The Clayoquot Sound controversy: The procedural adequacy of news coverage and public deliberation of environmental issues

摘要: Recent work taking a dialectical view of argumentation has drawn attention to the close connection between procedural formatting and the rationality of argumentative engagement (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992; van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson & Jacobs, 1993; Walton, 1992). Argumentation is seen as pragmatic activity that regulates controversy, and, when conducted reasonably, maximizes the chances that resolution of doubts and disagreements will be based on sound reasoning and informed decision-making. On this view, the epistemic rationality of argumentative discourse (ie, the soundness of the content and form of reasoning) is grounded in an instrumental rationality. The function of argumentation is to regulate disagreement. Its rationality is secured by procedures that maximize opportunities for careful scrutiny of arguments; that encourage free and full exploration of alternative standpoints; and that channelize argumentation into constructive clash and extension. This is the best chance for resolving disagreements on the merits; we can have greatest confidence in those conclusions that emerge from procedures for critical testing. For the most part, however, dialectical theories of argumentation have conceptualized the procedural formatting of argumentation in abstract terms: as rules for critical discussion (eg, van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992) or characteristics of types of dialogue (eg, Walton, 1992). Because these models describe argument as it would be conducted under ideal conditions, they leave open the question of how to implement procedures that might actually realize such ideals under less than ideal conditions …