Two puzzles for shared-reason accounts of persuasion

Abstract

ABSTRACT Dowding has developed an account of deliberative persuasion leveraging ‘reliability conditions’ distinguishing persuasion from manipulation. The central idea is that proper reasons offered for deliberation must be shared reasons: reasons the speaker holds as grounding the proposition, and believes should motivate the receiver’s assent too. I present two puzzles for this account. The first queries the level at which reasons should be shared to count as persuasive. The second concerns the breadth of reasons for a given proposition – should a speaker have many, only some he sees as shared, may he choose just any of these to present?