No reasoning reaches anyone without the means of persuasion attached to it

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that the comparison the question invites cannot be made, because there is no instance of argumentation that is not also an instance of persuasion. A reason has to be expressed to reach anyone, and expression involves a choice of words, an order, a tone, a length and an occasion. Each of those choices affects whether the reason persuades, and none of them is part of the reason itself. The mechanism is that the logical content and the delivery cannot be separated in practice. The same valid argument convinces when stated clearly and fails when stated obscurely; it lands when the audience is rested and bounces when they are harried; it carries differently from a speaker they trust than from one they do not. Proponents argue that an arguer who ignores all of this will convince nobody, and that an arguer who attends to it is doing exactly what a persuader does. The practices are therefore not two things to be weighed against each other but one activity described at two levels. Proponents add that the consequence is a single set of ethical questions rather than two. Those questions concern what the speaker may do with the inescapable means at their disposal: whether to use a vivid case that overstates a typical one, whether to raise the point when the audience is least able to think about it, whether to let a trusted manner carry a weak claim. On this account these are the ethics of communication as such, faced by anyone who opens their mouth to change a mind, and assigning them to persuasion alone merely relabels part of what every arguer is already doing.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics accept that reasoning must be delivered and deny that this equalises the practices. The point of distinguishing them is to mark whether the persuasive force is meant to run through the audience's assessment of the reasons or around it, and that distinction survives the fact that every argument has a form of words. They add that the account makes the ethical question unanswerable by making every speaker a persuader, which removes the resources needed to criticise anyone. Others object that unavoidable features of communication cannot generate dilemmas in the way deliberately chosen techniques do, since there is no alternative to having a tone.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics accept that reasons must be expressed and deny that every feature of expression is a means of persuasion. Clarity and accurate statement are requirements of saying anything at all, and treating them as persuasive technique empties the term of content. [Rejecting P2] The premise is disputed on the ground that delivery and reasoning are separable in the way that matters. An argument can be restated in other words and assessed again, which is how audiences distinguish a case that holds up from one that merely sounded good. [Rejecting P3] Critics argue the conclusion does not follow from attending to delivery. An arguer who writes clearly so that the reasoning can be checked is doing the opposite of what a persuader does, since the aim is to expose the argument to assessment rather than to secure assent.