Arguments of refutation

1. Arguments of refutation How to argue against an opponent

2. Step 1: understand the argument • In order to refute an argument, you first have to understand it. Otherwise, you're going to look pretty foolish, when the other side stands up and explains how you've totally missed the point. • Listen to the argument carefully. • Identify the position it's taking. • Identify the reasons it offers for that position. Note what sources it's relying on.

3. Step 2: Find the weak points • The first thing beginning arguers do when refuting is to focus on the argument's conclusion and argue the opposite. • For example, if one side argues that national service will increase patriotism, the other side says that national service will not increase patriotism. If one side argues that violent video games cause young people to become violent, the other side argues that violent video games will not cause violence.

4. This is an important and often effective strategy. But I want to encourage you to try something more advanced, and often more effective. • In refuting, don't just look at the conclusion. Look beyond the conclusion and examine the reasons the other side is giving. See if they really hold up under questioning. • For example: • Is the source the other side is relying on biased? • Is the correlation the other side is asserting really explained by another cause? • Is the analogy the other side is making really similar? • Are the statistics the other side is using misleading? • Is the evidence the other side is citing really relevant?

5. Attacking the other side's reasons is harder than attacking their conclusion, because you have to listen much, much harder and really understand what the other side is saying. But attacking the other side's reasons is also often more effective. If all you do is attack their conclusion, then the whole debate just turns into a shoving match. They push against you, you push back. Probably you just get stuck in the middle. But if you attack their reasons, it's like digging a hole under their argument, or sawing the legs off of their argument. Instead of pushing it over, it just falls down.

6. Logical fallacies • A final technique for refuting is to point out a fallacy. Sometimes, the other side's argument isn't really an argument at all—it looks like an argument, but it's really a logical fallacy (fake argument). • Examples: • ad hominem • slippery slope • searching for the perfect solution • appeal to popularity (ad populum) • straw man • either-or (false dilemma) • glittering generality • red herring • Faulty analogy

7. Glittering generalities • Definition: an emotionally appealing phrase so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that it carries conviction without supporting information or reason (think Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”) • Examples: • I stand for freedom: for a strong nation, unrivaled in the world. My opponent believes we must compromise on these ideals, but I believe they are our birthright. • “Pure, fresh, mountain spring water. Bottled especially for you in Utah from only our purest mountain springs.” • Miracle Diet Tea! Loose weight just by drinking tea! Our Miracle Diet Tea helps you to lose weight by absorbing most of the fat you eat before it is digested. • We should protect our Democratic values.

8. How do you refute this? • Question questionquestion. Posit (fallacious): Donald Trump speaks the truth and wants to make America great again. Rebuttal: What exact truth does he speak? Is he speaking truth or just harsh opinion? How does he define a great America? What qualities did we lose that he feels need to be made great “again”? How does he exactly plan to make America “great”?

9. Ad hominem • definition: an attack on an argument made by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, rather than attacking the argument directly.  • Examples: •  "My opponent for office just received an endorsement from the Puppy Haters Association. Is that the sort of person you would want to vote for?“ • Demeaning a teacher’s decision on grading by insulting her intelligence, e.g., “Well, it’s not like you graduated from the best school, so I can see why you wouldn’t know how to properly grade a writing assignment.” • Using gender as a means to devalue an argument from an opposing gender, e.g., “This is a female issue. As a man, how can you have an opinion about this?”

10. How do you refute this? • Point out the irrelevance of the attack Posit (fallacious): My opponent suggests that lowering taxes will be a good idea -- this is coming from a woman who eats a pint of Ben and Jerry’s each night! Rebuttal: My love of ice cream has nothing to do with my position on taxes. If I were suggesting a tax break for Ben and Jerry, then maybe that would be relevant.

11. Slippery slope • Definition: asserts that a particular result will probably (or even must inevitably) follow from a given decision or circumstance, without necessarily providing any rational argument or demonstrable mechanism for the likelihood of the assumed consequence. • proposes that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect, much like an object given a small push over the edge of a slope sliding all the way to the bottom • You said that if we allow A to happen, then Z will eventually happen too, therefore A should not happen.

12. Slippery slope, continued • The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, this fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion by leveraging fear. • Example: • Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we'll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and even monkeys. • If we ban smoking, then people will start taking soft drugs and then move onto hard drugs, and the crime rate will go up. We should therefore prevent crime by allowing smoking.

13. How do you refute this? • Frequently, the slippery slope has no evidence presented for why one would actually go down the slope, even if it is hypothetically possible. Pointing this out is sufficient to logically counter the argument.  Posit (fallacious): If you use marijuana one time, you will then move on to harder and harder drugs, thus battling a lifetime of addiction. Rebuttal: There is no evidence to suggest that a one-time exposure to marijuana will cause someone to continue experimenting with other drugs, no less that it will lead to drug addiction. Instances of habitual marijuana do not even necessarily institute a medical diagnosis of addiction.

14. Perfect solution • also known as the “Nirvana Fallacy,” • Definition: argument assumes that a perfect solution to a problem exists and/or that a proposed solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it were implemented. • In other words, that a course of action should be rejected because it is not perfect, even though it is the best option available.    • This fallacy is an example of black and white thinking, in which a person fails to see the complex interplay between multiple elements of a situation or problem, and as a result, reduces complex problems to a pair of extremes.

15. Perfect solution, continued Premise 1: X is what we have or is being proposed. Premise 2: Y is the perfect situation, even though it may not be achievable. Conclusion: Therefore, X should be rejected, even if it is the best available option. Examples: • These anti-drunk driving ad campaigns are not going to work. People are still going to drink and drive no matter what. • Seat belts are a bad idea. People are still going to die in car crashes.

16. How to you refute this? • Solution: Clarify the extreme quality of the position and point out the intention of the proposed solution. Posit (fallacious): These anti-drunk driving ad campaigns are not going to work. People are still going to drink and drive no matter what.Rebuttal: Complete eradication of drunk driving is not the expected outcome. The goal is reduction. Posit (fallacious): Seat belts are a bad idea. People are still going to die in car crashes.Rebuttal: While seat belts cannot make driving 100% safe, they do reduce one’s likelihood of dying in a car crash.

17. Ad populum • Latin for "appeal to the people“ • Definition: concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so.“ • Examples: • Gods must exist, since every culture has some sort of belief in a higher being. • The fact that the majority of our citizens support the death penalty proves that it is morally right. • But officer, I don't deserve a ticket; everyone goes this speed.  If I went any slower, I wouldn't be going with the stream of traffic.

18. How do you refute this? • Solution: refer to the age-old adage: “Just because everybody is doing it, doesn’t mean it’s right.” Posit (fallacious): The fact that the majority of our citizens support the death penalty proves that it is morally right. Rebuttal: The fact that the majority of our citizens support the death penalty only proves that the majority of our citizens support the death penalty. The state of being an unpopular opinion doesn’t make that opinion immoral.

19. Straw man • Definition: giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent. • creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition by covertly replacing it with a different proposition (i.e. "stand up a straw man") and then to refute or defeat that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the original proposition. • Found most frequently in highly charged emotional issues where a fiery, entertaining "battle" and the defeat of an "enemy" may be more valued than critical thinking or understanding both sides of the issue.

20. Straw man, continued • Examples: Person X: “We should put more money into health and education.” Person Y: “I’m surprised that you hate our country so much that you want to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending.” Person A: It is important to teach teenagers about contraceptive methods, so they can use them for safe intercourse. Person B: People who support sex education just want to give children a license to have sex without facing any consequences.

21. How do you refute this? • Point out where the assumptions have become exaggerated. Person A: We should relax the laws on the legal drinking age. Person B (fallacious posit): No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification. Person A (rebuttal): You’ve misconstrued what I said. You make it seem as though I said we should have “unrestricted access” to alcohol. I do not advocate that alcohol consumption should be unrestricted, just that it should be eased.

22. False dilemma • definition: When only two choices are presented, yet more exist, or a spectrum of possible choices exists between two extremes.  • They are errors in logic where you falsely prove something to appear true, based upon one or two initial correct facts. A limited number of options (usually two) is given, while in reality there is a third option. A false dilemma is an illegitimate use of the "or" operator where an individual is forced into making only one of two choices that are put into "black or white", when gray is the real answer! Remember, the initial facts are true, it is the conclusion that is invalid! • Examples: • You are either with America or against it. • Good students will study and learn without the threat of an exam, and bad students won't study and learn even with the threat of an exam. So, exams serve no purpose. • You can either be my friend or be my enemy.

23. How do you refute this? • Once you spot a false dilemma, just make it clear that the attacker is artificially narrowing the choices down and trying to deceive everyone. Posit (fallacious): You can either be my friend or my enemy. Rebuttal: That assumes there are only two options. I can be your acquaintance. Just because I may not be your friend doesn’t mean I’m plotting against you. Posit (fallacious): If you’re not first, you’re last. Rebuttal: That assumes that anyone who does not attain first place is a loser. There are other positions, ones that we globally celebrate. For example, the Olympics rewards athletes for first, second, and third places.

24. Red herring • Definition: Attempting to redirect the argument to another issue to which the person doing the redirecting can better respond. • a deliberate diversion of attention with the intention of trying to abandon the original argument • Examples: • Mike: It is morally wrong to cheat on your spouse, why on earth would you have done that? Ken: But what is morality exactly? Mike: It’s a code of conduct shared by cultures. Ken: But who creates this code?... • Teacher: “You’re cheating on the test!” Student: “I know I’ve made a mistake. But think of my parents. They’re going to kill me.”

25. How do you refute this? • Simple: “True perhaps, but irrelevant.” Posit (fallacious): Christians should teach their children to believe in evolution.If they don’t believe in evolution, America’s ability to produce innovative technologies will be hindered.   Rebuttal: Perhaps. But the ability to produce innovative technology has nothing to do with evolution.

26. Faulty analogy • Definition: This fallacy consists in assuming that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they are necessarily alike in some other respect. • Examples: • People who have to have a cup of coffee every morning before they can function have no less a problem than alcoholics who have to have their alcohol each day to sustain them. • Making people register their own guns is like the Nazis making the Jews register with their government. This policy is crazy. • Smoking cigarettes is just like ingesting arsenic into your system. Both have been shown to be causally related to death. So if you wouldn't want to take a spoonful of arsenic, I would think that you wouldn't want to continue smoking.

27. How do you refute this? • Acknowledge where the similarities in the two ideas exist. • Point out all the ways in which those same two ideas are not similar. • Posit (fallacious): Tipping your server for doing her job is like giving extra credit to a student who puts his name on his paper. • Rebuttal: Though serving food and putting a name on a paper are expectations in both situations, gratuity and extra credit aren’t the same thing. It is generally understood that the average server salary is far below minimum wage ($5 or less); therefore tips are part of their salary, not an addition to their salary. Extra credit is given after maximum credit has been allowed. If a teacher said that a student could earn no higher than 50% on a quiz, regardless of how well they performed, then the extra credit would be considered part of the grade, not as additional bonus points.

28. Step 3: build arguments against the argument • Here’s the most important rule:To refute an argument, you must argue against it. Asking questions is notenough. You must present good reasons why its conclusions or reasons arewrong. • Here’s one way to think of this rule: If you ask questions, it’s likely that your opponent willbe able to answer them. That will make their argument better! But you want to show how it’s bad. You need to go beyond just asking questions, to present reasons of your own.

29. Step 4: make your refutation • It is very hard to understand others’ arguments. Everyone is talking very fast and there is time in the debate for many many arguments. That’s why when you argue yourself, you know its vital to be CLEAR.

30. Here are the basic steps you should take when presenting your refutation: • 1. Name: Identify the argument you are refuting; otherwise no one will know what you are talking about. But do it briefly, since you don’t want to be making your opponents arguments for her.2. Explain. State in one sentence what your main objection to the argument is.3. Support. Support what you said in #2. Make clear precisely why the argument is weak, or lay out in full form your counterargument. This is where the real work of refutation is done.4. Conclude. Restate your main point, to make sure it sticks in your audience’s mind. Tie this refutation back into the refutation of the opponent’s whole case.

31. Example refutation • [Name:] The other side said that Jeb Bush’s comments shows that increased privacy will lead to terrorism. [Explain:] But Jeb Bush is biased. [Support:] His comments are entirely made in an election mentality the right are xenophobic war mongers and vote for this sort of rhetoric. That’s what the 2008 and 2012 elections demonstrate. [Conclude:] So youcan see that the other side has no credible evidence linking privacy terrorism and violence, and they haven’t established any relationship between privacy and terrorism.

32. To be viewed in class • Oliver on Trump As you watch the video, consider the following questions: • What points regarding Trump does John Oliver concede? • How does Oliver structure his rebuttal? • What, if any, logical fallacies does Trump make that Oliver rejects?