a template for writing sound arguments · 2018. 5. 1. · —adolf hitler (1889-1945; cited in...

A TEMPLATE FOR WRITING SOUND ARGUMENTS 2O5

essay. When you write your own essays or plan oral presentations, consider thesecriteria:

1. Do you clearly state the conclusion and define necessary terms?2. Is the material that you included relevant to the conclusion?3. Is the argument sound? Do the premises provide solid support for the

conclusion?4. Have you considered the credibility of your experts?5. Is the paper well organized with different issues addressed separately?6. Have you fairly presented alternative points of view and counterarguments?7. Have you used good grammar and a clear style of writing?

A TEMPLATE FOR WRITING SOUND ARGUMENTS

The importance of being able to write a sound argument is recognized as a criticalthinking task that is essential for success in college and in professional careers. Sev-eral different standardized examinations are requiring test-takers to write an argu-ment as a means of assessing critical thinking and writing skills. At the present time,written arguments are required for everyone who takes the Graduate Record Exam-ination, the selection test used for entry to most graduate schools in the UnitedStates, and the examination used for selection for entry into business schools. Hereis a template for writing sound arguments.

The template is designed to help you organize your thinking on complex issuesand be able to explain evidence on two or more sides of an issue, such as the evi-dence for and against evolutionary hypotheses of mate selection or for and againstthe idea that parents are important influences on their children. In completing thistemplate, you will have to gather and assess evidence to determine the best conclu-sion or conclusions and not start with what you believe is true. You will need toconsider both supporting and disconfirming evidence—an exercise that can helpyou avoid the confirmation bias. Here is an applied example:

MAKING ARGUMENTS TEMPLATE

Example 1: Does violence on television have a negative influence on children's behavior?1. State your conclusion. (Although you may begin your formal writing here, be sure

that the conclusion follows from your reasons.) As you work, this is the last part thatis filled in, not the first.

2. Give three reasons (or some other number) that support your conclusion.a.b.c.3. Rate each reason as weak, moderate, strong, or very strong.Rating for a:Rating for b:Rating for c:

2O6 5. ANALYZING ARGUMENTS

4. Give three counterarguments (or some other number) that weaken your conclusion.Rate how much each counterargument weakens the conclusion: little, moderate,much, or very much.

a.Rating for a:b.Rating for b:c.Rating for c:5. List any qualifiers (limitations on the reasons for or against—for example, some evi-

dence may be restricted to early childhood).6. List any assumptions.7. Are your reasons and counterarguments directly related to your conclusion?8. What is the overall strength of your argument: weak, moderate, strong, or very

strong?

Now that you have completed this worksheet, rate the overall strength of your argument.

Once the template is completed, the writing will be the easy part because you al-ready know what you want to say and have listed your reasons and considered thestrength of your argument. (If you are planning on taking any of the standardizedadmissions examinations that now require that you write an argument, this exerciseshould greatly improve your score.)

Reasoning and Rationalizing

People are irrational, short-sighted, destructive, ethnocentric, emotional,and easily misled by demagogues.

—Philip E. Tetlock (1994, p. 3)When you evaluate arguments, you are also evaluating your own knowledge aboutthe subject matter. There may be other counterarguments that are quite strong, butthat are unknown to you. Similarly, your ratings of the strength of the componentsmay be biased in ways that support a conclusion that you favor. Nickerson (1986)makes an important distinction between reasoning and rationalizing. When werationalize, we attend to information that favors a preferred conclusion. We may se-lectively gather information that supports a preferred conclusion or rate counterar-guments as weak because they detract from a preferred conclusion. Rationalizingalso influences the nature of the missing components that we supply to an existingargument. When we add to an argument, the information that we supply is infor-mation that is readily recalled. If you've already read Chapter 2 on memory, thenyou are well aware of the many ways that memory can be biased. Rationalizing isusually not a deliberate process to distort the analysis of arguments, which makes itdifficult to recognize and guard against. It is easier to recognize rationalizing whensomeone else is doing it. Perhaps the best we can do is realize that rationalizationdoes occur and to try to be especially vigilant for rationalizing when you prefer aconclusion. When you analyze an argument, you must identify the main point that

PERSUASION AND PROPAGANDA 2O7

the author or speaker wants you to believe. You also have to consider both premisesand counterarguments.

We tend to weigh evidence that favors a belief more heavily than evidence that dis-confirms it. This bias was clearly demonstrated in a classic study in which college stu-dents served as subjects (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). Students were asked to write anessay in which they argued for or against a controversial issue such as abortion orcapital punishment. The students were then given the results of experimental studiesthat supported a "middle of the road" point of view—that is, it was neither for noragainst the controversial issue. After reading the balanced review, students who fa-vored the "pro" position of the controversial issue believed that the objectively neu-tral paper supported the "pro" position. Similarly, students who favored the "con"position and then read the same objectively balanced paper believed that it favoredthe "con" position. Instead of bringing the two sides closer together, as might havebeen expected, the balanced paper drove them farther apart. Each position focused onthe information that supported their own point of view and judged the evidence thatran counter to their favored position to be weak. This same finding has been foundwith all sorts of subject pools, including NASA scientists who favored evidence andarguments that supported their preferred hypothesis over ones that did not.

Just telling people that we tend to judge information that we favor as strongerthan information that we oppose doesn't work to correct this bias. Is it any wonderwhy it is so difficult to get people to assess controversial issues in a fair-minded man-ner? Because we are not aware that we judge reasons in a way that supports what webelieve to be true, it is very difficult to change the way we evaluate information. Onesuccessful attempt was accomplished by Koriat, Lichtenstein, and Fischhoff (1980).They required students to list reasons that support a conclusion and reasons that runcounter to a conclusion (counterarguments), and to rate the strength of each. Thisshould be familiar because they are the steps used in analyzing arguments. Theyfound that students became more accurate in their assessments after this training in"giving reasons." These results have been replicated in more recent studies in whichthe bias for information that confirms a prior belief was reduced by requiring peopleto provide reasons that did not support the preferred conclusion (Lenski, 2001;Flannelly & Flannelly, 2000). The authors of one of the studies summarized their re-search: "critical thinking skills of students should be fostered so the students come toappreciate the importance of weighting both positive and negative evidence"(Flannelly & Flannelly, 2000). These sorts of experimental results show that the givingand assessing of reasons can have beneficial results that improve the thinking process.

PERSUASION AND PROPAGANDA

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make people see evenheaven as hell, or an extremely wretched life as paradise.

—Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; cited in Falls, 1943)Whenever you are confronted with an argument, keep in mind that the material youare reading or hearing has been written to persuade you to do something or to be-lieve something. Much of the communication that you receive is concerned withgetting you to act or think in a certain way. Pratkanis and Aronson (1992) definepropaganda as "mass suggestion or influence through the manipulation of symbols

2O8 5. ANALYZING ARGUMENTS

and the psychology of the individual" (p. 9). This broad definition is applicable to agreat variety of situations. Propaganda, like beauty, is often in the eye of the be-holder. It does not require that the information be false or misleading, but it does atleast imply less concern for truth or rigorous argument than the sort of argumentsfound in scholarly journals or presented by independent parties. Frequently, the in-formation provided is charged with appeals to emotion rather than reason.

Humans are very clever in using techniques that aim to influence others' thinking.The cleverest way to influence how someone thinks is with a well-crafted argument. Ifyou were thinking that the work of analyzing an argument is not worth it, you have notconsidered the agonies of history in which people failed to analyze political arguments.Consider the evil genius of men like Joseph Goebbel, Hitler's minister of propaganda.Have you ever wondered how millions of people could be persuaded to kill millions ofother people whose sole crime was believing in another religion? Of course, such evilwas rooted in a long history of scapegoating, which is the practice of blaming a minor-ity group for all of the ills in society. In order to kill so many people efficiently, it wasnecessary to set up "death factories" that operated with the efficiency of an assemblyline, much like the factories that produce refrigerators or automobiles. First, Goebbeltold lies, false reasons to support the conclusion that genocide was justified. He spreadrumors about "secret books" that told about an alleged tradition of drinking the bloodof innocent Christian children. Of course, there were no books, and this disgustingpractice never occurred, but many people were willing to believe that it was true.

Arguments were most frequently used to persuade Nazis and others that mil-lions of people should be slaughtered, but there were other propaganda techniquesthat Goebbel used, including visual images and threats of violence for anyone whodidn't agree. Although other techniques are considered in more detail later in thischapter and in other chapters, I note here the particularly blatant ploy of showingpictures of Jews that were alternated with pictures of rats and roaches, so that view-ers would come to associate certain facial features that are common in many Jewswith disgusting rodents and bugs. (If you have studied psychology, you will recog-nize this technique as an application of classical conditioning.) These same sorts oftechniques have been used to promote other types of equally horrific genocide. Thepropaganda used to justify slavery and lynchings in the United States, the slaughterof Cambodians in Asia, and the purges by Mao Tse-tung in China and Stalin in theformer Soviet Union, show that propaganda has been used all over the world to en-courage prejudice and killing. Why did education fail all these people in so manyplaces around the world? For example, how did millions of Chinese, in this century,believe that Mao was their "loving father," when he was responsible for the death ofmillions of Chinese? Why didn't they stop to consider if the reasons they were givento support this Chinese holocaust (i.e., the cultural revolution) were not acceptable?Do you understand Hitler's now-infamous quote, "What luck for rulers that men donot think" (quoted in Byrne, 1988, p. 359)?

The Psychology of Reasons

As you now realize, an argument requires the use of reasons, and we like to havereasons for our beliefs, even when the reasons are not very good and the argumentitself is weak. Three psychologists conducted a study in which they examined howpeople respond to the appearance of reasons (Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz, 1978). Inthis study, they had a confederate (someone working with the experimenters whose

EXPLAINING AS KNOWING 2O9

identity is not known to the true subjects) try various combinations of requests andreasons for barging ahead of people waiting in line to use a copier machine. Therewere three different conditions: (a) Request alone ("Excuse me, I have five pages.May I use the Xerox machine?"), (b) Request plus reason ("Excuse me, I have fivepages. May I use the Xerox because I'm in a rush?"), and (c) Request plus the ap-pearance of a reason ("Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machinebecause I have to make some copies?").

The results of this study are very interesting. In the request alone condition 60%of the people waiting said that it was okay for the confederate to make the copies. Inthe request plus reason condition, this figure jumped to 94%. What about the re-quest plus appearance of a reason? In this condition, 93% of the people waiting touse the machine let the confederate go ahead. The use of the word because suggestedthat there was a reason. Remember the section on premise indicators? Because waslisted as a word that is frequently followed by a reason. The statement "because Ihave to make some copies" is not a reason to let someone ahead of you in line at thecopier machine. Everyone standing in line has to make some copies. It seems thatwe like to believe that our actions and beliefs are reasonable, that is, based on rea-sons. Unfortunately, even nonreasons, poor reasons, and reasons that are unrelatedto the action or belief will often suffice. People who want to change how we thinkand act often rely on this human tendency and will deliberately use unsound rea-soning to convince us that a conclusion is true.

You probably think that irrelevant reasons for a conclusion would have no effect onhow people evaluate a conclusion. It seems that this should be true because irrelevantreasons are, well, irrelevant. But, psychologically, irrelevant reasons often influencewhat we believe and how we act even though, logically, they should not. A study ofconsumer decisions showed that irrelevant reasons in support of a product tend toweaken support for the product, and irrelevant reasons that run counter to a producttend to strengthen support for the product (Simonson, Nowlis, & Simonson, 1993). Forexample, suppose that you are a runner who is looking for good running shoes. As asalesperson, I tell you that Adibok brand is well known for their aerobic shoes, butthey also make good running shoes. The fact that they are well known for their aerobicshoes should be irrelevant to the selection of running shoes, but it seems to workagainst this hypothetical brand. Consumers assume that if Adibok is good at makingaerobic shoes, then it is less good at making running shoes. Thus, an irrelevant reasonin support of this brand is psychologically converted into a reason against this brand.

Similarly, suppose that you have no interest in saunas. If I told you that the PoshInn Hotel Chain does not have a sauna, a seemingly irrelevant reason against thePosh Inn Hotels, you would likely take this as a reason for selecting Posh Inn. Psycho-logically, this irrelevant reason against Posh Inn Hotels is converted into thinking thatit may have something else positive that balances this irrelevant negative. In this way,a reason that should be irrelevant to your decision about Posh Inn Hotel becomes areason for staying at Posh Inn. The point of this discussion is that people often do notbehave in ways that are logical; irrelevant reasons influence how we think.

EXPLAINING AS KNOWING

"How do you know what you know?" (Kuhn, 2001). It seems that most people makejudgments about their own knowledge by thinking about how well they can explain

21O 5. ANALYZING ARGUMENTS

a phenomenon. For example, in studies of how jurors decide on the guilt or inno-cence of a defendant, researchers found that jurors weave a story about what mighthave happened at the scene of a crime and then decide how good that story is. Thismode of knowing is often labeled "explaining." Another way of knowing is to exam-ine the strength of the evidence that supports or refutes a particular conclusion—thisis known as argument analysis. Most people use "explanations" as the primary wayof justifying claims (Brem & Rips, in press; Cheng, 1997). Consider this example:

Which is the stronger argument?A. Why do teenagers start smoking? Smith says it's because they see ads that make smok-

ing look attractive. A good-looking guy in neat clothes with a cigarette in his mouth is some-one you would like to be like.

B. Why do teenagers start smoking? Jones says it's because they see ads that make smok-ing look attractive. When cigarette ads were banned from TV, smoking went down. (Kuhn,2001, p. 4)

Answer A provides an explanation that links smoking and teens in a way thatmost people think "makes sense." Answer B provides data, albeit limited, that linkssmoking and advertisements. The alternative that provides evidence for the rela-tionship is stronger than the one that merely explains, even though many peopleprefer the explanation. There are many plausible explanations that could be gener-ated, and without evidence (i.e., data) there is no good way to choose among them.Far too many people are very confident in their knowledge of something and verywrong (Kuhn, 2001). Think about your own understanding. How do you knowabout the nature of the world? This is not meant to be an idle navel-gazing question.If you can develop the disposition to look for evidence instead of relying on an ex-planation that "just seems right," you will make large gains in critical thinking.

It is important to understand that people are quite confident in their knowledgebecause it makes sense to them, but "making sense" is a poor measure of the qualityof your knowing. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand why data should be prefer-able to explanation. Consider this example: During World War II, many Germansrefused to believe that the German army burned an entire village in Poland as theywere retreating from the Soviet front. They refused to believe it because the mas-sacre did not make sense. Why should the German troops slaughter innocent peoplein Poland? In fact, historical records (eye-witness accounts, physical evidence, writ-ten accounts, etc.) clearly show that this is what happened—the village wasdestroyed by frustrated German troops who were seeking revenge for their humili-ating loss. The evidence is more compelling than the "make sense" explanation. It isimportant that we learn to value evidence when formulating conclusions. The use ofdata is a critical part of critical thinking.

The preference for explanations over evidence is just one of many ways thatthinking can "go wrong." In the next section, we consider other common ways thatthinking can go astray. Unsound reasoning techniques used for the purpose of per-suasion are called fallacies. As you go through the list of fallacies presented in thenext section, you can classify each as violating one or more of the criteria for sound ar-guments—the premises are unacceptable, or the premises are unrelated to the conclu-sion or inconsistent, or the expert is not credible, or important information is missing.

It is impossible to list every fallacy that has been employed to change how peoplethink. The list would be too long to be useful, with only subtle differences amongseveral of the techniques. Accordingly, only the most common and representative

EXPLAINING AS KNOWING 211

techniques are discussed. If you understand how fallacies work in general, you'll bebetter prepared to recognize and defend against them. Toulmin, Rieke, and Janik(1979) call the ability to recognize fallacies "a kind of sensitivity training" becausethey train the reader to be sensitive to common tricks of persuasion.

Twenty-One Common Fallacies

1. Association EffectsOne of the oldest principles in psychology is the notion that, if two events occur

close together in time and/or space, the mind will form an association betweenthem. Thereafter, when one occurs, the other is expected to occur. This principle hasbecome widely used in the political arena, especially to create guilt by association.Suppose you read in the newspaper that a violent mass murderer endorsed a presi-dential candidate. This endorsement would be detrimental to the candidate, even ifshe did not desire it and did nothing to promote it.

A classic example of the propagandistc use of association came from a politicalgroup called "California Tax Reduction Movement." Their 1983 literature stated:"This court, dominated by Jerry Brown appointees, and having radical views closeto those of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, has twisted the words until we don't evenrecognize them!" You might be wondering what Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden aredoing in a sentence about the California Supreme Court. In the jargon of analyzingarguments, the premise is unrelated to the conclusion. Fonda and Hayden had noconnection with the court. This literature was written with the belief that peoplewho favor tax reductions will also be opposed to Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. TheCourt is being made guilty by association with them. Although it is implied, it doesnot logically follow that the Supreme Court therefore has views similar to JaneFonda and Tom Hayden. It may or may not have had such views. (Note also the useof the emotion-laden word "radical.") Whenever you see examples of associationswith no justifiable connection like this one, be wary of the rest of the message. It islikely to contain an appeal to your emotions rather than to your cognition.

Just as one can have guilt by association, it is also possible to have virtue by asso-ciation. In this instance, the names or labels attached to the person are "good" ones.Perhaps this is why certain political offices tend to run in families. People expectedthe Kennedy brothers to be similar as politicians because of their obvious associa-tion with each other or that the Bush children will be similar to their father, formerpresident George Bush, Sr. This expectation is being passed onto the children andother relatives of political figures, many of whom are now involved in or consider-ing political careers. Would you vote for or against an unknown Kennedy or Bushsimply because he or she is from the same family as a former politician?

A wary recipient of messages that rely on association will ask about the nature ofthe association. If a candidate is a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, then associating thedoctrine of the Klan with this individual is reasonable. If, on the other hand, a friendof the candidate's mother is a member of the Klan, the association is ludicrous.

2. Arguments Against the PersonArguments against the person is the formal term for name calling or, in its Latin

form, argumentatum ad hominem. This form of persuasion or propaganda attacks the

212 5. ANALYZING ARGUMENTS

people who support a cause, and not the cause itself. From the standpoint of argu-ment analysis, the personal attack is irrelevant to the conclusion. For example, theNazis believed that the theory of relativity was wrong because its discoverer was aJew named Albert Einstein. They never considered the evidence for or against thetheory, just the religion of its originator. It is basically another form of the associa-tion effect. In this case, the association that is being made is between an idea and aperson. The underlying principle is that if you don't like the person who supportsan idea, then you should also oppose the idea itself because the idea and the personare associated.

Suppose you were serving on a jury that had to decide which of two witnesseswas telling the truth. Would you be swayed if one attorney told you to disregard oneman's testimony because he had been divorced twice? Presumably not, because theman's marital status is irrelevant to the issue. Suppose you were told that one of themen had two previous convictions for lying to a jury. Would this argument againstthe person be relevant? I would think so. In this case, the information providedabout the witness is relevant to the question of whether he is lying. Consider thestrength and relevance of the argument and the purpose for which it is used, anddon't be misled by irrelevant attacks on the supporters or detractors of any position.

3. Appeals to PityAn appeal to pity is easy to spot. "Support this position" or "buy that product"

because it needs your help. A rental car agency has made it well known that they'renumber 2 in their business, and therefore will try harder. They hope that consumerswill root for the "underdog" and support the company that is number 2. Does thisconclusion logically follow from the fact that they're number 2? No! You could alsologically conclude that the number 1 company will try harder to retain their lead orthat the number 2 company would have been number 1 if it had tried harder. Ap-peals to pity are often found in legal pleadings. A defendant's poor background orturbulent home life will often be brought up during a trial. These appeals to pityhave nothing to do with the question of whether a defendant is guilty or innocent,although they may be persuasive appeals for leniency in sentencing if the defendantis found guilty. Sometimes, students use appeals to pity when attempting to per-suade a teacher to raise a low grade. The grade is assigned on the quality of thework that is done, but students sometimes argue that if they work hard (or someother sad reason), the work should be graded higher than comparable work bysomeone who did not work as hard.

4. Popularity and TestimonialsThe popularity technique (also known as the "bandwagon") relies on the need

for conformity for its persuasive power. It is persuasive because it explains thateveryone supports a position or buys a certain product. It is expected that the recipi-ents of the message will adopt the belief or buy the product in order to feel as if sheor he belongs to the groups mentioned. Implicitly, the message is "if everyone isdoing it, it must be right." This fallacy was presented earlier in this chapter when weconsidered the advertisement for LaBaroness, the car that more people are buyingthan any other American car.

A variation of the popularity technique is testimonials. Respected politicians ormovie stars endorse a belief or product. It is believed that people will want to be


Calvin andobbesH by Bill Watterson

CALVIN AND HOBBES © Watterson. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESSSYNDICATE. All rights reserved.

similar to the people they respect, so they will choose to use the same deodorant orfoot powder or support the same causes. The recipients of testimonials are expectedto infer a conclusion from the information stated. It is expected that they will reasonalong these lines: Christie Brinkley is a gorgeous model with very few wrinkles. Sheuses the advertised beauty product. If I use this beauty product, like Christie Brinkley,I will have very few wrinkles. Of course, this conclusion does not follow from thefirst two sentences, but many people believe that it does or at least implies that itmight. This fallacy is worsened when the testimonial is not even in the area in whichthe personality has expertise. Christie Brinkley also endorses a national newspaper.As far as I know, this is an area in which she has no expertise. She is not a credible ex-pert in the area of journalistic quality. Yet, advertisements like these do sell products.

Sometimes, however, the popularity technique and testimonials can be valid per-suasive techniques. If, for example, all of the members of an unbiased expert panel es-tablished to study the effects of a drug decide that it is unsafe, I would consider thisinformation relevant to the question of the drug's safety because it passes the test ofcredibility. Similarly, if a leading educator endorses a reading text, this might prop-erly have an impact on your evaluation of the text. Both of these examples presumethat the "experts" have no personal motives for their endorsements—that is, they'renot being paid for saying these things and their expertise is relevant to the position orproduct that they're supporting. In this case, they are credible sources of information.

5. False DichotomyDon't give him two sides to a question to worry him.Give him one;better yet, give him none!

—Ray Bradbury (Farenheit 451,1950)

There are very few political or social decisions that have simple answers or that canbe solved with simple choices. Yet simple slogans are the prototype or most com-mon and representative form of persuasive techniques. False dichotomy is some-times called simplification or the black or white fallacy because readers are asked todecide between two positions, without allowing other alternatives or "gray areas"that would combine aspects of both choices.


The following question appeared in a questionnaire that was sent by an assem-blyman to his constituents (Assemblyman Montjoy Needs Your Views, 1983):

"Would you prefer that government cut spending or increase taxes?"cut spending increase taxes

Does this question bother you? It should. The answers to our fiscal problems arenot this simple. You should ask where and how the cuts would be made and howmuch taxes would be increased. Perhaps "cuts" could be combined with small ortemporary increases in taxes. Can you guess which answer the assemblymanprefers? Given this choice, I believe that most people would prefer to "cut spend-ing," yet, for many, an entirely different response would result from a question thatwas worded differently. When you are faced with a false dichotomy or the simplifi-cation of a complex issue, don't ask yourself if the ideas are good or bad. Ask in-stead what is good about the ideas and what is bad about them. Consider other al-ternatives and combinations of ideas. Remember that one of the steps in analyzingarguments calls for supplying missing components—omitted premises, assump-tions, qualifiers, and counterarguments.

6. Appeals to Pride or SnobberySpeech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.

—Talleyrand (1754-1838; quoted in Macmillan, 1989, p. 544)An appeal to pride or snobbery usually involves praise or flattery. A blatant and

humorous example can be found in an advertisement that was mailed to me athome. (Notice that it begins with my name, a sure attention-getting technique.)

Dear Dr. Halpern,You may just be the solution.Here is the problem: How do you find the right subscribers for an extraordinary magazine

that is about to be published—BUT, a magazine that isn't for everyone?A magazine that is, in fact, for only a handful of bright, literate people, people who still in

this world of instant communication love to sit down with a good book.

I'd love to believe that the publishers know me personally, and have written amagazine just for the kind of person I'd like to be. The truth is, this letter went totens of thousands of people whose names were bought as part of various mailinglists. Clearly, they are attempting to persuade me to purchase their magazine by ap-pealing to my pride or snobbery.

Consider the following question, which appeared as part of a "1982 Congres-sional Questionnaire" (Congressman Carlos J. Moorhead Reports, Summer, 1982):

In an attempt to make federal social programs more responsive to citizens' needs, lesswasteful and more efficient, the Administration has proposed a New Federalism where theprograms and funds—in the form of block grants—are transferred to local government formanagement and administration. Do you think that you, your neighbors, and your local offi-cials have the ability to handle this new responsibility?

yes no

Do you think that this question is slanted toward a "yes" response? The appeal topride and snobbery is less obvious in this question than in the first example, possibly


making it even more potent. The question is really, "Are you and your friends smartenough to handle X?" It doesn't matter what X is; most people believe that they aresmart. The congressman has also posed the wrong question. You may be able to"handle this new responsibility" without believing that block grants are a goodidea. Responses to this question were subsequently used to support the idea ofblock grants. Be wary of persuasive communications that include flattery. Althoughflattery is not in and of itself wrong, it may be used to obscure real issues.

7. Card Stacking or Suppressed InformationCard stacking or suppressed information operates as a persuasive technique by

omitting information that supports the unfavored view. An automobile companyrecently compared the car they were advertising on television with a competitor.The advertisers stressed that their car got better mileage and cost less. What aboutthe variables they omitted? Which car needed fewer repairs, had the more comfort-able seating, or accelerated better? What about other makes of cars? Did a brand thatwas not mentioned exceed the advertised one on all of these dimensions? Whenconsidering persuasive information, be sure to consider what has not been statedalong with the stated claims. This is another example of the need to consider themissing components in an argument.

8. Circular ReasoningIn circular reasoning the premise is simply a restatement of the conclusion. If you

were to diagram the structure of this sort of argument, you would get a circle be-cause the support for the conclusion is a restatement of the conclusion. Here is anexample of circular reasoning:

We need to raise the speed limit because the current legal speed is too slow.In this example, the reason given (current speed is too slow) is just another way

of saying that we need to raise the speed limit. It does not support the conclusion.The conclusion would be supported with premises such as the assertion that therehas been no change in the number or severity of automobile accidents with a lowerspeed limit or some similar statement that supports this conclusion.

9. Irrelevant ReasonsArguments that utilize irrelevant reasons are fairly common. The Latin word for this

sort of fallacy is non sequitur, which literally translates to "it doesn't follow." In otherwords, the reason or premise is unrelated to the conclusion. Of course, you recognizethe importance of having relevant premises as one of the criteria for sound arguments.(If you don't, go back over the section of evaluating the quality of an argument.)

One example that comes to mind is a statement that a faculty member made at acurriculum committee meeting in which we were discussing whether we should re-quire every student to take classes in a foreign language. The faculty member infavor of this proposal made this statement: "We should require every student tostudy a foreign language because it is important that we provide our students witha quality education." Look carefully at the conclusion and the premise. Is thepremise related to the conclusion? Everyone on the curriculum committee believedthat all students should receive a quality education, but the issue was whether allstudents should be required to study a foreign language. There were no reasons


given as to why studying a foreign language should be a required part of a qualityeducation. The conclusion did not follow from the reason that was given.

10. Slippery Slope or ContinuumThe slippery slope fallacy is best described by an example. One of the arguments

against court-ordered desegregation of the schools was that, if we allow the court todetermine which public schools our children will attend, the court will also tell uswhom we have to allow into our churches, whom we have to invite into our homes,and even whom we should marry. In this example, the action (court-ordered deseg-regation) lies on a continuum with the court ordering whom we should marry at anextreme end. The argument being made is that if we allow the court to have jurisdic-tion over events at one end of the continuum, then it will take over the other eventson the continuum. For this reason, this fallacy is called either slippery slope (onceyou start sliding down a slope you can't stop) or the fallacy of continuum.

Most life events can be placed along a continuum. It does not necessarily followthat actions concerning some part of the continuum will also apply to otherportions of the continuum. Let's consider a second example. The Irish believe thatcurrent U.S. immigration laws are biased against immigrants from Ireland. Theyhave asked the U.S. immigration service to increase the quota for Ireland. Thosewho have argued against increasing the immigration quotas for Ireland have saidthat if we increase the quota for Ireland, then we'll have to increase the quota forevery other country in the world, an action that they see as disastrous. Increasingthe number of immigrants we accept from Ireland does not mean that we wouldalso have to increase the quotas for other countries. The immigration office may ormay not decide to alter quotas from other countries, but taking an action on behalfof one country does not mean that the other actions will follow. A more colorfulname for this fallacy is "the camel's nose in the tent." It is based on the idea that ifwe let a camel stick its nose in the tent, the rest of the camel will soon follow.

11. Straw PersonA straw person is weak and easy to knock down. With a straw person argument, a

very weak form of an opponent's argument is set up and then knocked down. It oc-curs when an opponent to a particular conclusion distorts the argument in support ofthe conclusion and substitutes one that is much weaker. For example, in a discussionabout whether students should be evaluating their professors, one opponent to thisidea offered this straw person argument: "You say that students' evaluations of theirprofessors should be included in decisions about which professors we should be pro-moting. Well, I certainly don't think that the decision as to which professors get pro-moted should be made by students." Notice how the original argument that "studentevaluations should be included in the decision-making process" was changed to"students should not be deciding which professors get promoted." The original argu-ment was for student evaluations to be part of the criteria used in the decision-makingprocess. This is not the same as having students actually make the decisions. In itschanged form, the argument is easier to knock down, just like a straw person.

12. Part-WholePart-whole fallacies are flip sides of the same error. A part-whole fallacy is made

whenever a speaker or writer assumes that whatever is true of the whole is also true


of all of its parts, and whatever is true of the parts is also true of the whole. Considersome outstanding, prestigious university. (Are you thinking about your ownschool?) As a whole, the student body is highly intelligent, but it would be wrong tobelieve that every student who attends that university is therefore highly intelligent.Similarly, think of several brilliant scientists. Just because they are each brilliant does-n't mean that if we put them on a committee together (made a whole out of them),the committee would be brilliant. They may never agree or perhaps spend so muchtime impressing each other with how smart they are that no work would get done.

13. Appeals to IgnoranceThe peculiar thing about appeals to ignorance is that they can often be used to

support two or more totally different conclusions. This should be a clue to you thatthe reasoning involved is fallacious. In appeals to ignorance, the premise involvessomething we don't know. Our ignorance is being used to argue because there is noevidence to support a conclusion, the conclusion must be wrong. Our ignorance of atopic can also be used to support a conclusion by stating that because there is no ev-idence that contradicts it, the conclusion must be right. I have heard both sidesargue this way in a debate on the existence of God. Believers have argued that be-cause no one can prove that God doesn't exist, He therefore must exist. Nonbeliev-ers have argued that because no one can prove that God exists, He therefore doesn'texist. The absence of evidence doesn't support any conclusion. The absence of evi-dence for one conclusion is not evidence for another conclusion.

14. Weak and Inappropriate AnalogiesThe topic of analogies was presented in Chapter 3, "The Relationship Between

Thought and Language." It also appears later in the book in Chapters 9 and 10 onproblem solving and creativity. Analogies are a basic thinking skill. We use analo-gies whenever we encounter something new and try to understand it by reference tosomething we already know. Although analogies can be extremely useful aids tocomprehension, they can also be misused. Two objects or events are analogouswhen they share certain properties. When we argue with analogies, we concludethat what is true of one object or event is true of the other.

Consider the mother who decides that her child should not be given pianolessons because the child had dropped out of dance class. The mother formed theanalogy that the child dropped out of one type of creative arts lessons and becausedance class and piano lessons were similar in some ways, the child would also dropout of piano lessons. The child may or may not have continued with piano lessons,but it was a weak sort of analogy that formed the support for this conclusion. Danceclass and piano lessons are similar in certain respects, but they also have many dis-tinct differences. When considering an argument by analogy, it is important to con-sider the nature and the salience of the similarity relationship. It is possible that thechild would have stuck with piano.

15. Appeals to AuthorityI already introduced this fallacy in an informal way earlier in this chapter when

I discussed expert credibility. Much of what we know and believe is based on whatwe learn from authorities. The fallacy of appeals to authority occurs when theauthority we use to support the premises in an argument is the wrong authority.


If I wanted to sell you a stereo, it would be valid if I quoted from an article onstereos written by a professor of acoustics (who is an independent authority). Itwould be a fallacious appeal if I told you that Kobe Bryant called it the best stereosystem he had ever seen. Thus, the fallacy is not in appealing to an authority on atopic, but to appealing to someone who is not a credible authority.

16. Incomplete Comparisons"More doctors agree that Dopeys can give you the fastest pain relief." Advertise-

ments like this one are so common that it's almost impossible to open a magazinewithout seeing one. Two different comparisons are made in this statement and bothare incomplete. Whenever you see comparative terms ask yourself "more thanwhat," "fastest compared to what?" Incomplete comparisons are missing the otherhalf of the equation.

Incomplete comparisons often contain evaluative terms like "better," "safest,"and, of course, "cleanest." This is a special case of considering missing componentsin an argument. How was "better" defined? How was it measured? By whom?Compared to what? There is no way to interpret claims like, "Washo will make yourwhole wash cleaner" without additional information. An ice cream store that I passon my way to work has a large sign outside that states, "Voted the best ice cream." Ipresume that I am supposed to infer that their ice cream was voted the best, but bywhom, compared to which other ice creams, what criteria were used to decidewhich was best, and how were the ice creams evaluated with these criteria? Everytime you see a comparative claim, you should ask yourself these questions. If the an-swers aren't provided, then the comparison is incomplete, and the comparison isusually a meaningless ploy to get you to buy something.

17. Knowing the UnknowableSometimes we are given information that it is impossible to know. This is the fal-

lacy of knowing the unknowable. Suppose you read in the newspapers that weneed to increase the size of the police force because the number of unreported rapeshas increased dramatically. A little alarm should go off when you read this: How cananyone know about the number of unreported rapes? I don't doubt that many rapesare not reported to the police or that this is an important issue. What is at question isthe increase or decrease in the number when the actual number is unknowable.There are numerous times when sources give precise figures when such figures areimpossible. Child abuse is another example. This is a tragic and important issue forsociety to grapple with, but estimates about the number of children involved cannever be very accurate because much of it is undetected. Researchers can try to ex-trapolate from the number of child abuse cases that are treated in the emergencyrooms of hospitals or that go to court, but there are no good methods of extendingthese known figures to unreported cases. An increase in the number of cases of rapeor child abuse may be due to increased awareness and education about these crimes.An increase in reported cases could be associated with an increase, decrease, or nochange in unreported cases. Again, there is no way we can know the unknowable.

18. False CauseThe fallacy of false cause is discussed more completely in Chapter 6, "Thinking

as Hypothesis Testing," but it is also important to discuss in the context of reasoning


fallacies. The fallacy of false cause occurs whenever someone argues that becausetwo events occur together, or one follows the other closely in time, that one causedthe other to occur. For example, consider the finding that as the number of churchesincrease in a city so does the number of prostitutes. It would be false to concludethat churches cause an increase in prostitution or that prostitutes cause morechurches to be built. In fact, as the size of a city increases so does the number ofchurches and the number of prostitutes, as well as the number of schools, dry clean-ers, volunteer agencies, and so on. Neither of them caused any of the others. Theyall resulted from a third factor—in this case, an increase in population. Of course,it is possible that one variable did cause the other to occur, but more than co-occurrence is needed to justify a causal claim.

19. Put DownsOnly a fool would endorse this candidate! No patriotic American would dis-

agree! You'd have to be stupid to believe that! These are all examples of put downs(also known as belittling the opposition). An opposing viewpoint is belittled so thatagreeing with it would put you in the class of people who are fools, or unpatriotic,or stupid. This technique is not so much a reasoning fallacy as it is an emotional ap-peal or dare.

20. Appeals to Tradition"That's the way we've always done it." Anyone who has tried to change a policy

has heard this sentence or its variant, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In appeals to tra-dition, the unstated assumption is that what exists is best. It may be true that cur-rent policy is better than some suggested change, but it also may not be true. Thereis nothing inherent in the fact that "that's the way we've always done it" that makesit a good or best way to accomplish an objective. One of the attitudes of a criticalthinker that was presented in the first chapter is flexibility. Appeals to traditiondeny the possibility that a different way may be an improvement.

21. False Charge of FallacyThat's a fallacy! It seems that after some people learn to recognize fallacious rea-

soning, they then label everything that anyone says as a fallacy (Levi, 1991). Notevery statement is a fallacy. The idea of critical thinking is to develop an amiableskepticism, not a cynical view that everything and everyone is false. It is importantto know when to accept some statements as acceptable as it is to know when andwhat to question.

Distinguishing Among Opinion,Reasoned Judgment, and Fact

Compare the following three statements.

Britney Spears is a great singer.Britney Spears is a great singer because she can sing a wider variety of songs than any

other contemporary artist.

22O 5. ANALYZING ARGUMENTS

Britney Spears is a great singer with several different songs at the top of the chart and al-bums that have gone platinum.

In the first example, I have expressed an opinion. It is a simple assertion of a pref-erence. I like it; I think it's best. No reasons were given to support the evaluation.Opinion reflects how an individual or group has assessed a position or product—e.g., "Vote for Max Lake; he's the best man for the job!"

The second example also expresses a preference, but in this example, the prefer-ence is supported by reasons. I like X because Y. This is an example of reasoned judg-ment. Other examples of reasoned judgment are provided throughout the chapter.

The third statement concerns factual claims. Facts have a verifiable truth value—e.g., Gravel-O's breakfast cereal has 100% of the recommended daily requirement ofiron. Although I can't personally check the truth-value of these facts, a credible au-thority (e.g., the Food and Drug Administration) has verified these claims for me.Often, the distinction among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment is a fine one. Ifwe say that Gravel-O's is a good cereal because it has 100% of the recommendeddaily requirement of iron, this is a reasoned judgment based, in part, on the un-stated assumption that it is good to eat cereals that contain 100% of the recom-mended daily requirement of iron. The distinction becomes even more difficultwhen you recall that opinions can serve as the premises (reasons) in an argument.Thus, when I say that Gravel-O's is a good cereal because I like its nutty taste, I havea reason to support my conclusion. If I were to add that Gravel-O's is a good cerealbecause I like its nutty taste and it supplies all of my iron needs for the day, thestrength of my argument is increased.

"Pure" facts that are untainted by opinion are often hard to find. Take for example,your daily newspaper. Although news reporters are obligated to provide readers withfacts, their opinions certainly color what they report and how they report it. Comparethe way two different newspapers cover the same story. One newspaper could makeit the headline on page one, thus making it important news that will be read by many,whereas the other could place it in an inside section in smaller print, thus making surethat fewer people will read the story. Look at the words used to convey the samestory. A quiet night in Poland during a period of martial law could be described as"Poland Enforces Martial Law" or as "All Is Quiet in Poland." Both of these headlinescould be factually correct, yet they clearly convey different ideas about Polish life.

Most news media (news magazines, newspapers, television news) are biased to-ward providing information that "sells." The news media often treat complex issuesin a very simplistic manner with a heavy emphasis on controversies because theyare more interesting than agreements. The usual rules of scientific evidence and rea-soning often are abandoned in the news media where deadlines determine the newsyou get and interest value can drive content. The distinction between fact and opin-ion is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. As King (1994) notes, televisionprograms like Hard Copy are supposedly "reenactments" of real events, but wenever know how close the story is to reality. Add some "partially fictionalized" ac-counts of gruesome real-life murders and the filming of actual police arrests for en-tertainment shows, and the situation gets even messier. I made this point earlierwhen I discussed the partially fictionalized (or at least highly biased) version of themovie about the JFK assassination. The fuzzy distinction between the real and un-real gets even more difficult now that "virtual reality" computer programs are avail-able that rival "real reality." It is a brave, new world that we are entering—one thatmakes critical thinking more necessary than ever.


You may be thinking that at least one source of honest facts is your textbooks. Al-though it is usually safe to assume that text authors do not set out deliberately tomislead students, the facts that they report are also subject to interpretation. Easilyquantified and verifiable information such as the number of soldiers sent to a SouthAmerican country or the size of the national deficit are probably correct or as closeto correct as possible, presuming that there has been no deliberate attempt to lie.Other facts such as the sequence of events and their importance in causing a war, orstrategies at political conventions, or poverty in America need to be interpreted bytext authors who will decide how to describe them. The words they use, the eventsincluded or omitted, and the amount of information given, all contribute to the "fac-tual" information that is printed. Personal bias will, of course, influence the way theideas are presented.

It has been said that there is never just one war fought. Each side has its own ver-sion, and rarely do they agree. Unfortunately, there is always fighting somewherearound the world so that you can verify this statement for yourself. It is not unusualfor each side to claim that the other fired first, or for both sides to claim victory in abattle. Obviously, in the absence of verifiable truth there is no way to know which, ifeither, side is presenting the facts. As before, the best way to assess the quality of theinformation provided is to consider the credibility of the reporter. I would prefer areport from an independent third party with first-hand and direct knowledge andappropriate credentials to a report from spokespersons from either of the sides in-volved in a dispute.

Advertisements make extensive use of opinions dressed up as fact. Consider theadvertisements for headache remedies. Often they will show an attractive man in awhite laboratory coat, obviously selected to portray a physician. He tells you that,"Speedy works fast on headache pain." Although this may seem like a fact, it is anopinion. "Fast" is a vague term, and therefore it is a matter of judgment. If the ap-propriate tests with a large number of people had shown that, on the average,Speedy brings pain relief in 20 minutes, this information would be a fact. If you arein doubt as to whether information is fact or opinion, check for vague or evaluativeterms (fast, better, lovelier, etc.), and ask yourself how the evaluative term was de-fined and what type of test was conducted to support the claim. This topic is cov-ered in more detail in Chapter 6.

Visual Arguments

He who controls images controls everything.

—Robert Townsend (quoted in Beilensen & Jackson, 1992, p. 15)We are living in an increasingly visual society where we get more of our informa-tion from visual displays than from words. Television is a major source of informa-tion and entertainment for many people. The average television viewer will seeapproximately 30,000 commercials every year. The message in each is mostly thesame—whatever your problem is (e.g., rough elbows, teeth that do not dazzle withsparkling whiteness, overweight), you can buy a product that will solve it (Postman &Powers, 1992). Much of the persuasive message in television commercials is con-veyed through the pictures that we see, often with the accompanying dialoguebeing of secondary importance. Images are also important in magazines, newspa-pers, video games, the Internet, and on billboards.

a template for writing sound arguments · 2018. 5. 1. · —adolf hitler (1889-1945; cited in...

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