I doubt some of you will believe me, but this is NOT a political essay. It is an epistemic one.
I am currently teaching a course called “God and Justice.” It is basically an introduction to political philosophy that is framed around the question of how best to think about the role of religion in democratic societies.
The first big idea that I taught my students was that democratic social engagement, like philosophy more broadly, requires hermeneutic charity as a core deliberative virtue. “Hermeneutic charity” is just a really fancy (and technical) way of saying that we should try our best not only to take seriously the views of others, but also actively to try to formulate their view as the strongest possible version that could be presented. The idea is that we enter argumentative contexts not hoping to “win” but to be transformed by good reasons.
“Hermeneutic” just means interpretive.
”Charity” just means maximally gracious.
So, showing hermeneutic charity is a way of displaying to those with whom we engage that we care more about truth than just being “right.”
Hermeneutic charity is, however, not the only deliberative virtue. We must also be earnest about the reasons that motivate us. We must be honest about our beliefs and the entailments of them. We must be humble enough to admit that we don’t have it all figured out and so need each other to help us see our potential errors. We must be responsible and seek out possible objections so that we do not fall into complacency about truth. We must be fair to those with whom we disagree and hospitable to voices that challenge our own.
Argument is hard work. But, if we are to live into the full task of democratic social ideals, then we must commit to putting the work in to develop by the philosophers Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin term “cognitive health.”
(By the way, pick up their book about argument in democratic societies. It is excellent!)
Only cognitively healthy individuals are likely to foster cognitively healthy societies (and vice-versa). In other words, we need each other to be good at this and we need to be good at this to help others get better.
Democracy is tough and yet it is the best political model we know of for fostering a society defined by moral and epistemic equality among all citizens.
Without being able to develop the thought fully here, I think that once we get the epistemic stakes of democracy—that we have to commit to cognitive health as a social goal if we are to avoid the potential slide from democracy to tyranny about which Plato warns—we can see that when it comes to argument, reason giving, and social discourse, radical individualism is a non-option (and maybe even a moral failure).
In light of these general epistemic stakes of democratic life and the importance of deliberative virtues for a healthy society, it is important to realize that sometimes displaying hermeneutic charity can, itself, actually constitute an epistemic failure. This happens when one’s conversation partner has abandoned the basic standards for reasonable discourse.
This can happen in a variety of ways.
It could be that one’s moral views are so fundamentally contrary to the ideals of democratic equality that participating in public discourse undermines the possibility of that discourse continuing to flourish - that is, discourse becomes unreasonable if it’s very continuity risks becoming an anti-democratic activity.
Alternatively, it could be that one’s behaviors in the discourse abandon the hallmarks of deliberative virtue. For example, if threats of force, personal attacks, attempts at distraction, division, and deception become frequent, then that person is no longer rightly viewed as a reasonable participant.
Nonetheless, exactly how these discursive bumper-guards get defined and articulated can depend greatly on the specifics of the situation, but generally, showing hermeneutic charity to a discursive partner when that person is actively undermining the possibility of the continued development of deliberative virtues as a social good, is, itself, epistemically flawed.
Part of cognitive health is not just understanding the importance of hermeneutic charity, but being reasonable about when it should be expected as a discursive practice.
Well, once we see how such a deliberative virtue can slide into an epistemic vice, then we can better make navigate the troubled waters of political discourse. Or that’s my hope at least. To that end, I was struck by a few things about the Presidential “debate” between Harris and Trump.
Ok, so first, there is plenty to applaud about Harris’s rhetorical strategy of baiting Trump such that he abandoned anything like reason-giving and instead slid into an incoherent mess. As Trump’s ego got challenged, he increasingly acted like a wounded dog lashing out at anything in range, rather than like someone who should be entrusted with social power due to their commitment to the deliberative virtues upon which democratic society ultimately depends. If our political leaders don’t care about being good at argumentation, then it is tough to see how they can stand as models for the rest of us as we try to protect democratic society from the division fostered when powerful egos override the basic ideal of moral and epistemic equality. On that front, then, Harris displayed a brilliant ability to let Trump walk eagerly into his very worst instincts.
And yet, despite Harris’s rhetorical savvy, I was deeply disappointed by her lack of clear deliberative virtue. She rarely answered questions directly, she frequently settled for attacking Trump instead of laying out a positive vision, and she definitely did not ever show a moment of hermeneutic charity to the possibility that objections to her positions and views could be reasonable and worthy of serious consideration. The fact that she didn’t tell repeated falsehoods is such a low bar that we should be wary of citing it as evidence of very much at all.
As just one example, consider the very first question, “Vice-President Harris, are people better off now than they were four years ago?” This should have been an opportunity for honesty about the continued difficulties faced by so many and a moment when real solidarity could have been shown for the frustration that many feel about the economic hardship that continues to be so very real in many households. In other words, here was the perfect opportunity to show epistemic humility about some things in the past four years that didn’t work as well as she might have hoped. That would have allowed her to pivot and then highlight the amazing reduction in inflation over the past four years, the increase in jobs, the decrease in the unemployment rate, and the generally stabilized supply chain and stock exchange. Further, she then could have gone into an explanation of her vision for the next four years and ways that her presidency would learn and adjust due to the possible ways that the Biden administration (of which she was part) might not have done everything it had hoped.
But that is not what she did. She instead did not answer the question, but instead immediately attempted to pivot by speaking about her “opportunity economy” - but with precious little specificity about how that would work - and then began her attack on what was economically inherited from Trump. Sure, the inheritance is an important fact to bring into evidence, but seemed odd for someone leaning hard into the idea that she was going to move the country forward, rather than continuing to bog it down in the grievances of the past.
So, when the “debate” ended, I (like the vast majority of those who watched) considered Harris to have put on a good show and easily displayed her rhetorical superiority to Trump. That she “won” the debate was clear. However, I was also frustrated that I had not seen anything from either of the candidates that I would consider genuine argumentation and a display of deliberative exemplarity. They both seemed just to be playing for the small slice of swing voters that would put them over the top in the electoral count.
But, amidst all the very vocal concerns about the fate of democracy in this election, neither seemed troubled by the hard work required in democratic deliberation. Neither seemed troubled by the fact that sometimes “winning” comes at too high a cost. Accordingly, if we continue to abandon a concern for reason giving and instead only focus on rhetorically out-maneuvering one’s opponent, then it is hard to see how the ideological division in the country is overcome in the name of productive disagreement anchored in shared commitments to cognitive health.
Now, that said, let me be clear: If we are simply doing a comparative analysis, then as an Opinion piece in the Toronto Star said, “Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump was like watching Socrates debate Scooby-Doo.” He was a disaster. She was not. He was incoherent. She was not. He told dozens of false and misleading statements. She did overstate a few things and fail to provide context for a few others, but there can be no equivocation between them when it comes to truth-telling. In fact, consider this analysis of 55 suspect claims made in the “debate.”
If the choice of president is simply to be made from their respective “performances,” then it is an extremely easy one to make. Indeed, voting for a doorknob or an apple-core would likely lead to a better epistemic situation than voting for Trump. Indeed, as the old saying goes, better to remain silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Moreover, I have never known a doorknob to lie or an apple-core to display incoherent narcissistic tendencies. Oh, and don’t forget that neither a doorknob nor an apple-core has ever been found guilty of multiple felony charges, ridiculed the most vulnerable in our society, called fallen soldiers “losers,” and been found liable for sexual assault.
Despite the ease of such a decision, I don’t think Harris looked very much like Socrates. Instead, she looked like a typical politician who is seeking to win, rather than someone motivated by good reasons and willing to follow the argument wherever it leads (as was Socrates). Without philosophical substance, rhetorical skill threatens to slide into not much more than impressively deployed bullshit.
And yet, my initial take on the “debate” radically shifted once I started hearing explanations and rationales offered for why Trump did so poorly. Consider just a few (taken from this essay):
“It was three-on-one. They continued to engage in so-called fact-checking of Donald Trump. They never did that to Kamala Harris,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
“You have two moderators there who acted as agents of the Harris campaign,” (David Bossie, a longtime Trump adviser and Republican National Committee member from Maryland).
“It was a little outrageous that they would fact-check only one candidate on the fly,” (Tim Murtaugh, who was the communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign)
That the moderators "would fact-check only one candidate” is not reflective of bias, but of the fact that Trump was consistently not just misleading, but epistemically vicious in his statements. That Cotton, Bossie, and Murtaugh would see fit to blame the moderators for daring to expect truth from a person running to be be handed the keys of social power, rather than critiquing Trump for making such a hash of epistemic virtue is the true example of epistemic failure. Their attempt to show so much hermeneutic charity to Trump - to the point that they overlook his falsehoods, fallacies, and egoistic challenge to evidential norms - is not to be applauded, but to be condemned in the name of the very democracy over which they hope to rule once again.
Objectivity in this case is not achieved by the moderators being equal in behavior to both candidates, but in being fair about the standards to which one’s discourse is held. Ironically, commitment to such fairness would actually constitute a commitment to genuine equality in the ways that democracy advocates.
Simply put, there was no comparison between the two regarding statements that required fact-checking. Not to challenge Trump’s statements (especially in a divisive and emotionally charged time) would have been actively to participate in anti-democratic behavior. To establish epistemic bumpers such that the “debate” was presented with at least some side-glance to the importance of truth-seeking and reason-giving as a hallmark of democratic society was exactly the right thing to do. And doing it should be applauded by all of us - regardless of our specific preferences for public policy. The scales of justice can only be balanced when the weights on each side are the same.
(I had a joke in here about there not being any comparison between the weight of an elephant and the weight of a donkey, but figured it might sound like I was being flippant so I took it out).
It was when I saw the attack on the moderators that I realized that perhaps if Harris had shown Trump more hermeneutic charity during the debate such that deliberative virtue was more foregrounded, then she would have been guilty of the very epistemic failure displayed by those Trump supporters who are frustrated by the requirements of virtuous deliberative engagement.
Yes, I do wish she had been more direct, more transparent, more humbly reflective, and more deserving of the epistemic trust that should be expected of those with social power. And yes, I think that far too many of the commentaries on the debate coming from Harris supporters are blindly enthusiastic without the critical awareness that deliberative virtue should cultivate. However, I now see such flaws as reflective of overstatement, not epistemic vice.
Upon reflection, I view Harris’s “performance” to be one that is merely typical of the political theatre we, regrettably, have come to expect from elected leaders. But not displaying the deliberative virtue that we might have hoped for is very far from being actively epistemically vicious. Even if epistemically disappointing, Harris did not undercut democratic ideals in real time. Trump did. Harris’s supporters need to be more nuanced in their assessment, but they are not undermining the very idea of cognitive health. Trump’s supporters did.
Notice, none of what I have said here touches at all on policy. That you might agree with conservative economic policy or be fully convinced of more progressive approaches to climate change is irrelevant to the philosophical point I am trying to highlight here.
However, if we allow ourselves to become a society whereby we are willing to sacrifice deliberative virtue when it helps “our candidate,” and then have the audacity to complain about a failure of “fairness” or “objectivity” when the lowest of possible bars of social discourse are enforced, then there is absolutely no hope for a robust and productive debate (now not in scare-quotes) about public policy. Such a debate requires that democracy be more important than “our side.” When we think that we can sacrifice cognitive health in the name of victory, then it might turn out that one’s winning an election is tantamount to a much more devastating loss of the very society they had hoped to lead.
Trust matters.
Truth matters.
Discourse matters.
We must expect more.
We must do better.
But, we must guard against thinking that hermeneutic charity is always a good epistemic idea. Sometimes it just isn’t and at those times, we need to trust that the guardrails (and moderators) hold fast and continue to fact-check us all.
I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on what I say here and on the “debate” more generally. Let’s think together:
“The fact that she didn’t tell repeated falsehoods is such a low bar that we should be wary of citing it as evidence of very much at all. “ and yet here we are. Thanks - appreciate the depth here beyond the surface discussion. I, too, would love to see this country do and be better. But we have a long climb uphill for that
As philosophy, this is a top-notch essay. However, I'd argue that a Presidential candidate debate (right now, in the US) is not a philosophical debate. It is political. The audience is different. There is a social and political backdrop that is impossible to ignore. Therefore, you might extend some hermeneutic charity to both candidates, as they attempt to speak to all Americans in a way that all Americans might understand. Joe Biden was discarded as a candidate after the last debate, when in my view, he attempted to utilize hermeneutic charity to some extent. He was judged by his appearance and his voice, not by the content of his comments. He was seen as "weak" and "inefficient" at exposing Trump's faults. Harris knew her audience and the task at hand. And she was prepared. Her political audience clamored for strength and clarity, and she delivered. The sway of populism is why our current political discourse is fractured. Hermeneutic charity on Harris's part would not have been effective in this political climate. And if Donald Trump's recent statements are any indication, if he is elected, political discourse will only become more difficult, as he attempts to use the power of our institutions to silence his political critics.