I wrote a scolding rant yesterday titled ENOUGH! of "The Masses are Asses". That evoked a discussion of reason, specifically, what the term "reasonable" means. Some commenters cited to dictionary.com or other similar sources. Were my diary an everyday conversation, those definitions might apply. But it was not, and they don't. So ...
Herewith a primer on Reason, in the context of political discourse:
Okay ... back to the beginning....
"Reason" - set down as the highest civic virtue by Aristotle in The Politics - is not the same as "logic." And Aristotle should know, as it was he who codified what we call logic, and he used reason to mean something different.
Note - Please don't reply with the dictionary definitions, because these are terms-of-art in political discourse, and have been since the time of Aristotle. In this discourse I'm using Aristotle's meanings, and not Miriam Webster's.
If you've not read The Politics and you don't feel qualified to debate the terms-of-art as used in it, that's fine. But don't tell me these terms-of-art mean something else, so we can debate based on the definitions you're comfortable with. That's equivocating ... and it's a logical fallacy.
Logic is a formal process of syllogisms, which are built of relational premises, givens, and conclusions. A simple example:
P: If A is true, then B is true.
G: A is true.
C: B is true.
That is a valid logical argument, in that it follows the forms and rules of logic. But is the conclusion (B is true) True? Actually, we don't know. We've neither tested the premise (it may be faulty) nor verified the given (it may be in error). Example:
P: If Tom is a Republican, then Mary is a Democrat.
G: Tom is a Republican.
C: Mary is a Democrat.
That is a valid logical argument. But is it True? We don't know. Do we have some reason to believe that Tom and Mary belong to different parties (thus testing the premise), and evidence that Tom is, in fact, a Republican (verifying the given)? If not, it's an elegant logical argument - and it's valid - but we can't say it's True.
Enter reason, stage left, introduced by Chorus.
Reason, as a civic virtue propounded by Aristotle, is the application of logic, evidence, and shared value-judgments to reach decisions. Such reasoned decisions are most likely to be: (a) agreeable among the body politic; and, (b) reliable in terms of their stated goals.
The "body politic" does not necessarily mean all citizens. Aristotle did not set down democracy as the touchstone of civic virtue. Aristotle set down reason as the touchstone of civic virtue. Specifically, a city will be virtuous if guided by reason. That could mean a reasonable king, or a reasonable aristocracy, or a reasonable oligarchy, or a reasonable democracy. The key is not the form of government, but that it is reasonable, that it makes policy based on logic, evidence, and shared value-judgments.
Indeed, Aristotle cautioned that democracy was a dangerous form of government, because it could very easily give way to mob rule - based on appeals to passion - forfeiting the virtuous legitimacy of reason. The idea that democracy is a priori superior as a form of government is not supported by reason or by history. Democracy is only virtuous if the body politic are reasonable (above).
Note that logic, evidence, and shared value-judgments are different and distinct elements of reason in Aristotle's usage. I talked about logic above.
Evidence, in this usage, can be defined as "tested or observable facts or circumstances that make a claim more or less likely to be true." Evidence need not be conclusive; it need only make the claim more or less likely to be true. And when it comes to civic policy, we often won't have conclusive evidence ("proof"), by the nature of the information sought. Which brings us to....
Value-judgments. Value-judgments are not logic, and they are not evidence. They are first premises of the form "I value A over B," and are the scales by which we weigh uncertainties: risks and rewards. Value-judgments are arbitrary, in that we cannot prove one value-judgment one superior to another except by reference to other value-judgments, and those referents will inevitably share the same epistemic limits. Any attempt to "prove" a value-judgment will ultimately devolve to either: (a) a bare statement of preference; or, (b) a loop of self-supporting bare preferences.
That last is key. To be reasonable, the body politic (leaders) must apply shared value-judgments. The problem is that most of our value-judgments are invisible even to us. We think we are applying "logic and evidence," when in fact we're applying "logic, evidence, and value-judgments." By leaving value-judgments out of the commonly described elements of reason, we render them invisible. We take them off the menu of discourse and start to think, talk, and act as if arbitrary value-judgments were like facts but even moreso - "writ large on the cosmos," in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
And thus we get "as any damned fool could plainly see" style discourse. Because when it comes to reasoning, value-judgments are more salient than logic or evidence. They are the most important links in the chain of reason, as they set our standards for evaluating evidence, uncertainty, risk, and reward. That's how two people can look at the same raw data and reach completely opposing conclusions ... both entirely reasonable!
So we can have useful discourse, even if we disagree on core value-judgments ... but only if we put those value-judgments on the table for discussion. That means we must both:
- Reason deeply enough to identify our own value-judgments; and,
- Listen well enough to identify our opponents' value-judgments.
Not the value-judgments we wish they had, those easiest to rebut or deride, but the value-judgments they actually use. And then, we must:
- Seek shared value-judgments, ones we can both agree upon and can then use as the basis for reasoned decisionmaking.
In doing that last, we must remain aware that our value-judgments are every bit as arbitrary as the other person's. We might be wrong, and even if we are certain of our rightness, our rightness might not be worthy of our stubbornness. Justice Learned Hand, one of America's foremost jurists, wrote this of Oliver Cromwell's famous plea for reason before the Battle of Dunbar:
I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin: "I beseech ye, in the bowels of Christ, that we might be mistaken."
Something to remember the next time you're tempted to argue that "The Masses are Asses."