People inevitably disagree on moral, social, and political matters. However, in today’s world, entrenched beliefs are increasingly hindering open, fact-based discussions, leading to heightened polarization and inter-group conflict. A project team led by Paul Henne at Lake Forest College aims to test the efficacy of a strategy designed to encourage even-handed evaluation of counterarguments and increase belief revision in response to sound reasoning. The project will explore two tools of philosophical argumentation as promising interventions:  the principle of charity and the rationalization principle. 

Philosophers have dealt with conflict and disagreement by developing a number of tools to improve the quality of argumentation and debate. When interpreting someone’s arguments, for instance, the charity principle advocates thinking of that person as stating true premises and making good inferences, rather than simply seeking to win the argument. Similarly, the rationalization principle calls for representing a person who holds a belief or set of beliefs that opposes yours as rational (i.e., she has good reasons for her beliefs).

The team will investigate whether putting people in a good epistemic position through the use of these two philosophical tools may improve their evaluation of opposing views, increasing the likelihood of belief revision, and decreasing polarization.