What If They No Longer Care About Reasons?

Unreasonable Citizens and Moral Vice

Over the past few weeks I have been doing a series on democratic virtues and the face of social discourse in a time of rising authoritarian tendencies. Well, I want to close out that series today (we will, no doubt, return to these issues often in the coming months and years, sigh) by thinking about unreasonable citizens more directly. I want to do this in two steps.

First, I will lay out what I take to be the best definition of what it is to be unreasonable within social deliberation. Second, I will push this idea a bit further and suggest that what we face today is not just a failure of democratic/social virtue, but a failure of moral virtue as well. Specifically, unreasonable citizens are not just refusing to abide by public reason requirements for social discourse, but actually being unconcerned about reason-giving as important for belief formation and personal action in the first place.

To my mind, the idea of being unreasonable is helpfully framed by John Rawls’s idea of the requirements of public reason - whether or not one a defender or critic of Rawlsian liberalism more broadly. Since I have discussed Rawls in some detail in an earlier post, here I will just mention that the idea of public reason as a requirement for social deliberation is simply an attempt to make public discourse “fair” to all participants. There is surely some debate about how well Rawls’s account does in this regard, but I take it that it is at least following the right intuition here. If public policy affects us all, regardless of our religion, our social identity, our particular group affiliations, etc., then the reasons given for such policy should be accessible as reasons by everyone. So, if I appeal to a particular revealed religious text, or a particular embodied experience available only to some members of society, or to a specific moral framework not universally affirmed, etc., then I would be, in principle, excluding from the justification some of the people impacted by the policy. Public reason is the attempt to give and receive reasons as members of a democratic society, first and foremost, not as members of subgroups (whether moral, religious, or whatever) within that society.

Well, when it comes to public reason, I tend to think that it must be right and yet can’t be right. It must be right because what other option is there for engaging in deliberative social practice - as guided by democratic virtues - that does as good a job of being equally available to all participants? In that way, public reason is a social equalizer relative to the idea that we are all “reasonable” members of society - regardless of our power, position, or background. But, public reason can’t be right, it seems to me, because it makes it likely that the reasons given in public discourse are not actually the reasons motivating belief and practice when it comes to public engagement. In other words, even if someone gives a reason that counts as public for some policy, that person can then vote however they please for whatever reason they find compelling. Unless our public discourse actually countenances and considers the underlying motivational reason, we risk making a hash out of the goal of public deliberation in the first place. It becomes a show, rather than a social virtue. And yet, if we just abandon any requirement of public reason giving, then we seem to risk allowing unreasonable participation to have free reign over our social lives.

So, how are we to move forward in light of this tension?

Because I see unreasonable citizens as deeply problematic obstacles to democratic social flourishing, I want to offer at least a possible way to move forward here. My view, in some ways at least, draws on the work of folks like Christopher Eberle and Nicholas Wolterstorff, who both appreciate the importance of what we might term discursive moral obligations even if they stop short of endorsing a full requirement of public reason as a social obligation for everyone. The thought is that we should do all we can to at least try to offer reasons recognizable to our conversational partners. Sometimes this might require that we appeal to reasons that operate internal to a subcommunity - Christians, say - when talking to members of that subcommunity. But, we should recognize that such reasons are not likely to hold for folks outside of that subgroup. As such, public reason is still an ideal worth defending, but in practice we need to be more flexible in order to be maximally charitable to those with whom we share political life. Let’s term my view, “reasons relativism,” because it still requires that we are responsive to reasons, but locate those reasons as potentially located relative to existing communities of discourse.

What I like about this view is that it still allows for an unreasonable citizen as someone who refuses to participate in the giving and taking of reasons as a requirement of democratic life. And yet, it operates on a slightly more welcoming framework than straightforward public reason requirements of political liberalism. Insofar as it admits that the process of reason-giving might look, in practice, slightly different depending on the communities/individuals involved, it allows for the virtue of hospitality to be a public good.

Notice also, though, that this view is reciprocal. That I am required to try, so far as possible, to offer reasons that my conversation partner can recognize, similarly my conversation partner is required, so far as possible, to offer reasons that I can recognize. So, even if one tries to argue from within Biblical reasons when talking to a Christian, for example, that Christian should not be able to rest easy on such Biblical reasons when talking to someone not from that community. As such, I do think that some minimalist notion of public reason is still likely to emerge as the best option in almost all cases, it is not an absolute demand that threatens to allow our actual motivations to remain hidden in our discursive engagements.

An important implication of reasons relativism is it makes unreasonable citizens far more rare than they would otherwise be on a straightforward public reason model. In this way, a democratic virtue is the prima facie assumption that one’s conversation partner is both reasonable and morally motivated. They are only to be deemed unreasonable or immoral as a result of deliberative engagement - or the failure thereof. Dismissal out of hand is off the table.

Everything I have said up to this point is what I think is right as a matter of philosophical principle. However, life is not a thought-experiment. Existence is much messier than our theories tend to admit. Accordingly, what should we do when a genuine attempt to engage even in a more modest reasons relativism (when compared to the strict public reason model) is so frequently met with a refusal to participate in reason-giving in the first place?

In other words, what do we do when our conversation partner just no longer cares about reason-giving, doesn’t even attempt to provide evidence for their views, is resistant to objections, and sees belief obstinacy as somehow more virtuous that critical reflection? In a time when loyalty to a leader overrides loyalty to truth seeking, one might be right to see reasons relativism as a non-starter because it is still far too naive about the state of our discourse and the state of mind of so many we attempt to engage within it.

As my friend, Kevin Carnahan, would say, “Dude, it is so much worse than we think. We are screwed.”

Almost daily I see people on social media in my own communities all the way to national leaders in Washington D.C. express a profound disregard for reasons. Power is all that matters. Winning is the only goal. What do we do when the frequent response to “I have shown you evidence why you are wrong” is simply “I don’t care”? Even worse, what do we do when in light of such evidence, those people not only ignore it, but actively try to claim that we can’t even trust our own eyes. Political loyalty over empirical data is a staggeringly dangerous way to navigate social life, but truly terrifying when applied to public health, foreign policy, and economic decisions.

The crucial thing to realize here is that such epistemic failures reflect not just social problems, but moral corruption. It is bad enough when people are poorly trained in how to engage in social deliberation in responsible ways. It is much worse when people no longer see social deliberation as a responsibility in the first place. Being epistemically untrustworthy can happen for a lot of reasons, but although ignorance is understandable in some areas, a disregard for truth is inexcusable in all areas.

I wish I had some easy recommendations for how to proceed in light of this situation, but I don’t. Ultimately, I think that we face something of a dilemma whereby there are a few options, but all of them are less than ideal.

First, we could lean hard into reasons relativism and say that those who refuse to engage in good faith deliberation have effectively minimized the relevance of their own voices. The task, then, would be to delegitimize them as a matter of public sanction. The problem with this approach is that there are just so many people who seem to have walked away from any concern for reason based argumentation that the public critique is unlikely to have much of an impact. It is one thing to have an audience boo you offstage, but it is something quite different when the one person booing gets escorted out the back door so that the event can continue undisturbed.

Second, we could follow Robert Talisse’s advice to deemphasize politics in our social engagement with other people. His encouragement is that we find ways to be in community - like church softball leagues, community book groups, or bike clubs, etc. - that allow us to see each other’s humanity without making such seeing dependent on social agreement. The problem here is that we still have to make decisions about where to draw the line of social interaction. Surely we should not be willing to ignore the nazism of our softball teammates, etc. So, at what point is being unreasonable, or just no longer caring enough even to be bothered by the charge of being unreasonable, enough to warrant disassociation?

Finally, we could realize that the very idea of appealing to reason-giving as a social good is naive and so just prepare for the inevitable violence that is going to come. I solidly refuse this option as a real strategy, but I recognize it as still a possibility for how things turn out. Indeed, that this threat is real is what motivates me so deeply to try to join a book club, pick up my softball mitt, and stay engaged on social media with an eye toward reasons relativism as the continued ideal.

Ultimately, I think that is probably all we can do. But this is not nothing.

I would rather do all I can to fight the rising tide, even if it looks like my efforts are futile, than just to abandon my home to the floodwaters without any attempt to stand against them. Recently here in the Carolinas we experienced the worst floods this areas has seen in a century. The communities are still trying to recover in countless ways. The hurricane that came through caused untold suffering and destruction, but also occasioned an amazing outpouring of neighbors caring for neighbors. People from all walks of life got together to refuse to allow destruction to have the final word. Sure, sometimes abandoning the house when it was no loner possible to protect it is the only option, but that is never the first option. Accordingly, I think that we all must do our best to invite each other into reasoned dialogue (and reasons relativism seems the best strategy for how to do that) while we still can. Kevin might be right about how bad things are, but they can still get a whole lot worse. Before that happens, we must do all we can to prevent the unthinkable.

In the end, I think that we should keep reminding each other of the words of Tennyson about doing all we can even when it seems like there is nothing more to do:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

So right now, where you are, do what you can. Engage in critical reflection. Participate in social discourse. Expect reasons from others. Offer reasons for your own views. Play softball. Ride bikes. Read books. It may be that the unreasonable citizens are just too many. But, stemming their tide is crucial if we are to retain any hope for our democracy. Remember, being reasonable doesn’t mean agreeing with you! But, being unreasonable does mean refusing to think together about what is worthy of our agreement.

As David Foster Wallace says to the graduates of Kenyon College in his commencement speech to them: “I wish you way more than luck.”

Encourage each other in the midst of the struggle. If we are lucky we will find the strength to hold on a while longer. And then maybe a little while longer. And then maybe it will not require so much strength to keep holding on.

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As always, I appreciate you for hiking a few more miles with me on the trails of life and thinking with me along the way. I would love to hear your thoughts about my suggestions here. Do you see a different way forward?