Richard L Epstein

by Critical Thinking (3rd Edition) (pdf)

  teach "how to write," but quite different aspects of that. Ditto for 3 and 4.

  Writing Lesson 6 143

  Tom Wyzyczy, Writing Lesson 6, page 2

  Both critical thinking courses and freshman composition courses teach how to write.

  Both critical thinking courses and freshman composition courses teach how to read

  an essay. Since they both teach roughly the same material, they shouldn't both be

  required, because credit should not be given for taking two courses that teach

  roughly the same material. And if credit shouldn't be given for taking a course,

  students shouldn't be required to take it.

  Good use of indicator words. It was 0.% to put two claims together in the first

  sentence as you did, since you recognized in your Cist of premises that they were two

  claims.

  (But you did what I specifically asked you not to do. You added a claim here you

  didn't have on the previous page: "Both courses teach roughly the same material."

  The argument looks good when it's written this way, but the previous page shows

  its weaknesses.

  You should re-do this whole assignment.

  144 Writing Lesson 6

  Lee Hong-Nakamura O'Flanagan

  Issue: If critical thinking were not a required course, a lot fewer people would

  take it.

  Definition: I assume that "a lot fewer" is purposely vague.

  Premises: Critical thinking is required of all students now.

  Critical thinking is one of the harder core requirement courses.

  A lot of students prefer to take easy courses, rather than learn something.

  Students in engineering and architecture have more courses to take than they can

  finish in four years.

  Students don't want to spend more time at their studies than they have to.

  Money is a problem for many students.

  For most students, if they have more courses to take than they can finish in four

  years, they will not take courses that aren't required.

  Students think they already know how to think critically.

  If critical thinking weren't required, then students who prefer easy courses and

  students who want to finish as quickly as they can, which are a lot of students, will

  not take it.

  Conclusion: If critical thinking were not a required course, a lot fewer people

  would take it.

  Critical thinking is required of all students now. And critical thinking is one

  of the harder core requirement courses. A lot of students prefer to take easy courses,

  rather than learn something. So many of them won't take critical thinking.

  Besides, students in engineering and architecture have more courses than they can

  finish in four years. Why would they take critical thinking if they didn't have to?

  After all, we all know that students don't want to spend more time at their studies

  than they have to. After all, money is a problem for most students. So for most

  students, if they have more courses to take than they can finish in four years, they

  will not take courses that aren't required. Anyway, students think they already

  know how to think critically. Thus we can see that if critical thinking weren't

  required, then students who prefer easy courses and students who want to finish as

  quickly as they can, which are a lot of students, will not take it. That is, if critical

  thinking were not a required course, a lot fewer people would take it.

  This is good, but there are a few problems. 1 isn't tied into 3, though the. unstated

  premise is pretty clear. (But 2 definitely needs to Be tied into 3 Better. And 4 is [eft

  dangling— what's the connection you intend? finally, you use 5 and it should be on the

  list of premises. Nonetheless, this is pretty good work.

  'But it was supposed to be on 2 pages!

  Cartoon Writing Lesson C

  For each cartoon write the best argument you can that has as its conclusion

  the claim that accompanies the cartoon. List only the premises and conclusion.

  If you believe the best argument is only weak, explain why. Refer back to Cartoon

  Writing Lesson A on p. 55 for suggestions about how to do this lesson.

  1.

  There are searchlights behind the hill.

  Someone has walked here since the snow began falling.

  3.

  Spot took the steak.

  145

  146 Cartoon Writing Lesson C

  Spot escaped by digging a hole under the fence.

  5.

  Crows ate Farmer Hong's corn.

  The fellow standing between Harry and Manuel is or was in the military.

  Counter-

  arguments

  A. Raising Objections 147

  B. Refuting an Argument

  1. Refuting directly 149

  2. Refuting indirectly 149

  3. Attempts to refute that are bad arguments 151

  Summary 152

  • Exercises for Chapter 7 153

  A. Raising Objections

  Everyone should ride a bicycle for transportation. 1

  Cars are expensive to buy and maintain and cause a lot of pollution. 2

  A bicycle is better for your health and also for everyone else's. 3

  Bicycles also look better than cars. 4

  When asked to evaluate this argument, most students think it's good—to which I

  respond, "Why do you drive a car?" Remember, it is irrational to say that an

  argument is good and then deny its conclusion.

  Some students, rather than evaluating the argument directly, raise objections:

  Bicycles aren't good for people who are handicapped or weak. 5

  Bikes aren't useful for carrying groceries or lots of kids. 6

  Then they say that the argument is bad. They have good reason not to believe

  the conclusion (1).

  Raising objections is a standard way to show that an argument is bad.

  In doing so, we are making another argument that either calls into question one

  of the premises, or shows that an unstated premise is dubious, or illustrates why

  the argument is weak.

  In this example, 5 shows that 3 is dubious, while 6 makes us doubt the

  unstated premise needed to make the argument good: "Anything that's cheaper to

  buy and maintain than a car, causes less pollution than a car, and is better for your

  health and everyone else's should be the form of transportation for everyone."

  (We might as well ignore 4, since it's subjective and there's no sense to debate it.)

  147

  148 CHAPTER 7 Counterarguments

  Raising objections is common.

  Dick: Zoe, we ought to get another dog.

  Zoe: What's wrong with Spot?

  Dick: Oh, no, I mean to keep Spot company.

  Zoe: Spot has us. He doesn't need company.

  Dick: But we're gone a lot. And he's always escaping from the yard,

  'cause he's lonely. And we don't give him enough time.

  He should be out running around more.

  Zoe: But think of all the work! We'll have to feed the new dog.

  And think of all the time necessary to train it.

  Dick: I'll train him. We can feed him at the same time as Spot,

  and dog food is cheap. It won't cost much.

  Dick is trying to convince Zoe to believe "We should get another dog." But he

  has to answer her objections.

  We ought to get another dog.

  {objection) We already have Spot.

  The other dog will keep Spot company.

  (objection) Spot already has us f
or company.

  We are gone a lot. (answer)

  He's always escaping from the yard, (answer)

  He's lonely, (answer)

  We don't give him enough time, (answer)

  He should be out running around more, (answer)

  (objection) It will be a lot of work to have a new dog.

  (objection) We will have to feed the new dog.

  (objection) It will take a lot of time to train the new dog.

  Dick will train him. (answer)

  We can feed him at the same time as Spot, (answer)

  Dog food is cheap, (answer)

  Argument. Counterargument. Counter-counterargument. This is how we

  reason every day. Objections are raised: Someone puts forward a claim that, if true,

  makes one of our claims false or at least doubtful. We then have to answer that chal-

  lenge to sustain our argument. Knocking off an objection is a mini-argument within

  your argument— if it's not a good (though brief) argument, it won't do the job.

  Or you could say, "I hadn't thought of that. I guess you're right."

  Or you could say, "I don't know. I'll have to think about that."

  In making an argument of your own, you'll want to make it strong. You might

  think you have a great one. All the premises seem obvious, and they glue together to

  get the conclusion. But if you imagine someone objecting, you can see how to give

  SECTION B Refuting an Argument 149

  better support for doubtful premises. And answering counterarguments in your own

  writing allows the reader to see you haven't ignored obvious objections. All you

  have to do, as in the earlier writing lessons, is make a list of the pros and cons.

  Then answer the other side.

  B. Refuting an Argument

  1. Refuting directly

  Zoe can't let it pass. But how do you refute an argument?

  Zoe might object to one of the premises, saying Dick won't be killing the

  slowest, but only the ones that happen to come into their house.

  Or she could agree with the premises, but note that "over time" could be

  thousands of years, so the conclusion doesn't follow.

  Or she could attack the conclusion, saying that it's not useless to kill flies,

  because she does it all the time and it keeps their home clean.

  All the ways that we can show an argument is unrepairable are useful in

  refuting an argument. We pick out three as fundamental.

  Direct ways of refuting an argument

  • Show that at least one of the premises is dubious.

  • Show that the argument isn't valid or strong.

  • Show that the conclusion is false.

  2. Refuting indirectly

  Sometimes you can't point to any one premise that is false or dubious, but you know

  there's something wrong with the premises. They might get the conclusion that's

  150 CHAPTER 7 Counterarguments

  argued for, but they get a lot more, too—so much that you can see the premises are

  inconsistent or lead to an absurdity. For example,

  You complain that taxes are already too high and there is too much crime.

  And you say we should permanently lock up everyone who has been

  convicted of three felonies. In the places where this has been instituted,

  it hasn't reduced the crime rate. So we will have many, many more

  people who will be incarcerated for their entire lives. We will need more

  prisons, many more, because these people will be in forever. We will

  need to employ more guards. We will need to pay for considerable

  healthcare for these people when they are elderly. Thus, if we lock up

  everyone who has been convicted of three felonies, we will have to pay

  substantially higher taxes. Since you are adamant that taxes are too high,

  you should abandon your claim that we should permanently lock up

  everyone who has been convicted of three felonies.

  Here the speaker isn't refuting an argument. He's showing that the other person's

  beliefs lead to an unwanted conclusion: You'll have to raise taxes.

  Reducing to the absurd To reduce to the absurd is to show that at

  least one of several claims is false or dubious, or collectively they are

  unacceptable, by drawing a false or unwanted conclusion from them.

  If a valid argument has a false conclusion, one of the premises is false.

  If a strong argument has a false conclusion, one of the premises is very likely false.

  If the conclusion is absurd, the premises aren't what you want. You have to be sure

  the argument you use to get the false or absurd conclusion is really strong or valid

  and doesn't use any other dubious claims. Only then is there good reason to believe

  that there's a problem with the original collection of claims.

  One particular form of reducing to the absurd is called refuting by analogy:

  Vary only some of the premises while retaining the crucial ones to get an absurd

  conclusion.

  We'll look more at analogies in Chapter 12.

  SECTION B Refuting an Argument 151

  3. Attempts to refute that are bad arguments

  Some attempts to refute are just bad arguments.

  In Chapter 5 we studied phony refutations. They're bad versions of reducing

  to the absurd: Here's the conclusion, here's what the speaker believes, they're

  contradictory, so the argument is bad.

  Or an attempt to reduce to the absurd can lead to a slippery slope:

  Gun control should not be allowed. If laws requiring registration of all guns

  are passed, then they'll start investigating people who have guns. They'll

  tap our phones. They'll look at what we check out of the library. They'll

  tap our Internet records. They'll come gunning for us. It'll be a police state.

  This person has argued that gun control legislation is the first step on a slippery slope

  that will end in a disaster for us all. But this doesn't refute, because the slippery

  slope adds false or dubious premises.

  Then there's ridicule:

  Dr. E: I hear that your department elected a woman as chairman.

  Professor Zzzyzzx: Jah, jah, dat is right. Und now we is trying to decide

  what we should be calling her—"chairman" or "chairwoman" or

  "chairperson."

  Dr. E: "Chairperson"? Why not use a neutral term that's really

  appropriate for the position, like "chaircreature"?

  In rational discussion, ridicule is a worthless device: It ends arguments, belittles the

  other person, and makes enemies. No argument has been given for why "chairman"

  shouldn't be replaced by "chairperson," though Dr. E thinks he's shown the idea's

  absurd.

  In theory there's a big difference between reducing to the absurd and ridicule,

  but in practice it's difficult to distinguish them. Often, not enough of an argument

  is given to see how the absurd conclusion follows, so it sounds like ridicule.

  If someone wants us to see his or her comments as an argument, it's their

  responsibility to make that clear. Otherwise, let's classify it as ridicule.

  152 CHAPTER 7 Counterarguments

  When judging whether something is ridicule, an attempt to reduce to the

  absurd, a slippery slope, or an unwillingness to acknowledge distinctions because

  they're a bit vague, think less of rejecting what the other person says and more of

  taking his or her comments as a challenge to make your own argument clearer.

  The worst of the bad ways to refute, though, is t
o attack an argument the other

  person didn't even say. When someone makes a claim, and the other person tries to

  refute it by putting words in that person's mouth, that's a strawman (because it's

  easier to knock down a strawman). It often shows up in political discourse:

  The incumbent congressman is against gun control. Clearly, he doesn't

  care about violence on the streets.

  Excuse me? What's the connection here? The congressman never said he wasn't

  against violence in the streets.

  The only reasonable response to a strawman is to say calmly that that isn't

  what you said:

  Tom: Unless we allow the logging of old-growth forests in this county,

  we'll lose the timber industry and these towns will die.

  Dick: So you're saying that you don't care what happens to the spotted

  owl and to our rivers and the water we drink?

  Tom: I said nothing of the sort. You've misrepresented my position.

  Note that Tom did not say, "You've misrepresented my position, you jerk." Let's

  keep alive some hope of rational discourse.

  Summary When we make an argument, we should be prepared to defend it. Think

  ahead and imagine what objections might be raised, then answer them.

  There are direct ways to refute an argument: Show a premise is false, show the

  argument isn't valid or strong, or show the conclusion is false.

  We can also refute an argument by showing that a false or absurd conclusion

  follows from the premises. To do that, we must be sure that any other claims we use

  to get the false or absurd conclusion are plausible, and that the argument we give is

  strong or valid.

  But remember: Refuting an argument does not show that the conclusion is false.

  There are four bad ways to reason that imitate reducing to the absurd: phony

  refutation, slippery slope arguments, and ridicule. And then there's a strawman—

  which is just putting words in someone's mouth.

  Key Words direct ways of refuting ridicule

  reducing to the absurd strawman

  refuting by analogy

  EXERCISES for Chapter 7 153

  Exercises for Chapter 7

  1. In my first comment after the argument about bicycling on p. 147,1 challenge the

  student. Have I shown the argument is bad? Explain.

  2. What is a counterargument?