Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory

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Response/Mercier & Sperber: Why do humans reason?signature of its primarily argumentative main function. Wewould argue moreover that the main contribution ofreasoning to individual cognition is in helping peopleevaluate other people’s arguments.Both Evans and Frankish suggest an interesting way toreconcile our suggestion that reasoning may have evolvedfor argumentation and the more classical view that itserves first and foremost individual cognitive goals. This individualisticfunction, Evans argues, might be an exaptationfrom an initial argumentative function favored by the concomitantevolution of “language, metarepresentation, and largeforebrains” (para. 6). Frankish proposes that reasoning, evenif it primarily evolved for argumentation, might have beensubstantially “co-opted to play a role in individual cognition”(para. 5). As we said in the preceding paragraph, we do notexclude the possibility that reasoning may also be adaptive inhelping individual ratiocination. Still, our argument remainsthat the many apparent failings of reasoning – our knowledgeof which owes much to Evans himself – make bettersense as the signature of a main argumentative function.Evans insists on the role of reasoning in anticipating thefuture. While anticipating the future is a major aspect ofhuman cognition, it is not clear to us what specific rolereasoning plays in this process, by contrast with other abilitiessuch as imagination and simulation. It is even lessclear what features of reasoning, if any, are specifically tailoredfor this role. Frankish points out that reasoning canbe used to strengthen our resolve by buttressing ourdecisions with supporting arguments. Indeed, reasoningcan do exactly that. However, if weakness of resolve hadbeen enough of a problem to favor the evolution of amechanism to deal with it, presumably the natural selectionsolution would have been to strengthen our resolvedirectly rather than to adapt reasoning to find resolutionstrengtheningarguments. Moreover, this very tendencyto use reasoning to bolster our beliefs and decisions islikely to have more negative than positive consequences,as highlighted in section 4.2 of the target article.R3. Strengths and biases of reasoningand argumentationR3.1. Are we really good at argumentation?If reasoning evolved for argumentation, humans shouldpossess decent argumentative skills: They should be ableto engage in an informal debate, constructing, evaluating,and rebutting arguments. Several commentators questionthat this is so, pointing to research that shows significantimprovement in argumentative ability through learningand casting doubt on the data we presented to defendargumentative skills.Harrell, Kuhn, and Wolfe all point to very interestingdata showing improvement in argumentation skills withtraining – as well as the relative poverty of these skillsbefore training. Most of the studies cited, however, bearon meta-argumentative skills. Kuhn et al. (2008) reportgains in “meta-level communications about the discourse”(p. 1310). Larson et al. (2004) study the understanding oflong written arguments. Critical thinking skills are oftenevaluated through the ability to draw argument schemasor to recognize the different components of an argumentand their relationship to one another. Such skills mayvery well be crucial for success in modern academic lifeor even be of relevance to participation in democratic life,and their study in important in its own right. However,they are not part of what one can expect basic argumentativeskills to be. Language provides a useful analogy. Onecan be a fluent language user without being able to tellwhat a verb is or, a fortiori, to parse a sentence. Likewise,one can be a skilled arguer without being able to recognizeargument forms or draw argument schemas. In both cases,these abilities can help – a mastery of syntax can make onea better poet, a mastery of argument schemes a better essayist– but they are not necessary.One study seems to tap into a more fundamental argumentativeskill – the ability to draw counterarguments (Goldsteinet al. 2009). In this experiment, sixth and seventh graders hadto choose between a counterargument and a novel argumentin a fictitious discussion, and they tended to choose the latterinstead of the former. Even though the context successfullymimicked a debate, it does not follow that the participantswere highly motivated to defend a position that had been arbitrarilyassigned to them. In such a context, it is not surprisingthat they should engage in satisficing and pick an argumentthat might just be enough. Moreover, although the counterargumentoption might have been formally superior, it is notclear that it would have been the most efficient one in a realdiscussion.Harrell and Wolfe also dispute the data used as evidenceof people’s basic argumentative skills. Harrell suggests deflationaryinterpretations for several of the findings we cite,but, however ingenious, these interpretations are not compelling.To be more specific: Bailenson and Rips (1996) doobserve that being the first speaker increases the burdenof proof. But with contentious first sentences such as “abortionsshould not be illegal” (p. S7), this is hardly surprising –or nonnormative. In Rips (2002), the repetitions are nothingbut innocuous, and so participants are right to discountarguments accordingly. Neuman et al. (2006) do not reallyobserve worse performance among people who argue. Participantswere merely avoiding pointing out a fallacy in apolite dialogue (cf. Rips 2002, n. 1), but they were still perfectlyable to detect it in a rougher discussion. Thompsonet al. (2005) observed more belief bias when people wereengaged in an argument ... because people were askedabout their opinion and not logical validity. Far fromhaving “difficulty producing evidence for a claim” (Harrell,para. 7), the participants in the study by Sá et al. (2005)were able to muster nearly six arguments to defend theiropinion on difficult topics (for example, Why do childrenfail in school?). If these arguments were not always thebest, this is only to be expected in such circumstances (asexplained in sect. 2.3 of the target article).Uleman, Kressel, & Rim [Uleman et al.] point outthat the strong and weak arguments used in most persuasionresearch are “pretested ... to have these properties”(para. 10), so that it is hardly surprising that strong argumentsshould be more convincing. That researchers wantto make sure their intuitions about argument strengthare appropriate does not mean that they are withoutgrounding, however. For instance, when trying to persuadestudents that a new exam would be beneficial, astrong argument might be that “average starting salariesare higher for graduates of schools with the exams”(Petty & Cacioppo 1979, p. 1921) accompanied by relevantstatistics. By contrast, a weak argument might read “by notadministering the exams, a tradition dating back to the98 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2011) 34:2
Response/Mercier & Sperber: Why do humans reason?ancient Greeks was being violated.” It is not a stretch to findsome objectivity in this judgment of strength: It is not amere experimental artifact that the stronger arguments, inthese experiments, do actually provide more support fortheir conclusion. Finally, Wolfe mentions a study inwhich “implausible reasons and warrants ... yieldedhigher agreement than the same claims without support”(para. 2). Famously, Langer et al. (1978) had alreadydemonstrated the effect of poor reasons more than 30years ago. However, they also showed that the effectmostly disappeared when the stakes increased – as arguedin the target article, whether people genuinely evaluatearguments depends on how much they care about (and disagreewith) the conclusion.So, without denying that spontaneous argumentationskills are imperfect and can be improved by teaching –and that this is linked to the variable importance givento argumentation in different cultures and institutions –we maintain that they display a remarkable superiority tothe reasoning skill elicited in nonargumentative contexts.R3.2. How efficient is group reasoning?This question has elicited contrary opinions from the commentators.Khlentzos & Stevenson think that good performancein groups is obvious since “subjects share acommon goal of finding the correct solution” (para. 11).However, the same participants can face the same problemswith the same goal but individually fail, so having thecorrect answer as a goal can hardly be the whole story.Johnson, on the other hand, questions the generality ofgood group performance, and Sternberg claims thatgroups are actually very poor at reasoning or decisionmaking, citing as a support the groupthink syndrome orgroup polarization. First, it should be stressed that the argumentativetheory does not predict that groups will alwaysmake better decisions, but merely that reasoning shouldwork better in the context of a genuine debate. Manyother factors besides reasoning can impact the outcome ofa discussion – strategic considerations, face saving, and soforth. And reasoning in group can also bring poor outcomeswhen there is no genuine deliberation. Actually, in section2.3 of the target article, we offer an explanation based onthe argumentative theory for group polarization. Withouta refutation of this explanation, we don’t seen how thisvery phenomenon can be used as evidence against thetheory. Finally, Opfer & Sloutsky mention one studythat showed groups of children performing more poorlyafter a discussion (Levin & Druyan 1993). It is true thatsometimes the best arguments will point in the wrong direction.When, in the early 20th century, geologists arguedagainst Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift, theirmistaken conclusions stemmed not from poor reasoningbut from the state of knowledge at the time. Moreover,the explanation offered by Opfer & Sloutsky – that thegroup member with the correct answer is simply more confident– has already been refuted in section 2.3 of the targetarticle (for instance, how could that account for groups performingbetter than their best member?).R3.3. The strength of the confirmation biasWhen we look for arguments in a debate, we are mostlyinterested in arguments for our side or against the otherside. This is why, we surmised, the confirmation bias is afeature of reasoning, at least in its role of argument producer.De Neys, Poletiek, Stupple & Ball, and Wolfe havereservations about the prevalence and robustness of thisbias.Poletiek questions the evidence from hypothesistesting problems cited in support of the idea that the confirmationbias is specific to reasoning (sect. 3.1). We agreewith Poletiek that most of hypothesis testing is actually notdirected by reasoning, and that confirmatory strategies arethe result of heuristics that do not display a genuine confirmationbias. But this does not explain why people failto adopt falsificatory strategies when they are asked toand adopt them spontaneously when they test someoneelse’s hypothesis. It seems as though reasoning is unableto correct our own intuitions even though it can easilytry to correct those of others.Wolfe mentions a number of studies about the mysidebias; that is, the tendency for participants to mostly – oronly – give arguments that support their opinion. One ofthese studies show that, although “pervasive,” the mysidebias could be oriented by the instructions (Wolfe & Britt2008). Participants could be made to write essays againsttheir opinion about a pretend requirement to “impose a2-year math requirement for all students” (p. 8). But inthis experiment, participants did not have to generatethe arguments themselves. Instead, they were providedwith a series of arguments for and against the position.As a result, they did not have to fight their confirmationbias and engage in the truly hard task of generating argumentsagainst their own point of view. The resultingmyside bias merely reflects a belief that it is better toprovide arguments only for one’s side rather than alsofor the other side. As Wolfe and Britt (2008) observed,essayists often mention arguments for the other side –typically to rebut them and give even more weight totheir own argument. But writing essays is as much of abasic argumentative skill as writing novels is a basic linguisticskill. It is therefore not surprising that untrainedparticipants should exhibit a myside bias and that, asWolfe points out, training can attenuate it.The belief bias is one of the phenomena that, we surmised,show that people have a confirmation bias: They will takeinto account their beliefs about the conclusion when evaluatingthe logical validity of a syllogism. De Neys and Stupple&Ballquestion our interpretation of the belief bias data.They both point out that people – at least some people –try to engage in logical reasoning when faced with such problems.That they try is hardly surprising: Participants aremerely responding to instructions that emphasize logical validity.We agree that in reasoning tasks people try to providethe correct, logically valid answer. What is more interesting isthat most of them fail. Given that the tasks are not computationallyhard, this indicates that reasoning is not gearedtowards pure logical validity, but that it takes into accountother factors, such as believability.R4. On the working of reasoningR4.1. The algorithmic levelOur target article focuses on the ultimate level of explanation:What is the function of reasoning? A theoryat that level has implications for the algorithmicBEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2011) 34:2 99
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