Some Implications of Arguing that Deliberation is Purely Rational
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Some Implications of Arguing that Deliberation is Purely Rational Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani1 Received: 9 April 2018 / Revised: 13 August 2019 / Accepted: 21 May 2020 © ICPR 2020
Abstract In his proposal for a democracy by consensus, Wiredu argued that deliberation is an activity that depends solely on the logical persuasiveness of ideas. Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze and I had objected to this view of deliberation. Bernard Matolino has responded separately to Eze and me by sticking to Wiredu’s position that deliberation is a purely rational activity. In this article, I support my earlier claim that persuasion (and hence deliberation) is not an entirely logical activity, and our concern as human beings is to recognize the influence of non-rational factors, for the purpose of minimizing the role of these non-rational factors. My general aim here is to explore the implications of a counterfactual situation in which we assume that deliberation is a purely rational activity, and these implications are unpalatable even to proponents of deliberation as a purely rational activity. My conclusion is that it is only by recognizing the role of non-rational factors in deliberation that we are driven to institute mechanisms to ensure that logic dominates over non-rational factors as much as practicable in either persuading or in being persuaded. Assuming that deliberation is a purely rational activity, on the other hand, forestalls any measures and allows non-rational influences to fester undeterred. Keywords Deliberation · Rationality · Consensus · Democracy · African philosophy · Political philosophy
Introduction As I shall narrate in more detail below, Kwasi Wiredu, one of the most influential philosophers in Africa, has initiated a debate by proposing consensual democracy as an alternative to majoritarian democracy as practiced on the continent. In a 1996 publication, he offers a few insights into the idea of consensus by narrating * Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani [email protected]; [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy and Classics, University of Ghana, P.O. Box LG 211, Legon, Greater Accra, Ghana
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its practice in the social and political life of the traditional Akan of Ghana. In doing this, he makes a quite rationalistic case for consensus by presenting deliberation as an activity solely depending on the intrinsic persuasiveness of ideas. In a 2000 article, Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze had raised questions about Wiredu’s notion of deliberation as a purely rational activity. Bernard Matolino responded to Eze in a 2009 article by providing arguments to support Wiredu’s notion of deliberation as an activity depended solely on logical persuasiveness. In a 2014 article, I had objected to Matolino and Wiredu’s notions of deliberation as a purely rational activity. In a 2016 article, Bernard Matolino had responded to my objection by sticking to his support of Wiredu’s notion of deliberation as a purely rational activity. In doing this, he commits a number of fallacie
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