Making Reasonable Arguments

1. Making Reasonable Arguments Claims and Evidence

2. Making Reasonable Arguments • Remember that in an argument essay your purpose is to persuade • In order to convince readers that your position is correct, you need to offer valid reasons • Do this by: • Making reasonable claims • Giving evidence

3. Making Reasonable Claims • Three kinds of claim: • Claim of fact • Claim of value • Claim of policy

4. Making Reasonable Claims • Claims of fact: • Asserts that something is, was, or will be • Include arguments about cause and effect, correlation, probability, and states of affairs

5. Making Reasonable Claims • Examples of claims of fact: • Chocolate is the most popular flavour of ice cream for women. • Pornography has the potential of leading to violence. • Capital punishment reduces crime. • Capital punishment does not reduce crime.

6. Making Reasonable Claims • Claims of fact: • To support a claim of this kind you must provide further information (evidence)

7. Making Reasonable Claims • Claims of value: • Concern what is right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse than something else

8. Making Reasonable Claims • Examples of claims of value: • Country music deserves to be taken seriously. • Capital punishment is barbaric. • Euthanasia is moral.

9. Making Reasonable Claims • Claims of value: • Avoid mere expressions of taste • I.e. Vanilla is better than chocolate. • (How can one dispute this rationally?) • But notice the difference between above statement and “Most Canadians prefer vanilla to chocolate,” which is a claim of fact.

10. Making Reasonable Claims • Claims of value: • Must go beyond expressions of taste • May be claims of morality or claims of artistic value • Are usually supported by appeals to standards

11. Making Reasonable Claims • Examples of claims of value with appeal to standards: • Sex-education programs in schools are inappropriate because aspects of moral education should properly be given only by parents. • Sex-education programs in schools are appropriate because society has a duty to provide what most parents obviously are reluctant to provide.

12. Making Reasonable Claims • In arguing a claim of value: • Be clear on the standards that you believe support the claim • Explain why you hold these standards • Explain how adherence to these standards will be of benefit

13. Making Reasonable Claims • Claims of policy: • Assert that a policy, law, or custom should be initiated, altered, or dropped • Usually characterized by words such as “should,” “must,” and “ought”

14. Making Reasonable Claims • Examples of claims of policy: • Children should be allowed to vote, if they wish to. • A course in minority cultures ought to be required. • The federal tax on gasoline must be directed toward infrastructure.

15. Making Reasonable Claims • In defending a claim of policy: • May begin by pointing out that there is a problem that is usually overlooked • I.e. that suffrage for children is a matter of children’s rights • Provide further information (evidence) • I.e. that women didn’t have the vote in Canada until 1918 because they were considered mentally unfit for the responsibility, an argument which we know to be absurd

16. Making Reasonable Claims • In defending a claim of policy: • Consider values as well as facts • I.e. in arguing for a specific use of gasoline tax, provide factual information about how much money currently goes toward infrastructure, but also argue that the allocation that you are proposing is fairer than any other alternative

17. Giving Evidence • Three kinds of evidence: • Examples • Testimony • Statistics

18. Examples • Three categories of examples: • Real examples • Invented instances • Analogies

19. Examples • Real examples: • Instances that have occurred • I.e. Gun control will work. Look, for example, at the rate of gun-related crime in the United States.

20. Examples • Real examples: • Are advantageous because they are real • Have the disadvantage of being easily disputed • I.e. Gun violence in the U.S. is irrelevant because we are in Canada, and our relationship to guns is different.

21. Examples • Invented instances: • Are. . .invented; an instance that we can reasonably imagine could happen • I.e. Capital punishment is bad because an innocent person could be executed.

22. Examples • Invented instances: • Are advantageous because they can present an issue clearly, free from distracting particularities and irrelevancies that are bound up with real examples • Have the disadvantage of being invented; may seem remote from the real issue being argued

23. Examples • Analogies: • Comparisons pointing out several resemblances between two rather different things • I.e. A government is like a ship, and in times of stress – if the ship is to weather the storm – the authority of the captain should not be questioned

24. Examples • Analogies: • Are not proof • Are extended comparisons between two things • Can be useful in exposition by explaining the unfamiliar by means of the familiar

25. Examples • Analogies: • Can be useful to clarify what otherwise might be obscure • But the usefulness of analogies can only go so far • I.e. At the end of the day, a government is not a ship, and the prime minister is not a captain

26. Testimony • Testimony is: • The citation of authorities • Rooted in our awareness that some people are recognized as experts

27. Testimony • Do not forget they you are an authority on many things • You may use examples from personal experience as valid testimony

28. Testimony • Used for two reasons: • Expert opinion carries weight with an audience • A change of voice (if the testimony is not your own) is enjoyable for the reader

29. Testimony • Testimonial downsides: • Words of an expert may be taken out of context or otherwise distorted • Authorities may not be authorities on the present topic • I.e. Don’t use the words of David Suzuki to argue one side or the other of the abortion debate

30. Statistics • Are especially useful in arguments concerning social issues • I.e. If we are arguing to raise the driving age, we will look up statistics about the number of accidents cause by people in certain age groups

31. Statistics • Have the disadvantage of opening your argument to dispute from the other side • The significance of statistics can be difficult to assess • I.e. opponents of gun control legislation in Florida cited a statistic that showed that gun violence increased after enactment of the law. • Supporters of gun control pointed out that in the years following the enactment of the law Miami became the cocaine trafficking capital of the U.S., and the increase of drug trade, not gun control laws, resulted in a higher rate of gun violence

32. Giving Evidence • Use evidence from: • Your own experience • Your reading • Your talks with others • Examples: • Clarify and support your assertions • Help make the abstract concrete

33. Giving Evidence • How much evidence is enough? • Put yourself in your readers’ shoes • Generally a single example may not fully illuminate a difficult point • More than two examples are often unnecessary

34. Giving Evidence • It is not possible to argue an airtight case on most issues • It is your job to offer a reasonable argument • (and don’t forget to acknowledge possible reasonable counterarguments!)