Logic-Based Therapy and Civil Discourse in Fractious Times

Abstract

This paper explores the role that Elliot D. Cohen’s Logic-Based Therapy might play in restoring civility to public discourse in this era of social and political divisiveness. The contributions that Logic-Based Therapy, as a modality of philosophical counseling, might make to improving public discourse are explored through the lenses of Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist model of the formation of moral judgments and his Moral Foundations Theory of the development of general political perspectives, both articulated in Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. In spite of substantial differences in Cohen’s and Haidt’s methodological approaches and theoretical content, the similarities are significant enough to allow opportunities for Logic-Based Therapy to intervene in important and effective ways to restore civil discourse in fractious times.