The Ethics of Conversation
The Debate of Socrates and Aspasia, Nicolas-André Monsiau, c. 1800 (Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia)
Here is a good article on the ethics of conversation. The author writes:
“Dialogue, for Plato, is conceived as “asking and answering questions” (Gorgias 449b–c), and sometimes glossed as “refuting and being refuted” (462a, 447d), because it typically proceeds by exploring the consequences of premises asserted, or conceded, by an interlocutor.
Characterised as such, dialogue is a joint endeavour, constituted by two or more parties, who share or exchange views, to determine whether these are consistent. Socrates is emphatic throughout the dialogue that it is a communal endeavour with participants who search “in common” (495a, 498e), towards a common good (502e, 505e): truth (453b, 457e)…
The importance of sharing, equality, and reciprocity, both in the back and forth of question and answer and in taking turns as questioner and answerer, explains why friendship is so important to Socratic dialogue – for these are its characteristic hallmarks…
Dialogical relations are relations without domination [my emphasis], and friendship is the recognition each gives to the other as an equal, such that one will engage in reciprocal sharing. The dialogical relationship manifests the equality characteristic of friendship, insofar as each takes their turn “asking and answering questions”; each is heard equally; and – no less important – the worth and value of each participant, along with their proposals, is acknowledged…
Now, these are ideal dialogical conditions, no doubt, which the interlocutors – including Socrates himself – may fall short of at various points, but they regulate the discursive practice nonetheless, as do the following features:
Dialogue must proceed in an orderly way (463c, 494e, 504c), without irrelevance and with a clarification of key terms before anyone makes assertions about what the topic under discussion is like, or what its properties are.
Participants must also respond to one another justly (451a, 504e), which consists in observing the distinction between a debate and a conversation. This means that one should not trip up an opponent for the sake of it, but help the other party and make them aware of slips and fallacies for which they are responsible.[6] If this rule is followed, then discussants will lay the blame for their confusions on themselves and not on the other party.
Discussion must also be conducted moderately (505c), which means not losing one’s temper, and making concessions when required to do so (457c).
Attention to the form of Socratic discussion shows that how the discussants talk to each other is often as important as what they say to each other. One must acknowledge the discussant as an equal, share the discussion, take no more than one’s share, reciprocate in the spirit of question and answer, and proceed moderately and fairly.”
This article reminds me of a book I read years a few years ago: Our Search with Socrates for Moral Truth. (Atkinson, G. M. 2015. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.)
Atkinson (pp. 125-126) identifies several virtues that one needs to operate successfully as a dialectician and a rational investigator: (1) an understanding of the logical patterns of sound argument; (2) a readiness to demand logical consistency for the positions held by any given participant in a dialogue, whether oneself or others; (3) the ability to ask the right questions and to ask them in the right order; (4) the ability to distinguish what is relevant to the truth/falsity of a position from what is not relevant; (5) specific abilities in logic and dialectic, including the capacity to: recognize the direction of causal or explanatory order; recognize the “structure of ordered properties” in a thing; be clear about the point at issue; be clear about the meaning of the terms used in the discussion, acknowledging the importance of definition; recognize the order in which a discussion should proceed; use hypotheses effectively; recognize the level of precision and certitude that a particular topic permits; recognize what forms of refutation are “worthless so far as truth is concerned”; (6) the possession of relevant knowledge and expertise.
Notice that many of these goods require freedom of thought and speech and the absence of the spirit of being easily offended. To engage in the ethics of dialectical conversation, folks need to be free to speak their minds, express ideas, support them with reasons, raise objections, modify arguments in response to pertinent objections, etc. Moreover, participants in the dialogue need to be tolerant and not easily offended. And they can’t be on the hunt for opportunities to take offense and complain. The vices of intellectual oversensitivity, calling out and canceling people who articulate views one doesn’t like, intellectual malice, etc., have no place in intelligent conversation.