Is Rational Manipulation Permissible?
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Abstract
Rational manipulation is constituted by the following conditions: (i) A aims to persuade B of thesis X; (ii) A holds X to be true and rationally justifiable; (iii) A knows of the existence of evidence, argument or information Y. While Y is not itself misinformation (Y is factually correct), A suspects B might take Y as important evidence for not-X; (iv) A deliberately chooses not to mention Y to B, out of a concern that it could mislead B into believing not-X; and, (v) B has no compelling reason to expect A will avoid mentioning Y in this way. A’s behavior is rational insofar as A aims to use reasons to persuade B to believe a thesis that A holds as true and justified. Yet it is manipulation because A deliberately avoids furnishing B with information that B might regard as relevant, to ensure B arrives at the correct belief. I argue that we have good reason to think that A’s action will be wrongly manipulative because it disrespects B’s consent, epistemic autonomy, and personal autonomy. That said, context is critical, and there are many times evidence is intentionally occluded that are not rational manipulation. Even so, ethical arguers should beware of ambiguous contexts, such as when there are conflicting expectations about argumentation roles and goals.
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Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
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© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Applied ethics
Philosophy
Arts & Humanities
Autonomy
Ethics of argument
Epistemic paternalism
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Breakey, H, Is Rational Manipulation Permissible?, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2023