Appeals to Considerations

Abstract

Following Wellman, Trudy Govier has developed a comprehensive approach to the analysis and evaluation of what she calls “conductive arguments”. There is indeed a distinct form of reasoning and argument of the sort Wellman and Govier describe, but both the label ‘conduction’ and the common metaphor of weighing up the pros and cons are misleading. The form of reasoning and argument is better described as an appeal to considerations (or to criteria). The considerations cited are features of a subject of interest, and the conclusion drawn from them is the attribution of some supervenient status to that subject, such as a classification, an evaluation, a prescription or an interpretation. The conclusion of such reasoning may follow either conclusively from its premisses or non-conclusively or not at all. Weighing the pros and cons, however construed, is only one way of judging whether the conclusion follows, and perhaps only a last resort in making such judgments. Further, the move from information about the subject’s cited features to the attribution of a supervenient status is often but one moment in a more complex process, a move that is typically preceded by other reasoning moves and may be followed by still others. In a thorough discussion of the supervenient status of such a subject, the relevant considerations and counter-considerations would ideally be integrated in such a way as to take the sting out of the counter-considerations.