There are “certain norms that prevail in the discipline of philosophy that are threatened by the new communication environment,” according to Joseph Heath (Toronto).

These are “norms that prevail within the discipline that are not respected in public discourse, and that expose philosophers to cancellation risk,” he says.

They are:

1. Affective neutrality in discussion of moral and political issues. One of the major differences between philosophers and the general public is that most people find it extremely difficult to discuss any controversial moral or political issue without getting upset. Philosophers, on the other hand, typically draw a distinction between entertaining a proposition and affirming it, and so assume that one should be able to debate various questions in a hypothetical register, without triggering any of the emotional reactions that might be appropriate if one actually held them. As a result, there is a disciplinary tradition in philosophy of maintaining a stance of affective neutrality when discussing morally charged issues, and even when contemplating abhorrent conclusions… Over time, a lot of people working in philosophy start to take this sort of affective neutrality for granted… This leads them to forget just how far offside a lot of the views that we debate are with the general public. 

2. Reconstructive presentation of arguments. Since the good old days of ancient Athens, philosophers have taken themselves to be more interested in argument than in rhetoric. This is reflected in a variety of disciplinary practices, including the sometimes elaborate efforts undertaken to avoid scoring merely symbolic victory over “straw man” versions of one’s opponent’s position. One of the most basic components of a philosophical education therefore involves learning how to demonstrate, prior to criticizing a position, that one has a correct understanding of it, and that the view is worthy of being taken seriously… Because of this, it is extremely common for philosophers to spend a fair bit of time offering “reconstructions” of positions that they do not actually hold… It is possible to admire the inner coherence of a position and to communicate that to an audience without at the end of the day endorsing it. This generates certain risks, however, that with context collapse, along with the shortened attention spans of online audiences (or uncharitable video editing), one will to be taken to have endorsed a position that one does not actually hold. 

3. Stipulative definition of terminology. Because of the somewhat obsessive interest in argument that is central to the profession, philosophy also places a great deal of emphasis on the definition of terms. In order to track inferences it is essential to be clear about what one is and is not committed to in making a particular claim, and in order to be clear about that one must be clear about the terms one is using. This demand for terminological clarity generates both obligations and entitlements. We tend to be more aware of the obligations – there is little tolerance of ambiguity and equivocation, and so philosophers are always under pressure to provide definitions of their key terms. But there is also an important entitlement, which is that philosophy gives its practitioners broad license to engage in stipulative definitions of terms. So if one says that “X =def Y” then for the purposes of the argument that follows, X means Y, and one can only be held accountable for the inferences that follow from that. In particular, the fact that other people use X to mean Z becomes irrelevant to the argument. Again, philosophers have become so used to this disciplinary practice that they often take it for granted. Yet it is also quite unnatural…. Needless to say, this indulgence that philosophers are willing to show one another, when it comes to the use of terms, is not shared by the broader public. Most obviously, speakers who have been targeted for cancellation have been striking unsuccessful in attempting to defend themselves through clarification of their semantic intentions. Context collapse has been something of a field day for those who are keen to engage in uncharitable interpretations of the speech of others, but attempts to clarify one’s meaning through reference to the context of utterance have usually failed to placate online mobs. 

Read the whole post, which contains several useful examples, here.

See also “When Philosophizing in Public, Remember How Strange We May Seem,” which also discusses some of the ways in which discussions among philosophers are distinctively risky.

Discussion welcome.

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