On the Normativity of Presumptions: Contrasting Kauffeld’s and Whatelian Accounts

Abstract

On a Whatelian conception, a presumption is a “supposition … [that] must stand good until some sufficient reason is adduced against it.” This view may be understood as operationalizing a distinct quality of warrant for the acceptability of claims. Against this Whatelian conception, Kauffeld offers an account on which “ordinary presumptions are inferences based on suppositions regarding the risk of resentment persons face should they fail to live up to (often openly incurred) commitments.” On Kauffeld’s analysis, presumptions are distinguished according to a special kind of backing, or grounding, upon which presumed claims are based. This article contrasts these views according to the different accounts each provides of the normative mechanisms at work in, and underwriting, warranted presumption. Viable argumentative norms must be both objectively well-founded and effective in regulating the activity of argumentation. Whatelian conceptions seek to explain the effectiveness (specifically, the binding force) of presumptions in terms of an arguer’s recognition of their well-foundedness by providing an account of presumptions as particularly well-adapted to methodological features inherent in the activity of transacting reasons. By contrast, Kauffeld’s analysis reverses this order of explanation, explaining the well-foundedness (specifically, the validity) of presumption and presumptive inference in terms of its effectiveness (specifically its binding force) over agents. By identifying a class of presumptions that are inherently, and extra-argumentatively, binding upon agents in ways that can manifestly influence their behavioral calculations to make it the case that what is presumed is so, Kauffeld’s analysis of presumption normatively generates well-foundedness out of effectiveness. Thus, a distinctive and innovative feature of Kauffeld’s analysis of presumption is that it identifies a hitherto unrecognized dimension of normativity—namely, our extra-argumentative obligations and our reactive attitudes concerning them—as capable of underwriting warranted presumptive inference.