{"title":"Against the Neutral View of Poisoning the Well","authors":"Manuel Almagro Holgado, Amalia Haro Marchal","doi":"10.1007/s10503-024-09646-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>According to what we call the neutral view of poisoning the well, poisoning the well is an argumentative move that appeals to an opponent’s social identity as an attempt to diminish their credibility. This view holds that poisoning the well is a very special and dangerous fallacy, because it silences the recipient on the basis of their social identity, and therefore never counts as a legitimate move in a debate. In this paper, we take issue with this view. First, we show that this account is committed to the ideal of neutrality, which is highly problematic. Second, we argue that after abandoning the ideal of neutrality, it’s clear that not all cases of poisoning the well constitute silencing. Finally, we reflect on the phenomenon of poisoning the well from a non-neutral approach, and explore further situations that could count as instances of it. Poisoning the well is, many times, a virtuous move.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 1","pages":"129 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Argumentation","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10503-024-09646-9","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
According to what we call the neutral view of poisoning the well, poisoning the well is an argumentative move that appeals to an opponent’s social identity as an attempt to diminish their credibility. This view holds that poisoning the well is a very special and dangerous fallacy, because it silences the recipient on the basis of their social identity, and therefore never counts as a legitimate move in a debate. In this paper, we take issue with this view. First, we show that this account is committed to the ideal of neutrality, which is highly problematic. Second, we argue that after abandoning the ideal of neutrality, it’s clear that not all cases of poisoning the well constitute silencing. Finally, we reflect on the phenomenon of poisoning the well from a non-neutral approach, and explore further situations that could count as instances of it. Poisoning the well is, many times, a virtuous move.
期刊介绍：
Argumentation is an international and interdisciplinary journal. Its aim is to gather academic contributions from a wide range of scholarly backgrounds and approaches to reasoning, natural inference and persuasion: communication, rhetoric (classical and modern), linguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, psychology, philosophy, logic (formal and informal), critical thinking, history and law. Its scope includes a diversity of interests, varying from philosophical, theoretical and analytical to empirical and practical topics. Argumentation publishes papers, book reviews, a yearly bibliography, and announcements of conferences and seminars.To be considered for publication in the journal, a paper must satisfy all of these criteria:1. Report research that is within the journals’ scope: concentrating on argumentation 2. Pose a clear and relevant research question 3. Make a contribution to the literature that connects with the state of the art in the field of argumentation theory 4. Be sound in methodology and analysis 5. Provide appropriate evidence and argumentation for the conclusions 6. Be presented in a clear and intelligible fashion in standard English
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