Some Thoughts on Sensitivity Ethics

A number of interactions and observations online lately have me thinking about sensitivity to others' feelings as an ethical duty. By chance these both arise from the intersection of fantasy worlds and women, though I don't mean to suggest that the women are responsible: in at least one case, it seems to be entirely or almost-entirely men fighting with each other about the portrayal of women. 

One of these has to do with an interpretative theory I have about the scene in the Lord of the Rings where Eowyn and the Witch-King of Angmar fight.* I will describe only at the end and after the jump as I have observed that it upsets some people. You can read it if you want, or not. The point is that some people, both women and men who think themselves to be standing up for women, strongly object to this theory. I advance it only because I think it is the correct view of this particular scene, not as part of a broader agenda to speak about the role of women in Tolkien, and especially not to speak about the role of women in general. Yet some women, especially feminists who love Tolkien and for whom this is Tolkien's redeeming moment, strongly object to this theory. Men (who, I believe, mostly want the attention of these women) often also stridently object to it without showing an ability to produce strong evidence against it. 

The other one has to do with a group on FB that is for people who grew up playing D&D in the 70s and 80s. It is chiefly a place for nostalgia among what are now middle aged or older men, and my own nostalgic love of the old books and works is strong enough that I continue to show and and look at it even in spite of the several problems I shall describe.** One of the things that people are often nostalgic about is the artwork they remember from these works, on the covers of books, or in allied works like Conan and Red Sonja comics. This occasions regular, indeed almost endless, objections as those works often posed women in improbable forms of maille armor, chain, scale, or otherwise. There is both a Woke group of older men (one imagines bald men with grey ponytails, but perhaps that is unfair) and a Christian*** one who objects to such displays as being an affront to the virtue of chastity. Given the demographic -- 70/80s D&D players -- there are almost no women involved, just as there were almost none involved back then. They can't seem to shut up about it and leave it alone, neither the side that likes to post the old artwork, nor either of the sides that object to them. 

I did see one fellow post this morning the obvious and somehow beside-the-point objection that the portrayal of Conan in this art is at least as unrealistic as anything offered for Sonja or whatever female. This is the old Barbie/He-Man thing we've discussed several times (the third link is to an early discussion with Cassandra, which by-the-way also references Eowyn; she was also present in the second one; the first one is my most recent thinking on the subject). It's true that if anything the Conan/He-Man art is even less realistic a portrayal of what a strong man like Conan would look like, a man who spent his life in practical action and not gymnasia. There would probably be a useful discussion to be had there if in fact -- as some feminisms sometimes assert -- the ultimate desiderata were standards that were gender-neutral and would apply to everyone exactly equally. I am of the considered opinion that no one wants what that would practically entail, and also that men and women end up being so different finally that even aspiring to such a standard amounts to wishing that the other sex would stop being so much like itself (i.e., that ironically this approach, intended as anti-sexist, ends up entailing a different sort of sexism, a refusal to accept either men or women or both as an acceptable way to be human). 

It remains true that some women really are bothered more by the pictures of scantily-clad beautiful women than men are by pictures of scantily-clad heroically muscled men. I know some in person who are made intensely uncomfortable by seeing a woman they think is more beautiful than themselves, especially arrayed in such a way as to be attractive to the men around them. Several of these women, in my carefully unvoiced opinion, have nothing to worry about in the comparison:  but they don't see themselves through my eyes. They see themselves through the eyes of self-doubt tinging towards self-loathing, and are unable to realize what beauty they themselves happen to possess. As far as I can tell, men see in Conan art a kind of aspirational goal they find inspiring  to their own athleticism even if it is not strictly attainable. 

There are multiple positions about why this might be so; it may be that society has unfairly pushed self-consciousness about physical appearance on women, as is often claimed; it may be that Conan-type physiques aren't sexually attractive, and thus don't trigger the same sort of issue in their male observers anyway. (Against this is the fact that at least some of the noteworthy artists who popularized Conan's appearance were gay; in favor of it is the fact that boyish men are consistently rated as more attractive by women than big muscle men, just as a three-day beard seems more attractive to many than a mighty godlike beard.) 

None of that is to the point of this essay, which is about sensitivity as an ethical duty. We shall leave aside why this seems to be true, and go along with that it seems to be true.

Traditionally in the West, both truth-speaking and keeping people from feeling uncomfortable were considered ethical goods. However, they were ethical goods of different kinds. Speaking the truth was a moral duty; considering the emotional comfort of others was a social duty. Since Socrates, Western philosophy has asserted the supremacy of the moral over other duties. Thus, the Western ideal has been for centuries that one should speak the truth even if it caused substantial social disruption. This is old enough to have various forms of Latin epigrams, both ancient and Medieval: "fiat iustitia et pereat mundus; fiat justitia ruat caelum.

In the Modern era, Kant is the flag-bearer for the model that moral duty, arrived at through practical reason, must entirely determine the permissible range of action: all social considerations are secondary. That is not to say they are not important: Kant would have you be courteous and polite. However, you can never lie to be courteous: never, not even to save a murderer from finding his victim, because lying is demonstrably (according to Kant) a violation of reason and therefore necessarily immoral. Certainly you can't lie to make someone feel comfortable. 

Our current moment has decided that much or possibly all of morality is really socially constructed. As such, the ancient distinction between moral duty and social duty collapses. To make someone uncomfortable is on the same plane as lying; and lying could be preferable in many cases if it avoids discomfort (see the link above under "West" for a discussion of how that very ethic plays out in Japan and China). All moral duties are then subject to a barter system with other social goods: and the medium of exchange is social approval, not practical wisdom arrived at by reason.

As a result, it turns out that these disputes can never be settled. One side may locally shout down another, asserting dominance; but even that is always subject to revision should another side become strong enough to re-open the question. 

Worse, of course, a large number of things that we have long thought of as genuinely immoral become licensed should they also be popular. That is obvious enough not to require much working-out here. 

Ultimately it is unclear if reason retains the strength to reassert its ancient primacy over our moral and ethical systems (if, indeed, we still have both moral and ethical systems instead of just one social credit system). Unless it can be done, the way forward is one of endless, repeated, pointless disputes over how people feel about things, with the only alternative being the successful and permanent exercise of main force by a dominant group. Either oppression or strife is the future, unless reasoned philosophy is able to regain its ancient position of respect.

Nevertheless, I observe that the trend is in the other direction. A new school of ethics has emerged, in fact, for the first time in centuries: "Care Ethics," i.e., an ethical system built around the idea that 'showing care' is at the core of ethical behavior. The older models were virtue ethics -- Aristotle's and Plato's forms being well-known here -- utilitarianism, and deontology ('the study of duty,' of which Kant is a good exemplar). All of those were founded on practical reason, and therefore reason has its ancient place in each of them. Increasingly that is under attack, and the results are apt to be dire. Ironically given that the goal of these systems is said to be care for others and therefore social harmony,***** they are committing us to that future of strife or oppression. 




* The standard reading is that Eowyn satisfied the exception to the Witch King of Angmar's prophecy that he should be killed by no man; she, as she says, is no man, and she strikes him through the head with a weapon and he dies. I think that is at least incomplete, and that Eowyn's actions are at least not sufficient and maybe not necessary to his death. Consider this passage:


I tend to read that as saying that it was the hobbit's stroke that broke the spell that kept the Witch-King in his body, and that Eowyn's final stroke may not have even been necessary to destroying him. This is a very strongly Tolkien move, if I am correct. First, it harmonizes exactly with the larger theme of The Lord of the Rings, which is about an evil enemy who can only be killed by a singular magic object being employed in just the right way. The Ring was a weapon that alone could destroy Sauron: and if it were used in the wrong way, by overthrowing him, it would only substitute one dark lord for another. The Barrow blade, forged in Angmar precisely the right way to destroy the particular undead magics of the Witch King of Angmar, is thus a foreshadowing and underlining of the theme of the whole work. 

Second, a hobbit is also no man. The Witch King having his attention drawn to one way in which the prophecy might have been wrong misses the way that is actually sneaking up behind him with the magic sword that alone can kill him. This doubles the force of the misinterpreted-prophecy theme, so that Tolkien doesn't just borrow from Shakespeare (as from Beowulf and many others), but sophisticates the themes he borrows (as with Beowulf and the others as well).

Eowyn still plays an important role in this conflict even on my view; she takes down the Witch King's mount, and distracts him so that the hobbit-borne Barrow sword can be brought to bear. Her actions are bold and courageous. If my reading is correct, though, Eowyn is not the one who killed the Witch-King. Indeed, the text cited seems to suggest that she couldn't have killed him because she didn't have the right tool. Just as Aragorn and the army of Gondor ultimately can only distract Sauron so that the hobbits can sneak to Mount Doom with the Ring, Eowyn's courage distracts the Witch King so that a hobbit with the right magic can sneak up and do the fatal work. 

** The group is, I gather, in some danger of being disallowed by Facebook on account of excessive automated findings of encouragement to violence and violent activity. These findings are of course findings of descriptions of D&D battles between knights, wizards, orcs, and such. The Machine is blind and humorless, and yet people keep handing over more and more power to it. 

*** The Christian virtue of chastity is of an ancient and honorable account, with many excellent philosophical defenses and defenders. I do, however, note the irony of it coming up censoriously in this particular debate. All of these people experienced as hostile the wild Christian censoriousness about D&D in the 1980s: it was supposedly going to drive them mad, or into devil-worship, or witchcraft, or whatever else. Plainly it didn't even dissuade many of them from becoming censorious Christians of the very sort who used to bedevil their community in the grand days of yore. It is indeed a rich irony to see this of all communities striving against itself over trying to purify a space devoted to 70s and 80s D&D from anything that might offend a maximal Christian ethics. 

***** It is worth noting that this effect of Wokeness on our popular philosophy moves it toward the Eastern sphere, where maintaining social harmony has been a core duty since antiquity. Against this has to be set the obvious empirical truth that Wokeness does not in fact even attempt to maintain any sort of social harmony, but sparks fights and strife everywhere it goes. It is thus less Confucian than Maoist. Another source of strife in the D&D group is that the company that owns D&D has decided in its next edition to stop describing fantasy races like elves as races, and will now refer to them as species. This ought to be of no matter, since elves and dwarves don't really exist and thus are neither races nor species; which inaccurate word one uses should be a very small matter. Yet while the change disturbs some members of a community gathered for reasons of nostalgia, it is publicly, repeatedly, constantly celebrated by the Woke faction of oldsters as a way of putting those others in their place as racist no-goods, just as they love to shout them down as sexist no-goods for enjoying the same book covers they liked in 1975 or 1982. If maintaining social harmony is a serious ethical duty, it is one against which the Woke ideologues who proclaim it as such are themselves the chief and most extravagant violators.

25 comments:

J Melcher said...

My standing objections to the NewSpeak redefinition process aside, and confessing my very limited experience with D&D, I think "race" is more consistent with the fantasy worlds than "species".

Individuals of disparate races can interbreed with no (biological) difficulty. But those of disparate SPECIES usually can't, and when it is possible, it is also often the case that the fruit of the union is infertile.
So, if Elves and Men are two "Races" of whatever the generic might be, then Aragon presents no biological mystery. Nor do any of the half-Elven or half-Orc or (do we ever have?) half-Halfings a player might roll up. If Elves and Men, etc, are distinct "Species" then it's pretty darned remarkable Elros (the brother of Elrond and like him an Elf-Human cross) was able to take a (several?) human wife (wives?) and sire the line of Kings of Númenor, Arnor and Gondor. Isildur might, likewise, usually have been some sort of hybrid mule -- unusually strong and with many virtues resulting from the combinations of traits he inherited from the two species contributing to his conception. But mules and hybrids generally are not renowned as easily breeding true.

Grim said...

If we are restricting the discourse to Tolkien’s world, he clearly conceptualized things one way and used words he chose advisedly. If we are talking about generic fantasy and how they should be described in books of game mechanics, it hardly matters. Elves aren’t extant in fact, so there is no fact of the matter about interbreeding. (Also these lines are inexact in any case; they’re human conventions about how to describe empirical observations that often lead to surprising exceptions like mules, some of whom even prove fertile.)

sykes.1 said...

Thank you for the interpretation. I first found Tolkien in the Ballantine pirated edition in 65 or so. I have read the books several times and also the movie. However, I missed the fact of the Hobbit (not man) and the magic sword.

Daniel said...

Tolkien would be very familiar with the Anglo-Saxon 'mann' being a human being. Wyfmann and Wæpnedman being human female, human male in Anglo-Saxon.

Tom said...

To me, and maybe I'm off-base here, it seems like the ethical problems are symptoms of a real problem in epistemology. As you point out, ethics in the West have traditionally been based in reason, but reason itself has been under assault for some time.

I don't have time to look up the sources right now, but it seems that philosophy in the 19th & 20th centuries showed (or seemed to show) that the older Aristotelian logic was not tenable, and so moved to a formal logic that looks like math to the rest of us. The abandonment of what I will call "plain language logic" left the non-philosophers in a bind.

At the same time, increasing numbers of generally left-wing academics pushed society toward a "post-truth" epistemology that sometimes outright called logic racist and / or imperialist / colonialist and which placed great value on "lived experience" and such things.

If are going to solve these problems, it seems to me that we need a revival of or maybe a new form of plain language logic that everyone can use.

I'll stop there because these are just impressions I've gotten over the last decade of reading other things (not philosophy) and so I may have already entered "not even wrong" territory. Either way, though, I'd like to know what others think about it.

Christopher B said...

Tom, my guess would be that the three most murderous regimes in the 20th Century explicitly claiming their actions were rational and scientifically supported (regardless of the truth of those claims) hasn't helped the cause either.

Grim said...

Daniel,

I'm not sure how much it would resolve, but your Old English is better than mine. What do you think about how the Anglo Saxons described elves?

Grim said...

Tom,

I definitely don't agree with how you are describing the problem, especially not the part where you suggest that the logical positivists 'showed that Aristotelian logic was not tenable.' I don't think they did anything like that. What they claimed was that the reason that logic wasn't being more successful at solving practical problems was because of the ambiguity of natural language. The switch to a formal, mathematical logic was meant to resolve that ambiguity issue.

That is to say that they made the exact error that Aristotle warns against in Nicomachean Ethics I.3.

Now our treatment of this science will be adequate, if it achieves that amount of precision which belongs to its subject matter. The same exactness must not be expected in all departments of philosophy alike, any more than in all the products of the arts and crafts. The subjects studied by political science are Moral Nobility1 and Justice; but these conceptions involve much difference of opinion and uncertainty, so that they are sometimes believed to be mere conventions and to have no real existence in the nature of things. And a similar uncertainty surrounds the conception of the Good, because it frequently occurs that good things have harmful consequences: people have before now been ruined by wealth, and in other cases courage has cost men their lives. We must therefore be content if, in dealing with subjects and starting from premises thus uncertain, we succeed in presenting a broad outline of the truth: when our subjects and our premises are merely generalities, it is enough if we arrive at generally valid conclusions. Accordingly we may ask the student also to accept the various views we put forward in the same spirit; for it is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness in each kind which the nature of the particular subject admits. It is equally unreasonable to accept merely probable conclusions from a mathematician and to demand strict demonstration from an orator.

That phrase being translated at the last as 'strict demonstrations' is usually translated as 'proofs,' i.e., the kind of thing a mathematician should be able to offer that a student of rhetoric cannot. What Aristotle is saying here is that strict logic cannot be applied to practical reality.

The positivists seem to have thought the problem was a lack of clarity in language ('human conventions' of description, say, not being precise). The problem is actually the kind of objects that math and strict logic operate on, and how they differ from objects in material reality. I've written about this problem at length here, although it's nearly impossible to find anything in the archives thanks to Google's decision to make Blogger nearly unsearchable.

Grim said...

Since I know you're working on a degree on the subject, here are some helpful links.

https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2017/01/aristotle-generally-has-point.html

https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-science-is-and-is-not.html

https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2019/12/points-of-disanalogy.html

https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2021/02/platos-laws-xii-end.html

Grim said...

You can think of the problem as being a more complex version of the difference between math and engineering. The engineer uses math, as rhetoricians use logic; but they're operating on different kinds of things than mathematicians. When a mathematician calculates the surface area of a sphere, he can be sure of being right because circles are all exactly alike in this regard. If you know the radius, you can calculate the circumference.

Now a student of engineering might calculate that for a ball bearing, but if precision is wanted he will also need to measure the bearing with lasers to identify whether it has significant defects. He doesn't get to work with mathematical spheres, indeed not with true spheres at all. They don't exist as practical objects. What he gets are analogs to spheres, but which might have flaws or brittle sections, or which may have been forged incorrectly, and so forth.

The problem holds for all applications of logic or math to practical reality. It just gets worse as you get further away from physics, and into things like biochemistry ("∀x Hx->(Xx v YX)" i.e. 'all humans are either XX females or XY males,' except that once in a while it turns out that nature assembles something that is an intersexual other) or psychology. You can't do logic about those things as you can about mathematical objects that are all-alike-throughout. Physical objects never are.

As such, when you are describing a bird as "a raven," you aren't identifying the logical class to which it belongs. You are analogizing it to a mental object you have of what ravens are like. This is a kind of convention, in Aristotle's terms: all the birds are actually different, but we like to describe them this way. This particular bird will prove to be different from other such objects also called 'ravens.'

What that means is that our rational reasoning about the practical world is analogical rather than logical in nature. All analogies always break because the only way to compare two things without the comparison breaking is if in fact they are the same thing. Thus, somewhere our practical reason is always going to go wrong.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, anymore than it means that engineers shouldn't use math. It does mean you have to be aware of the difference in materials you have to work with, and look for where the breaking point is. Will your analogy hold long enough to get you to a good conclusion, or does the break come earlier?

J Melcher said...

Having contributed (spawned) thread drift, allow me to drag the discussion back to the scene of interest.

The prophecy says "no man" ... is it sufficient exception to such proclamations that a number be interpolated? No (single) man may do this, (however, a team of several men --or two or more women, or one woman and one hobbit acting simultaneously, or combinations of similar ilk -- ARE permitted to do this... )

Daniel said...

Grim,

It's a pretty ambiguous viewpoint. Ylf, ælf, elf all occur in Old English texts. Anglo-Saxon viewpoint was that humans, elf, dwarf, eotens, orcs, etc... were all 'Wihts' = a living or created being.

In Beowulf the only narrative attestation of ylfe is a being derived from Cain, along with eotenas, orcneas, and gigantas - all those goodly kin of Grendel. Then there are a lot of other descriptions of beautiful shining creatures, always denoting a male being often described with 'womanly beauty' (and deceit). Which kind of lines up with modern takes on fay. (Which is just the French linguistic branch... Franks gave us fairies, Anglo-Saxons elf... all describing the same class of creature I think.) Some of the A-S charms and leech books discuss elf-disease, elf-influence (delirium), elf-sucking (possession), elf-shot (sharp pain), etc.

Tolkien ran with the elves using his poetic background instead of folklorist. Very different from the AS viewpoint. Anyway, I'm fairly rambling here, sorry!, but it's a pretty open-ended question and I'm not sure where to provide specificity. There's a book called 'Elves in Anglo Saxon England' by Alaric Hall that doesn't completely suck. -Daniel

Tom said...

On the Tolkein question, would 'no man' being satisfied by a hobbit also then have been equally satisfied by an elf or dwarf? Or troll, etc.?

Tom said...

Grim, thank you for the reply on logic. I'll dig into the posts you suggest.

To carry on that discussion with what I have, though, it would then seem that the logical positivists were just demanding a higher certainty than the materials and methods warrant, which fits with much else I've read.

The arguments about objectivity / subjectivity seem to have been thrown head first into the same pit. Some writers seem to treat objectivity as a binary proposition and concluded that since we cannot achieve 100% objectivity, there's no value in trying to be objective. That always seemed silly to me.

On a practical note, maybe tagging posts would make searching easier?

Grim said...

Thank you, Daniel. I will try to find the book.

Grim said...

Tom, feel free to raise questions here as you pursue your dissertation.

I think you have raised the question of tagging posts before. I’m not opposed exactly, but next year there will be fully twenty years of posts. It’s a task that would require substantial effort, and for which I do not have time.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I have taken the Eowyn question to be that her stroke does at least seem to be the one that kills him. That it may not have been necessary I agree with, yet "she drove her sword between crown and mantle." We've all read enough adventure story to know that to step back later and say "well, that wasn't the death-blow, really" would be a cheat.

Merry renders him killable, makes him mortal again, which is a necessary step. The text makes it clear that all the sword driving by Eowym would have availed naught but for the hobbit. That he is also not a man I always thought important. Yet Tom's point is a good one. If Elves, Dwarves, Ents, or Wizards are also eligible, that would certainly have occurred to the With-king before that moment. It would have made the prophecy not an especially big deal, rather like "He shall not die on a Tuesday." If the prophecy is true, then, it is unlikely that a halfling would have qualified as the Shakespearean "Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane" type of fulfillment. It pretty much has to be Eowyn at that point. First made mortal, then killed seems to fit both prophecy and text.

Grim said...

AVI,

Yes, that’s a possible reading also. I prefer the one I advance, though, because of the way it has double harmony with the wider story: the hobbit doing secret work with perfected magic, the traditionally heroic figure’s classic heroism reduced to the supporting role. It is ultimately divine providence that kills both powerful evils, and in a way that elevates the most humble, and humbles even the most honestly brave.

I recognize, though, that almost the whole weight of opinion goes against me. I still think it is true, and thus defend it. It doesn’t bother me that other think otherwise; but it sure bothers some people that I hold to this alternative view.

Tom said...

I think you have raised the question of tagging posts before. I’m not opposed exactly, but next year there will be fully twenty years of posts.

Yes, I asked if anyone would have a problem if I went back and tagged posts, but then found out that I can't tag anyone else's posts.

I don't think going back with the idea of tagging every post makes sense, and really only interesting posts need tagging at all. But maybe tagging interesting posts going forward, and maybe when we refer back to a past post, tagging it.

Of course, for your commentaries, you have links in the sidebar.

Tom said...

Coming back to the topic of Eowyn, I can understand why women fans of Tolkien might be upset at your interpretation.

For them, that a woman can be courageous and heroic is a given. What is not a given is whether a woman's actions can matter in a man's story. Your interpretation could be read as saying that Eowyn's heroic actions, in the end, didn't matter.

You say that: Eowyn still plays an important role in this conflict even on my view; she takes down the Witch King's mount, and distracts him so that the hobbit-borne Barrow sword can be brought to bear. ... Eowyn's courage distracts the Witch King so that a hobbit with the right magic can sneak up and do the fatal work. , which might seem to offer women something, but could easily be read as "Once again, the woman just helps the man succeed."

None of that is any kind of argument that your interpretation is wrong, but maybe the sense that Eowyn, in the end, didn't matter, or only mattered because she assisted the male hobbit who is the real hero here, might explain why some women don't care for your interpretation.

Tom said...

From my perspective, and I have to admit I never thought about this before your post, your interpretation brings up two interesting things.

First, it is in a sense a technology story: It didn't matter if it were a hobbit or a woman, only someone with the right tool for the job could get it done.

Second, it reminds me that many in the West seem to value results over virtue. Eowyn is the same in either interpretation. She fulfilled every aspect of what we want in a hero, but if results are an essential aspect of heroism, that isn't enough. She must have struck the essential blow, or she is lacking, she is less than a true hero.

Tom said...

Oh, and on the tagging, you've run a great blog for 20 years, so I only suggest it as a way to improve the ability to find things later. But, it might just not be that important.

Tom, feel free to raise questions here as you pursue your dissertation.

Thanks!

Grim said...

“Second, it reminds me that many in the West seem to value results over virtue.”

Not quite! Aristotle defines virtue in terms of the ability to excel. Courage is the quality that brings success in war, especially later in the EN. Aristotle is much more pragmatic that often recognized. American philosophy thinks it invented pragmatism.

The Christian account of virtue actually differs sharply from the Greek, and especially from Aristotle. Faith is at the root of virtue, and (as Chesterton says so often in the Ballad of the White Horse) it is meant to be a supernatural faith, faith that need not be justified by a pragmatic hope. The whole LotR is another dramatic telling of that kind of virtue.

Tom said...

Interesting ... So the feminists are more Aristotelian and Tolkien more Christian?

I guess Chesterton meant faith not justified by hope in the material world, but rather, as the writer of Hebrews says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Tom said...

We never did hash out the issue of an ethical duty of sensitivity. Maybe that's because we generally agree with the older view, but in any case, it would be interesting to work out a good response to those who assert we do have that duty.

And by "good response" I mean one they will be likely to consider reasonable. I think people rarely change their minds about these things, so "persuasive" isn't part of it, really. On the other hand, blunt statements that just basically assert an opposing opinion without even attempting to persuade are unhelpful at best. If someone who disagrees with us is persuadable, then by all means the argument should be persuasive.

I'll need to think about it, but if anyone else is interested in the question, I'd be interested in reading your ideas. I can't do anything with it today, but maybe in the next couple of days I'll come back and take a swing at it.