Oxana Pimenova

Reasoning asymmetry arises when biased argument production aligns with biased argument evaluation by the same arguer, a phenomenon commonly termed motivated criticism or biased assimilation. This practice, often wielded by individuals in positions of power, aims to advocate for specific decision options. Argument Continuity exemplifies this asymmetry within a distorted reasoning context, where a motivated critic incessantly reiterates arguments in counterarguments to discredit less powerful opponents, disregarding evidential priority in reasoning exchanges. When these restatements are bolstered by appeals to authority, uncertainty, or the unlikelihood of adverse effects of a decision option, they signify moves of motivated criticism, perpetuating Argument Continuity discursively. The paper seeks to identify and annotate instances of Argument Continuities in Indigenous consultation reports, reconstructing a discourse of motivated criticism among officials responding to resource concerns. By developing annotation guidelines, it aims to classify and predict Argument Continuity, providing a tool to preempt fallacious reasoning by authorities across diverse public policy contexts.

Deliberative context matters in producing deliberative reasoning, but it is not destiny in adversarial reasoning exchanges. The motivational effects of positionally dominant arguers can undermine even the well-structured context regarding the epistemic diversity of evidence sources and low disagreement costs. Giving an example of government-led reasoning over the Site C Clean Energy Project, the paper employs a sequential conversation analysis to unveil the patterns underlying the adversarial exchanges between the project proponent, officials, and Indigenous communities. Under the “deliberative” reasoning context as represented by the Site C Deliberative Rules Configuration Matrix, the state-affiliated Joint Review Panel alternated between rebutting and reflective responses in its conclusions across 63 topics of disagreement between the project’s proponent and Indigenous communities adversely affected by the dam. The Panel’s responses are consultative outcomes, representing the culmination of Panel-led deliberations between the Site C proponent and Indigenous communities. The split of these outcomes without a clear majority trend suggests a lack of prescriptive, normative relationships between rules and the rhetorical choices of dominant arguers. The deliberative reasoning context has no deterministic effect on the likelihood of the Panel’s officials engaging in deliberative dialogue with Indigenous arguers. Although reflective responses were plentiful, they were insufficient to achieve meaningful responsiveness to Indigenous concerns. These findings align with Ostrom’s perspective on rules as a contextual structure that does not guarantee particular reasoning outcomes but influences the reasoning dynamics (practices) of participants whose response choices are shaped by the motivational effects of a specific reasoning situation. The findings also promote the practice-based approach to argumentation (Goodwin 2007), illustrating how response patterns in disagreement illuminate the actual (one-sided and two-sided) nature of reasoning interactivity between positionally unequal opponents without diverting attention to external structures or assigning normative weight to the “deliberative” reasoning context.