Argument
It is widely accepted that problems with writing are often closely intertwined with a lack of training in thinking critically; for that reason coverage of some basic concepts in critical thinking is included here. Of course thousands of books have been written on critical thinking and logical argument—and on the subtleties of logical argument in English. It is not possible here to do more than touch on a few key distinctions.
The conclusion of a deductive argument is based on its premises, and the conclusion must follow logically from the premises if the argument is sound. The classic examples of deductive arguments are syllogisms.
Example:
A successful baseball team must have good starting pitchers to succeed. This year's White Sox team does not have good starting pitching. Therefore, this year's White Sox team will not be successful.
Note that the reasoning of a deductive argument may be valid even if one of its premises is false. For example, the above syllogism makes a valid argument in terms of its reasoning, regardless of whether or not it is in fact true that to be successful a team must have good starting pitching.
Inductive arguments, on the other hand, rest on factual evidence; typically they generalize from a particular number or percentage to a general conclusion.
Example:
Since the creation of the National League, every World Series winner has had at least three outstanding starting pitchers on its roster. It seems reasonable to conclude from this that a team with fewer than three outstanding starting pitchers has an extremely slight chance of winning the World Series.
Notice that inductive arguments are based on numbers, percentages, and estimates of probabilities.
In practice, arguments very frequently combine inductive and deductive elements.
Example:
Almost no one ever dies from this sort of operation. If Frank dies during the operation, then it must be as a result of malpractice on the part of the surgeons. We should sue!
The initial claim here involves an inductive claim. It can only be settled by reference to the facts:
What percentage of people have in fact died during this sort of operation?
The follow-up claim represents a deductive argument, and can be addressed by reasoning, without reference to the facts of the case:
If it is indeed true that others have not died during this sort of operation, then what are the possible explanations? Is it in fact true that the only possible explanation is medical malpractice?
It is particularly important in sorting out inductive and deductive arguments to be sensitive to the difference between some and all. This may seem an obvious point, but it is one that it is easy to lose in the twists and turns of an argument—or indeed in making off-hand observations about things that seem self-evident.
Example:
"I don't know about that job candidate. We've hired people from that school before and, to be honest, they really haven't worked out. Let's look again at the other candidates."
The implicit assumption here is of course that since some graduates of a particular school have not worked out, it follows that all graduates of the same school will not work out at this particular sort of job.
The distinction between some and all should also be kept in mind when it comes to arguments with several interconnected strands. Does what one is saying apply to all the facts of the argument, or only to some of them?
Example:
"What on earth is wrong with spinster, chairman, mankind, or, for that matter, adjectives such as blind and deaf, to name just a few? These are perfectly legitimate and serviceable terms, yet an arbitrary, malevolent connotation has been assigned them. In their place we are asked to draw from a silly artificial glossary of convoluted euphemisms to describe people and events, a glossary replete with all manner of adverbs with the word challenged suffixed leech-like to them."
The writer here is arguing against bias-free language. The core of the argument is that the new terms we are asked to use are silly, artificial, and convoluted. That may well be true of a term such as mentally challenged. But notice how difficult it is to make such claims stick with all or even most of the examples here. The non-sexist alternatives for chairman and mankind—chair, humanity, and the like—are hardly silly, artificial, or convoluted. And are we in fact asked to replace the word deaf with aurally-challenged? Not at all. Those working in the field do indeed use aurally-challenged as a blanket term to refer to all those who have any hearing impairment, ranging from mild loss of hearing to complete deafness, but they do not shy away from using terms such as deaf and partially deaf. In short, the objection raised by this writer to "politically correct" language in general turns out to apply only to a very few instances.
The if ... then syntactical structure is a basic form of both deductive and inductive arguments.
In matters of any complexity involving numbers and trends, it is easy to lose sight of the big picture—and many verbal arguments are constructed in a way that encourages those listening to the arguments to lose sight of the big picture.
Example:
Even many of those who support the proposed global warming treaty say that it will cost jobs in industries ranging from oil and gas to mining to automobile manufacturing—perhaps hundreds of thousands of jobs. We cannot afford to let our economy shrink; it is essential that we oppose ratification of this treaty.
Note that no estimate is given of the number of jobs that would in this sort of situation be created (in industries such as solar and wind power) or of jobs that would be saved (for example at ski resorts) if strong action were taken against global warming. Some have suggested that the economy in general would grow just as fast if such action were taken. Others have estimated it would grow more slowly, but few have suggested it would actually shrink. Here, as in many other cases, it is important to be aware of distinctions between a decline, a decline in the rate of increase, and so on.
It is often much more difficult than one would think to judge what is relevant or irrelevant to a given argument.
Example:
"I don't agree with the arguments of the animal rights activists. Before we worry about any troubles the animals might have, we should take care of the problems that people have."
The argument here may seem at first glance quite powerful, but in fact the claims being made are entirely irrelevant to all but one of the arguments put forward by animal rights activists. The argument here says nothing as to the inductive claims made by these activists about the prevalence of cruelty to animals in factory farming, for example, nor does it address the argument from first principles that it is wrong to cause unnecessary pain to other creatures.
The only argument that it does address is the claim that we should pay some attention to the plight of animals, even while we are also attempting to address human problems. There are no doubt legitimate arguments of a variety of sorts to be made concerning the priority we should give to the plight of animals in relation to to the plight of humans who are suffering. But that is not the question this argument purports to be addressing.
A fallacious argument is one that suffers from faulty reasoning. Many forms of faulty reasoning have been identified; following is a list of some of the most common forms of fallacy.
The Latin ad hominem means directed at the person. An attempt to persuade through ad hominem comments entails attacking the person making the claim rather than attacking the claim itself.
In ad hominem attacks, the pieces of information supplied may be of interest, but they do not constitute arguments.
A common practice in argument is to ascribe to one's opponent an extreme view that in fact one's opponent has never put forward, and then suggest that, in knocking down the extreme "straw man" argument, you have won.
Below, match the straw-man argument with its refutation.
Neither the opponents nor the supporters of capital punishment make the suggested claims—but often people are able to get away with this sort of sleight of hand in the midst of an argument.
To beg the question is to assume the conclusion that you are attempting to demonstrate.
Example:
The situation in Afghanistan remains turbulent, and in this context it is vital that we support good government. Clearly we have an obligation to support the present Afghan government: the only question is how this should best be done.
By moving straight to a conclusion that we are obliged to support the present government, the arguer here avoids (or begs) the question of whether or not the current government of Afghanistan is indeed providing good government.
If the formal structure of one's argument is not valid, then the argument is fallacious.
Two common forms of formally invalid arguments are those which deny the antecedent, and those which affirm the consequent.
Example of denying the antecedent:
If water starts dripping from this ceiling during a rainstorm, then you can be sure there is a problem with your roof. No water has dripped from the ceiling during a rainstorm. Therefore, there is no problem with the roof.
In this case it is certainly true that water dripping from the ceiling is a reliable sign of there being some problem with the roof. But of course there can be a problem with the roof even without there being such a visible sign; very frequently, roof leaks result in water saturating rafters and seeping down inside walls without there being any drips from the ceiling.
The if ... part of an argument such as this is known as the antecedent. And, as the example shows, denying the antecedent has no argumentative force.
Example of affirming the consequent:
If a lake is very seriously affected by acid rain, no fish can survive in it. This lake has no fish living in it whatsoever. This lake must be seriously affected by acid rain.
It is entirely true that lakes seriously affected by acid rain cannot support any aquatic life. But that is not the only possible cause for the disappearance of aquatic life from a lake. If, for example, a company had been using the lake as a toxic waste dump, that would also have the effect of killing all the fish. (Again, the distinction between some and all is crucial; some lifeless lakes got that way because of acid rain, but not all). The then ... part of an argument is called the consequent. As the example shows, affirming the consequent does nothing to prove the argument.
The fallacy of the slippery slope argument is the suggestion that one development in a certain direction will inevitably lead to further developments in the same direction or down the same slope.
Example:
The idea of people being required to carry identity cards may seem innocuous enough, but in fact it should be resolutely opposed. If we allow the government to force us to carry identity cards, pretty soon they'll be keeping track of all our movements with video cameras, and placing all sorts of restrictions on our privacy. We have to stop these government intrusions into our lives!
This argument says nothing about the issue of identity cards per se. It is entirely based on the premise of one move by the government being followed by other, more drastic moves. Sometimes, of course, developments are part of long-term trends, but sometimes they are not part of any trend—or may represent the furthest extent of a particular trend. Certainly there is no inevitability about any particular move in one direction being followed by subsequent moves in the same direction.
A dichotomy occurs when things or ideas are split into two distinct alternatives. An argument that tries to insist on two and only two alternatives when in fact three or more possibilities exist (or gradations among possibilities exist) is one that poses a false dichotomy.
Example:
A. There should be laws prohibiting people from inciting hate against those of other races or religions.
B. So you're against freedom of speech? Without freedom of speech we wouldn't have a democracy!
A. No, I support freedom of speech—but with certain limits to prevent the most harmful extreme views from being promulgated. It sounds to me as if you are not willing to do anything to combat bigotry and racism.
B. Not at all. But I believe that people speaking out freely against freely expressed bigoted or racist opinions will combat them more effectively than government attempts to prohibit them.
In this case, both arguers pose false dichotomies in their characterizations of the other's viewpoint—whereas in fact both hold nuanced views.
Many real-life arguments take shortcuts and do not spell out all the underlying premises. In many cases this does not in fact damage the argument, but sometimes a missing or unacknowledged premise is the key to finding a fatal weakness in an argument.
Example:
Many have suggested that the presence of extreme poverty and oppression in the world makes it more likely that terrorism will take root. But that just doesn't square with the facts; the vast majority of the September 11th terrorists and the Al Qaeda leadership did not come from backgrounds of extreme hardship. Some, including Osama bin Laden, were among the most privileged members of Saudi Arabian society.
The missing or unacknowledged premise in this argument is that people will always struggle only on behalf of those from their own nationality or social class. In fact, however, history is filled with examples of individuals from one nation or social class who became so involved with the plight of another that they devote all their energies to fighting for change.
An example like this illustrates just how readily our perceptions of argument are influenced by emotion and ideology. In this case, an entirely appropriate sense of anger and revulsion at the terrorist acts makes it difficult for us to imagine that the terrorists might consider themselves as acting altruistically on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. And maybe most of them do not in fact think of themselves in this way. The only point here is that the fact of someone coming from a privileged background does not in itself preclude the possibility that such a person will act in a way he or she perceives as benefiting the less privileged.
The fallacy here is to imagine that if one thing happens after the other, then it will have happened because of the other: post hoc, propter hoc .
Example:
The decline of frog populations throughout the world started to happen just after the thinning of the ozone layer; there has to be a connection!
But there doesn't have to be a connection—as becomes plain if we substitute a different event in the same logical structure:
The decline of frog populations throughout the world started to happen just after the Montreal Canadiens stopped winning the Stanley Cup with any degree of frequency; there has to be a connection!
In the first case damage from ultraviolet radiation is indeed one possible cause for the decline of frog populations—but scientists are still weighing the evidence, and they are far from certain if it is one of several contributing causes, the primary cause, or simply an unrelated event.