 years ago, by philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu, the leader of the most prestigious ‘status group’ during and after communism, that of the disciples of philosopher Constantin Noica (1909-1987).
The analytical framework of this paper is provided by a combination of Pragma-Dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 2004, van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002) and Critical Discourse Analysis, or CDA (Fairclough 1989, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2003, Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Wodak et al. 1999). In my work so far (Ieţcu 2004, 2006, 2006a), I have focused on the contribution of public intellectuals to the processes of social change after 1989 and I have combined CDA with pragma-dialectical concepts in an attempt to expand CDA’s analytical framework. For instance, I have assumed that a concept like strategic maneuvering can throw light on the analysis, in CDA terms, of discursive strategies of legitimation of certain preferred ideologies in post-communism, or that the logic that has governed the recontextualization of certain western discourses in Romania after 1989 can be discussed in terms of certain fallacious ways of arguing.

Reconstruction of the argument
I am suggesting below a reconstruction of Matei’s argument, which I take to consist mainly of coordinative argumentation in support of the standpoint (1): single arguments such as 1.1. and 1.2. have to be taken together in order to defend the standpoint (i.e. the mere existence of status groups would not support the standpoint sufficiently if they did not also predominate in Romanian cultural life, virtually to the alleged exclusion of other more democratic forms of organization). Arguments in support of the premise that status groups are a ‘paramodern’ form of organization, i.e. one which distorts modernization processes (1.1’), are also linked by coordination:

1. Romanian intellectuals are turning Romania into a ‘paramodern society’, i.e. distorting the process of (re)modernization after 1989.
[usage declarative 1: definition of ‘intellectuals’ as ‘public intellectuals’, i.e. those who are actively influencing public life]
[usage declarative 2: definition of ‘paramodernity’ as a system of social organization that combines modern and pre-modern elements, e.g. a belief in the existence of essential differences among social groups or categories, in the social role of elites and exceptional individuals, etc.] Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Argumentative Construction Of Emotions: The Example Of Indignation In Pro-Life Rhetoric

• by: Raphaël Micheli - University of Lausanne

1. Introduction
For a little more than a decade, the field of argumentation studies has seen a growing interest for the topic of emotions. The aim of the present paper is twofold. I will first attempt to tackle the complex theoretical debate which opposes normative and descriptive approaches (2.). As far as normative approaches are concerned, the treatment which emotional appeals receive in Douglas Walton’s pragmatic theory of fallacies will be the center of my attention (2.1.). I will then look at Christian Plantin’s model, which aims not so much at evaluating emotional appeals as to describing how emotions are argumentatively constructed by speakers (2.2.). In the second part of the paper, I will proceed to a case study and examine a recent example of American pro-life rhetoric (3.). Focusing on a corpus of short essays written by an anti-abortion writer named Larry Bohannon (“Evil in Our Time” and “What About Abortion?”), I will try to capture the essential features of the argumentative construction of a particular emotion – namely indignation.

2. What about emotions? Contrasting two lines of thought in argumentation theory
When it comes to emotions, two lines of thought can be distinguished in argumentation theory. From a normative point of view, a fully-fledged argumentation theory should be able to evaluate emotional appeals – and not merely to describe them. Thus, the analyst is to specify the criteria which allow to discriminate between “ reasonable ” and “ fallacious ” uses of emotional appeals. From a descriptive point of view, however, the analyst’s main task is to provide an accurate description of emotional appeals without necessarily passing judgment on their degree of reasonableness.

2.1. Douglas Walton’s normative approach: a pragmatic theory of fallacies
I will start by taking a look at normative approaches – which, in my view, are best represented by Douglas Walton’s work on emotions (1992, 1997).
This work can be considered as pioneer work, as it firmly rejects the negative ontology which dismisses emotional appeals on the ground that they are emotional appeals and cannot thus be anything but fallacious. Walton claims that “ there is nothing wrong per se with appeals to emotion in argumentation, even though appeals to emotion can go wrong and be exploited in some cases ” (1992, p. 257). It is important to notice that Walton does not consider emotional appeals as fallacious a priori: in his view, potential fallacies lie in contextual uses of emotional appeals, but not in their very essence. Far from an essentialist perspective, Walton aims to sort out the “ right ” uses of emotional appeals from the “ wrong ” ones. What is at stake, then, is not the mere linguistic description of emotional appeals, but their explicit evaluation in a given context of dialogue. The analyst must ultimately pass judgment and label emotional appeals as “ right ” or “ wrong ” considering the textual and contextual evidence at hand. Walton’s refusal of a merely descriptive approach appears quite explicitly in the first pages of The Place of Emotion in Argument : “ [T]his book […] is a normative analysis of the conditions under which appeals to emotion are used correctly or incorrectly in argumentation ” (1992, p. 28).

This normative approach to emotional appeals is to be situated within the more general framework of Walton’s theory of fallacies. Following the revised version of this theory, arguments are evaluated as “ reasonable ” or “ fallacious ” according to communicative norms rather than according to universal logical standards. Whereas Charles Hamblin (1970) laid considerable emphasis on the criterion of deductive validity and defined fallacies as arguments which seem valid but are not, Walton chooses a more pragmatic perspective. He claims for his part that fallacies are “ technique[s] of argumentation that may in principle be reasonable, but that ha[ve] been misused in a given case in such a way that [they go] strongly against or hinde[r] the goals of dialogue ” (1992, p. 18). This definition suggests that in order to pin down a fallacy, the analyst first needs to subsume the context in which speakers are interacting under a normative model of dialogue[i] and then determine whether or not a given argument is in compliance with the rules set by this model of dialogue. Walton’s methodology rests on the assumption that each model of dialogue involves specific goals which speakers are bound to pursue conjointly and thus claims that an argument is reasonable insofar as it makes a contribution to these goals. How does this pragmatic view of fallacy underpin Walton’s specific work on appeals to emotion ? Walton writes: “ [E]motional arguments can be used fallaciously in particular uses so that they go contrary to the proper goals of […] dialogue that participants are supposed to be engaged in. Contrary to the common assumption that an argument based on emotion is not a rational (reasonable) argument, such an argument can be good and reasonable insofar as “good” and “rational” argument is that which contributes to the proper goals of dialogue ” (1992, pp. 25-27, my emphasis). The degree of reasonableness or fallaciousness of an emotional appeal depends on its fitting a particular model of dialogue and on its contribution to the latter’s goals.
At this point, I would like to make a general comment on normative approaches. In my view, what these approaches primarily seek to do is to determine whether a given emotional appeal will have positive or negative effects, and this with regard to the ideal progression of the argumentative process which is normatively fixed by a model of dialogue. If emotional appeals have the effect of contributing to the goals of the model of dialogue which speakers are supposed to be engaged in, they will be considered “ reasonable ”. If, however, they have the effect of violating these goals, they will be considered “ fallacious ”. In what follows, I would like to look at an alternative way of approaching emotions in argumentative discourse, which is less normative than comprehensive – in the same sense that sociology can be comprehensive and study the meaning which social actors themselves confer to their actions and, in our case, to their emotions. This perspective draws on Christian Plantin’s work (1999, 2004), which I will briefly discuss before engaging in the case study. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – A Methodological Approach To Argument Evaluation

• by: Marcin Koszowy - The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

1. The methodological approach to argument evaluation defined
The methodological approach to argument evaluation may be expressed by the following claim: argumentation can be successfully evaluated by applying tools elaborated by the general methodology of science. Among those tools, there are rules of performing various knowledge-gaining procedures such as reasoning, questioning, defining, and classifying objects. In what follows I call these rules methodological. At first glance this approach is plausible, because the argumentation theory and the methodology of science have in fact a common aim: to establish rules for evaluating activities of some special kinds. In the case of argumentation theory, these are speech acts performed within an argumentative discourse; in the case of methodology these are knowledge-gaining activities performed either in scientific research or in everyday life. The aim of this paper is to show that this approach works. I illustrate its usefulness by discussing two cases of argument evaluation by means of the rules of defining elaborated by the methodology of science.
Although elements of the methodological approach to argument evaluation are present in philosophy, informal logic, and argumentation theory, they have not so far been systematically elaborated. By “elements of the methodological approach to argument evaluation” I mean claims concerning applications of various methodological rules to evaluation of arguments. Some of these claims have been advanced or examined by thinkers who belong to various philosophical traditions. Among them I mention Jaakko Hintikka who points out to the need of evaluating arguments within the framework of questioning (e.g. 1984a; 1984b; 1992); Douglas Walton who examines fallacies of questioning, also by means of some methodological rules of questioning and answering (1991) and analyzes some rules of formulating persuasive definitions (2001); Alvin Goldman who applies some rules of justification (which are also applied by the methodology of science) within the epistemological approach to argumentation (2003); Louise Cummings who shows the relation between scientific norms and argument evaluation (2002). I should also mention Polish philosophers and methodologists from the Lvov-Warsaw School: Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz who develops the program of pragmatic logic (1974) within which methodological rules of performing various knowledge-gaining procedures are elaborated and Tadeusz Czeżowski who formulates such methodological rules for the procedures of describing and defining (2000).

A careful analysis of the elements of the methodological approach to argument evaluation present in writings of the philosophers listed above shows that many methodological rules are in fact used in argument evaluation. This is why they deserve to be described in a systematic way.

A possible set of methodological rules which are to be used in argument evaluation is based on the list of some typical knowledge-gaining procedures which are investigated by the general methodology of science. Among these procedures the most significant are:
(1) reasoning,
(2) questioning,
(3) defining,
(4) classifying objects and
(5) formulating and testing hypotheses[i]. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Normatively Responsible Advocacy: Some Provocations From Persuasion Effects Research

• by: Daniel J. O'Keefe - Northwestern University

This paper addresses one aspect of the relationship between argumentation studies and social-scientific persuasion effects research. Persuasion effects research aims at understanding how and why persuasive messages have the effects they do; that is, persuasion effects research has descriptive and explanatory aims. Argumentation studies, on the other hand, is at its base animated by normative concerns; the broad aim is to articulate conceptions of normatively desirable argumentative practice, both in the abstract and in application to particular instances, with a corresponding pedagogical aim of improving discourse practices. That is, one of these enterprises is dominated by descriptive and explanatory concerns and the other by normative interests.
In some previous work I have explored the relationship between these two undertakings by taking up the question of whether there is any intrinsic conflict between normatively-sound argumentation practices and practical persuasive success. The empirical evidence appears to indicate that a number of normatively-desirable advocacy practices – including clearly articulating one’s overall standpoint (O’Keefe, 2002), spelling out one’s supporting evidence and arguments (O’Keefe, 1998), and refuting counterarguments (O’Keefe, 1999) – commonly improve one’s chances for persuasive success.
This paper approaches the relationship of normative argumentation studies and descriptive persuasion effects research from a different angle, by pointing to several empirical findings that raise questions or puzzles about normatively-proper argumentative conduct. My purpose here is less to offer definitive conclusions about normative analyses of advocacy, and more to point to some social-scientific research findings that indicate some complications in the analysis of normatively desirable argumentative conduct – including some ways in which practical persuasive success may not be entirely compatible with normatively-desirable advocacy practices.

1. Background
As a preliminary, it may be useful to notice that at least some of what I have to say will intersect with some of the concerns of pragma-dialectics. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser have in recent years taken up questions concerning the nature of “strategic maneuvering” and its analysis from a pragma-dialectical standpoint. “Strategic maneuvering” refers to the advocates’ “attempt to make use of the opportunities available in the dialectical situation for steering the discourse rhetorically in the direction that serves their own interests best” (van Eemeren & Houtlosser, 2001). One of the questions van Eemeren and Houtlosser have addressed is specifically the question of when strategic maneuvering is normatively questionable (as opposed to normatively unobjectionable). At least some my discussion will be seen to address that same question.
However, a complexity is introduced by the natural divergence between (a) the circumstance contemplated by (pragma-dialectical and other) ideals for critical discussion and (b) the circumstance in which argumentation and advocacy often are undertaken. Ideals for critical discussion often seem to contemplate a situation in which (at a minimum) two advocates undertake the articulation and defense of different points of view. There may be some third party to which the advocates’ arguments are addressed (as in legal proceedings), or each advocate may act as the other’s audience, but the key feature to which I want to draw attention is that there are two advocates.

But advocacy sometimes occurs in circumstances in which only one advocate is heard, such as consumer advertising. Yes, one may here think of the audience as (implicitly) the other advocate, but one would immediately want to acknowledge that the audience may not always be in the same sort of argumentative position as the advocate (for instance, the audience may not know as much about the relevant subject matter as does the advocate). And, yes, sometimes opposing views are available elsewhere; for instance, in the case of consumer advertising, consumer advocacy groups may publish opposing views or critical information. Even so, especially in instances of advocacy (such as commercial advertising) delivered through traditional media of mass communication, there is some asymmetry between the audience and advocate.
Moreover, there are circumstances in which there is (potentially) argumentation (in a broad sense) but not necessarily advocacy (in the usual sense). The kind of circumstance I have in mind is exemplified by those medical decision-making situations in which a patient is to choose among alternative courses of action. In such situations, health professionals can provide arguments and evidence that bear on that decision, even if they advocate no particular option.
So my interest here is broadly with any situation in which persons consider some potentially-argument-based claim, that is, some claim that might be supported by argument. I mention these contextual variations and divergences (between the circumstances of critical discussion and other circumstances) because I think that they bear on the task of transferring normative ideals from one circumstance to another – and because they foreshadow some of the complications to which I want to point. Read more