This is part three in a series on bad arguments in the Canadian public sphere. The aim of this series is to take a closer look at the soft-serve reasoning employed by public leaders in order to see how they are unconvincing and even harmful to open discourse. Get caught up with part one concerning topic laundering and part two on reductio-ad-villainum. 

The present piece is about ‘carrying a concealed motive.’

Carrying a concealed motive: this species of bad argument hides the goals it wishes to achieve and presents other insincere objectives that are more palatable to the public. It consists of the refusal to be forthcoming about the intentions behind an argument, as though that were immaterial to the debate.

Canadians as a whole frequently have difficulty admitting that they want something – we keep our eyes on the last honey-cruller at the office party and when it’s offered to us we say ‘Oh no, you go ahead and have it’ and a little bit of us dies as the last glazed morsel irrevocably vanishes. In political debate, however, it’s necessary to be clear about what we want in a piece of legislation and how we stand to gain by its passage. 

In politics every decision has some motivation behind it – seeking some benefit or avoiding some detriment. The intention behind a proposal is a genuine and important ground on which to evaluate it. A politician might put forward a well thought out piece of legislation but if it involves a conflict of interest it can and should be struck down. Indeed the ‘conflict of interest’ is one of the most heinous forms of scandal because it involves a betrayal of the public trust. It is crucial to an open and democratic society that the public is aware to what ends its leaders are arguing. 

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Consider the Ethical Oil Institute, a not-for-profit registered by Ezra Levant with Calgary lawyer Thomas Ross. The Ethical Oil Institute runs advertisements about Iran’s human rights record in the hopes of gaining political support for tar sands projects in Alberta where human rights are supposedly respected.

Ezra Levant is a private citizen, free (within reason) to pursue his own chosen ends and to express himself.

He is also someone who has been successfully sued for libel several times and is currently under investigation for hate crimes after his racist comments concerning Romani immigrants to Canada. Whatever Ezra Levant’s and the Ethical Oil Institute's reasons are for promoting tar sands ventures (I assume financial gain and political influence), we can be quite certain that they have little to do with championing human rights. 

Carrying a concealed motive ultimately consists of just saying something in order to get what you want. The motive-concealer has already decided on the end result, they just have to pick the most sympathetic reason to get people go along with it.

Carrying a concealed motive invariably involves a form of hypocrisy. It is not a crime to be a hypocrite but we would do well to not take what hypocrites say very seriously, not without first investigating what they get out of arguing a certain point and what they stand to gain if they get their way. 

Hiding one’s motivations is a form of dishonesty that is inimical to open debate. What holds an open discourse together, what makes it productive, is the sincerity of its participants.

When private citizens try to influence us and our leaders while concealing their motives, we cannot fire them from their lobbying jobs or bring them before a tribunal. But we do not have to be convinced by them – we can make their advertisement spending and their rhetoric pointless by seeing through them.

We need only ask: what do you stand to gain? Establishing a motive is a crucial step in any investigation.

In the face of political insincerity I advocate for scepticism above cynicism. A little scepticism goes a long way in promoting rationality and honesty in the public discourse.

Image Credit: Screen Shot from Ethical Oil Ad.

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This post is Part 2 of the Canada Closed for Debate Series, a four-part exploration of argumentation in Canadian political discourse. For Part 1, click here. Read Part 3, Carrying a Concealed Motive or Part 4, What to do about Bad Arguments?

This is part two of a series on the types of bad arguments frequently found in the Canadian public sphere. The purpose of this series is to provide a taxonomy of demagoguery and to see how these arguments (as put forward by such polarizing campaigns as ‘Ethical Oil’) are harmful to our democracy. The first part concerned topic laundering.

The topic launderer puts a stop to open debate by refusing to answer questions and then changing topic to confuse everyone as to what the debate is really about. This part is about reductio-ad-villainum (reducing your opponent to a villain) in which a peculiar form of libel puts on the cloak of rational argument.

Reductio-ad-Villainum: This style of arguing consists in recasting an opponent’s position to make it look morally bankrupt. It is a curious species of character assassination. You do not have to dig up any dirt on your opponent (that after all requires some research). All you have to do is reframe their position to make the argument itself look dishonourable.

Take the reaction surrounding Thomas Mulcair’s ‘Dutch disease’ argument last May. The leader of the NDP claimed that the Federal government was not enforcing environmental legislation when it came to the Alberta tar sands so that the oil sells cheaper. This over-inflates the worth of the Canadian dollar, which then harms manufacturing exports in other parts of the country (as economists observed in the Netherlands after it found natural gas in the 1960’s). 

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It is a controversial argument that has economists divided, which is all the more reason that it should be debated in parliament, especially after the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) released a report finding that the Harper government’s policies are creating an uneven economy across the provinces.

What response did Mulcair receive?

A chorus of conservative MPs claiming that he was trying to pit the West and the rest of the country against each other. What this response boils down to is that the ‘Dutch disease’ argument is not good because it makes Canadians dislike each other. This isn’t very likely to convince anyone once the veil is pierced.

The MPs no doubt wished to vilify Mulcair but what is especially sinister is that they vilified the argument itself. This fine specimen of the reductio-ad-villainum creates an easy talking point so that anyone who subscribes to the Dutch Disease hypothesis can be accused of hating Albertans. Anyone who rejects the hypothesis is a defender of the prairies.

We go from having a situation where we can debate the causes of manufacturing decline and natural resource development to a situation where anyone who makes the villainous claim is trying to divide the country against itself. Although, it's not likely that advocating strict enforcement of environmental regulations on tar sands development will lead to our nation's first civil war.

The reductio-ad-villainum consists in making an opponent’s argument sound as though it were mean-spirited and then rejecting it on moral grounds. By parodying a rational argument and providing a sound bite, this style of argument appeals to what is worst in us: we get to ignore an opposing argument while feeling a sense of moral superiority.

This bad argument does not foster debate; it shuts debate down.

It is bad for our democracy – it drags down the level of discourse and makes people afraid of holding an opinion after it has been slandered.  The reductio-ad-villainum is a way of silencing an argument rather than a person. It has been used time and again concerning the tar sands by the Conservative government and the Ethical Oil campaign so that, instead of discussing the environmental and economic impact of the oil industry openly and honestly in parliament, most MPs hold their tongues for fear of alienating voters in resource rich provinces.

We have lost sight of the goal of open debate: to get at the truth, not to win at all costs.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.