22.2: Persuasion- Rational Argument vs. Manipulation

We often find ourselves trying to convince other people of one thing or another. People in some jobs do this for a living, but no matter what our vocation, we are likely to do it. You might want to convince your teacher that you deserve a second chance on the big exam, or to convince your students that they should care about critical reasoning. You might want to convince someone to go out on a date with you, or marry you, or divorce you. You will almost certainly want to convince your children, once they are old enough to understand, that hurting other people for no good reason is a bad thing to do. In fact, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to convince other people.

There are many different (and often subtle) techniques for persuading people of things. One of the main points in this course is that the best way to do this is by giving them a good argument that employs premises they accept. Why does this matter? If we do this, we treat other people as autonomous adults who we think can make up their own minds. We give them what we think are good reasons, and then let them decide for themselves. But if we try to persuade them in other, non-rational ways, we treat them as objects to be manipulated (I’ll say whatever he wants to hear, if it will get him to buy this car) or as children who aren’t capable of thinking for themselves (“After all, I know what’s best for him”).

The latter approach is called paternalism. It assumes that other people are not capable of thinking for themselves. This is a very sensible view to take regarding young children, and we often must extend it to adults who suffer from severe mental disturbances or who act in ways that harm others (though there is much debate about just who falls into this category). But it’s a very dangerous view to take about adults in general.

Just a little thought about the history of the twentieth century should convince us of the dangers of deciding that others don’t know how to reason correctly, or how to decide what is best for them. An easy way to see why this is objectionable is to think about how we would feel if other people treated us as an object to be manipulated or a child to be cajoled and tricked into acting and thinking in the ways others want us to.

Life is too short for us to devote hours thinking about each decision we make. But when the decisions are important, we should think about them for ourselves. Even in these cases, rationality is an ideal. In this respect, it is like a good marriage: it’s a goal well worth striving for, even though there will be lots of lapses and backsliding, and even on our best days we won’t fully achieve it.

Of course, there are many other ways to persuade people. Indeed, we have encountered a variety of techniques that can be quite effective for doing this. One of the most effective ways to do so is to provide what seems like a good argument on the surface, but which persuades (if it does) because it takes advantage of various cognitive biases (e.g. our tendency to ignore base rates) or because it appeals to our emotions or self-interest. This is one reason why the study of fallacies and cognitive biases is worthwhile. Our earlier modules cover many of the ways in which bad arguments can persuade us when we aren’t careful. We will now turn more directly to the social aspects of persuasion.