The Morality of Persuasion

To understand whether or not there is a moral basis to persuasive communication, I recommend the writing of innovator, Internet consultant and Fellow at the Prestigious Harvard Berkman Center, David Weinberger. He is writing about the morality of the many links of the Internet. And he draws attention to three thoughts that raise for him the issue to a point of clarity: Our actions matter to others. Their actions matter to us.. The impact of our actions on others ought to matter to us. Then he derives these three principless: It is a good thing to consider the interests of others. It is a good thing to try and understand what matters to others. It is a good thing to be moved by our understanding of what matters to others.

So is the Internet 'good?' Because it connects us as human beings to each other, opens up expansive and creative options and possibilities beyond our immediate view, helps us to recognize that we are part of a larger world, and to care about that larger world. Indeed, I do think these are good things, and they are evidence of the intrinsic morality of we who make use of this web of links.

But I cannot help but balance this idea of its good with the corresponding potential for evil that the web makes possible. The loss of privacy for example, where companies and governments can spy on us, get into our space when we enter the shared space. The way that anything you say can and probably will be used against you if someone has a mind to do so. The way technology can be used to build connections between people of ill intent, like terrorists and fanatics. The way it can be used to balkanize us, as we stick with people we agree with and filter out conflicting results and any other source of cognitive dissonance that might disturb our already fettered and cluttered minds.

So, when I apply this same approach to my question about persuasion, I find similar evidence of good. Persuasive communication allows for the possibility of a positive change through the successful transfer of a good idea, or product or service from persuader to persuadee. Persuasive communication thus opens up creative options, and has the potential to engage people at a different level than merely surface - at the place where their motivations intersect with our own. And persuasive communication allows us to transfer our care about the world, as it is and as we'd like it to be, to others, thus multiplying our effectiveness and our reach.

I am often asked about the dangers of persuasion, and the negative connotations people have about being manipulated. And these dangers are very real. It doesn't even take a bad person to make a bad thing happen using persuasive communication.

For example, people make well intentioned promises in a compelling way, and sweep people up in their wake, only to cause them serious financial harm or emotional loss when they fail to deliver what they wished they could. And that's from a well intentioned person! (As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions!)

And what of a person of bad intent, what damage can that person do? They can persuade an unthinking or fuzzy thinking person into blindly following a course that takes them down a slippery slope from which there is no return possible. They can persuade a group to do the same. Is this not, in fact, exactly what happens when persuasion is used by religious fanatics to build support for hateful causes? Don't overlook the hustle and con, the way unscrupulous people operating from an agenda will say or do anything in order to get what they are after, no matter the cost to anyone else.

That's why I, as a matter of good conscience and a desire to have a moral impact with my work on this subject, consistently and persistently promote the value of critical thinking as our sole defense against the evil, unscrupulous or even well intentioned purveyor of damaging outcomes. Before we can think that the thought that we are thinking clearly, we have much work to do. Yet I think that learning and teaching persuasion can protect us from bad outcomes, or limit any impact from persuasive communication. And at the same time, it can empower us to do good things, and to do what we can as best as we can in order to bring about positive change.