From Virtue Argumentation to Virtue Dialogue Theory: How Aristotle Shifts the Conversation for Virtue Theory and Education*

Abstract

Andrew Aberdein recently explored whether Aristotle held a (proto-)virtue argumentation theory, which would evaluate a good argument in terms of whether the arguers engaged virtuously. Aberdein admits, however, that connections between virtue, character, and argumentation are scarce within Aristotle's works. Accordingly, here Cassie Finley approaches this question from a different angle, comparing Aristotle's concepts of dialectic and rhetoric with virtue theories of argumentation. She argues that the essential features of dialectic and rhetoric are in tension with the defining characteristics of virtue argumentation theories. However, this tension raises a deeper methodological tension within virtue argumentation theories regarding their “intuitive” conception of arguments. Finley outlines a more viable route forward for virtue argumentation theorists, one that dissolves this tension through reframing their project as a virtue dialogue theory. This shift toward dialogue would help to assuage the main objections to virtue argumentation theories regarding adversariality, incompleteness, and vulnerability to ad hominems. At the same time, developing toward a virtue dialogue theory better aligns with the intuitive sense of engaging well with others that defines the virtue argumentation project, and it also more fruitfully sets up the project to encourage future scholarship connecting virtue ethics, virtue epistemology, and philosophy of education.