Objections & Counterarguments

1. Objections & Counterarguments

2. Introduction • Having looked at the frame of an argument (claims and reasons) and the kinds of evidence used, we will look at the important concern of anticipating and responding to objections and counterarguments. • Sample of a student’s anticipating and responding to objections and counterarguments. • Planning outline that can help you anticipate objections and how to respond to counterarguments through refutation or concession. • Active imagining of alternative views to qualify your claim.

3. Anticipating Objections • Starlings case: how readers might object to the argument “The family was justified in killing the starlings because starlings are pests.”

4. Imagine • “It is not okay to get annoyed with a living creature, label it a “pest,” and then kill it. This whole use of the term pest suggests that humans have the right to dominate nature. We need to have more reverence for nature. The ease with which the family solved their problem by killing living things sets a bad example for children. The family could have waited until fall and then fixed the screen.”

5. The objection • Imagining such an objection might lead the writer to modify his or her claim. • But if the writer remains committed to that claim, then he or she must develop a response. • In the following example in which a student writer argues that it is okay to kill starlings, note: • How the writer uses evidence to show that the starlings are pests • How he summarizes a possible objection to his underlying assumption that killing pests is morally justified • How he supports his assumption with further arguments.

6. Unstated Assumptions • Every time you link a claim with a reason, you make a silent assumption that may need to be articulated and examined. • “The family was justified in killing the starlings because starlings are pests.” • Provide evidence that starlings are pests • The persuasiveness of the argument rests on the UNSTATED ASSUMPTION that it is okay to kill pests. • If the audience does not agree, then the argument flounders… • The writer must articulate the assumption and defend it.

7. Articulating unstated assumption • Claim: The family was justified in killing the starlings. • Reason: Because starlings are pests. • Unstated assumption: It is ethically justifiable to kill pests. • Think of the unstated assumption as a general principle, rule, belief, or value that connects the reason to the claim.

8. More examples • Claim with reason: Women should be allowed to join combat units because the image of women as combat soldiers would help society overcome gender stereotyping. • Unstated Assumption: It is good to overcome gender stereotyping. • Claim with reason: The government should not legalize heroin and cocaine because doing so will lead to an increase in drug users. • Unstated Assumption: It is bad to increase the number of drug users.

9. Identify the unstated Assumptions • Cocaine and heroin should be legalized because legalizing drugs will keep the government out of people’s private lives. • The government should raise gasoline taxes because the higher price would substantially reduce gasoline consumption. • The government should not raise gasoline taxes because the higher price would place undo hardship on low-income people. • The government should not raise gasoline taxes because of other means of reducing gasoline consumption would be more effective. • The government is justified in detaining suspected terrorists indefinitely without charging them with a crime because doing so may prevent another terrorist attack.

10. Using a planning outline to anticipate objections • The arguing strategy used by the student writer was triggered by his anticipation of objections. • A skeptical audience can attack an argument by attacking either a writer’s reasons or a writer’s underlying assumptions. • A planning outline can help writer’s develop a persuasive argument.

11. Outline • Claim with reason • Underlying assumption • Evidence to support reason • Evidence/Arguments to support underlying assumption • Why skeptics might object

12. Claim with reason • The family showed cruelty to animals because the way they killed the birds caused needless suffering.

13. Underlying assumption • If it is not necessary to kill an animal, then don’t; if it is necessary, then killing should be done in the least painful way possible.

14. Evidence to support reason • I’ve got to show how the birds suffered and also how the suffering was needless. The way of killing the birds caused the birds to suffer. The hatchlings starved to death, as did the parent birds if they were trapped inside the attic. Starvation is very slow and agonizing. The suffering was also needless since they could have called an exterminator or animal control to remove the birds.

15. Evidence/arguments to support underlying assumption • I’ve got to convince readers that it is wrong to make an animal suffer if you don’t have to. Humans have a natural apathy to needless suffering-our feeling of unease if we imagine cattle or chickens caused to suffer for our food rather than being cleanly and quickly killed. If a horse is incurably wounded, we put it to sleep rather than let it suffer.

16. Why skeptics might object • A reader could say that killing the starlings did not cause suffering. Perhaps hatchling starlings don’t feel pain of starvation and die very quickly. Perhaps it is impossible to catch starlings as they fly around the attic. Maybe the cost of an exterminator is very high. • Perhaps my rule to cause the least amount of pain possible does not apply to animal pests.