It also tells us what arguments are not. Following Monty Python’s definition, ours shows how arguments differ from abuse, fights, and denial. In addition, it explains why dictionaries and price tags do not include arguments, since they are not intended to present reasons for any conclusion.
Even where we do expect an argument, we are often disappointed. Speakers can spend a lot of time describing a problem or stating a position without arguing for anything. Many examples occur in political debates and interviews. It is amazing how long politicians can talk without giving any argument. Reporters or others ask politicians questions about issues of the day. Politicians reply by talking around the issues and then abruptly announcing their stands. They make it clear how their views differ from their opponents’ positions, but they still do not argue for their own positions. Our definition tells us why all of their words together do not amount to an argument. It is because they do not even try to present any reason at all.
WHAT PURPOSES DO ARGUMENTS SERVE?
Reasons come in many kinds, and our definition does not specify which kind or kinds of reasons are intended in arguments. This lack of clarity, however, is a feature, not a bug. The non-specific notion of a reason enables our definition to be flexible enough to cover a variety of arguments.
Some arguments give reasons that justify belief in their conclusions. For example, if you doubt that ancestors of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe used to rule a much larger area, then I can show you a book about the Great Zimbabwe. It will cite established facts that are premises in an argument that will give you strong reasons to believe the conclusion that ancestors of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe indeed used to rule a much larger area. The cited facts make you justified in believing a conclusion that you did not believe before.
Other arguments give reasons that justify actions instead of beliefs. For example, if you are deciding whether to visit Beijing, then I can show you a book about the Forbidden City. This book will have pictures of the beautiful buildings and artifacts that you can see if you tour Beijing. This book will provide reasons for you to visit Beijing. Of course, I could also cite other facts, such as facts about air pollution in Beijing, to give you a reason not to visit Beijing or maybe to give you reason to visit Beijing in August instead of December. These reasons for action can also be presented in arguments.
It is important that both kinds of justification are distinct from mere persuasion. Imagine that I trick you into believing that ancestors of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe used to rule a much larger area by showing you a book of pictures of the Forbidden City and somehow convincing you that they are pictures of a monument in Zimbabwe called the Great Zimbabwe. I am not trying to give any real reason, but I am trying to present what you will see as a reason. If you are tricked into believing this conclusion, then I did persuade you, but I did not justify your belief (even though it is true), because your belief is based on falsehoods that are not real reasons for the conclusion that you believe. Hence, persuasion is yet another purpose of arguments that is distinct from justification of beliefs or of actions.
Yet another kind of reason is one that explains why something happens—reasons that explain phenomena instead of justifying belief in those phenomena. Imagine that you visit the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan and see that it lies in ruins. You know that it was destroyed. You can see that. But you still wonder what destroyed it. The well-known explanation is that it was destroyed by a tsunami. This explanation can be put in a simple argument: “This power plant was hit by a tsunami. Any power plant that is hit by a tsunami is destroyed. That is why (as well as how) this power plant was destroyed.” This argument gives you a reason why it was destroyed, even though you had already believed that it was destroyed. It explains the phenomenon without justifying belief in the phenomenon.
Is it a problem that our definition allows arguments to give any of these kinds of reasons? No, not at all. To the contrary, it is a virtue of our definition that it encompasses so many kinds of reasons because arguments can be used to give all of these different kinds of reasons. Just as reasons can justify beliefs or actions or explain phenomena, so can arguments. Arguments can be defined as presenting reasons because the vagueness (or, more precisely, non-specificity) of the notion of reasons matches the variety in the purposes of arguments.
WHEN IS AN ARGUMENT (BEING GIVEN)?
Fine, you might think, arguments present reasons. Still, that does not yet tell us how to identify when an argument occurs. How can we tell when speakers are arguing and when they are not? We just need to figure out when they are presenting reasons. But how can we determine that?
It is often surprisingly simple, because speakers use special words to mark arguments and reasons. Imagine that someone says only this:
Marco Polo opened a trade route from Europe to China.
Countries that trade with each other affect each other.
What happened in China affected Europe.
So far this is just a list of three sentences or propositions. We can turn it into an argument simply by adding the little word “so.”
Marco Polo opened a trade route from Europe to China.
Countries that trade with each other affect each other.
So, what happened in China affected Europe.
The word “so” marks this list as an argument by indicating that the first two propositions are presented as reasons for the last proposition.
We can pull the same trick with other words:
Because Marco Polo opened a trade route from Europe to China,
and countries that trade with each other affect each other,
what happened in China affected Europe.
In this way, words like “so” and “because” signal that an argument is being given, so we will call them argument markers. Sometimes the sentence after the argument marker is the premise or reason, and we can call these words reason markers or premise markers. In other cases, the sentence after the argument marker is the conclusion, and we can call these words conclusion markers. In our examples, the word “so” is a conclusion marker, and the word “because” is a reason marker. Of course, there are many more conclusion markers, including these: therefore, thus, hence, accordingly, which shows/establishes/proves/is evidence that, and so on. There are also many more reason markers, including these: since, for, which can be shown/established/proven by the fact that, and so on. All of these words and others like them indicate that an argument is in the offing.
This move is amazing. Adding one little word can miraculously turn a mere list of sentences into an argument. “It is raining, and I am carrying an umbrella” is not an argument, but “It is raining, and that is why I am carrying an umbrella” is an argument, as is “It is raining, because I am carrying an umbrella.” Of course, this second argument is terrible, because my carrying an umbrella cannot explain why it is raining. Still, it is an argument, even if it is a very bad one.
It matters whether a speaker is giving an argument, because it changes the kinds of criticism that the speaker is subject to. If I say, “Honghong is short, which shows that she is not a good football player,” then I am offering an argument and can be criticized if the argument is bad—that is, if shortness is not any reason why someone is bad at football. In contrast, suppose I say only, “Honghong is short, and she is not a good football player.” Now I merely assert both sentences but do not claim any relation between them. I am not arguing from one to the other or claiming that one is a reason for the other. Hence, I cannot be criticized if the argument would be bad. That is why it matters whether a speaker is presenting an argument.
Because it matters, we need to be careful. Argument markers indicate the presence of an argument, but not always. We cannot simply look at the words. We need to think about what they mean in the context. One of my favorite music albums is “Aereo-Plain” by John Hartford. One of its songs begins: “Because of you I close my eyes each time I yodel, and so shall it be for now.” Here the word “so” is n
ot being used as an argument marker. If it were, then we could figure out which claim is the premise and which is the conclusion; but there is no premise or conclusion in “so shall it be for now.” Another indication is that we cannot substitute a different argument marker; for it makes no sense to say, “ . . . and therefore shall it be for now.” Instead, what this clause means is simply “that is the way it will be for now.”
What about “Because”? Here there is a conclusion: I close my eyes each time I yodel. But what is the premise? The word “you” is not a premise or a reason. Besides, we cannot substitute another argument marker; because it makes no sense to say “since of you” or “since you.” Hence, he might not be using “because” as an argument marker either. In any case, we cannot safely assume that he is giving an argument simply because he uses the word “because” any more than we can assume that he is giving an argument simply because he uses the word “so.” We need to look beyond the surface form of the words and think about what those words mean and how they fit into their context in order to determine whether the speaker intends to be presenting some kind of reason for a conclusion. One useful test, which we just saw in action, is to try to substitute other argument markers for the word that we are not sure of.
An argument can be given without any argument markers at all. Sometimes the argument marker is assumed rather than asserted. Indeed, sometimes even the conclusion is not stated openly but only suggested. For example, South Korean President Park Geun-hy was criticized for obtaining cosmetic Botox injections. One of her supporters, Kim Ku-ja, replied, “What’s so wrong about a woman getting Botox shots? Why is that a problem?”6 Kim Ku-ja’s rhetorical questions clearly suggest that she believes that there is nothing wrong and no problem with getting Botox injections. Thus, she suggests this argument: “There is nothing wrong with getting Botox shots. People should not criticize anyone for doing what is not wrong. So, people should not criticize Park Geun-hy for getting Botox shots.” Nonetheless, Kim Ku-ja does not actually assert any premise or conclusion. She only asked questions, and questions cannot be premises or conclusions in arguments (since they are not declarative). Hence, Kim Ku-ja does not actually assert any argument. She only indirectly suggests one.
Implied arguments like these demonstrate why we need to be careful in thinking about whether a speaker is offering an argument and also about what argument they are giving. Our definition can guide this investigation by leading us to ask whether speakers intend to present any kind of reason, but the answer will remain unclear in some cases. When we are not sure whether a speaker intends to give an argument, we can still ask what the argument would be and whether it would be any good. After all, what matters is whether there is a reason for the conclusion.
7
HOW TO STOP ARGUMENTS
ONCE ARGUMENTS START, they are hard to stop. This truism does not mean that it is hard to stop a fight. We already saw that arguments are not fights. Instead, the problem here is that an argument needs premises. Why should we believe its premises? To justify the premises, we need another argument. But then that second argument also has its own premises that need to be justified by a further argument that then has premises of its own that also need to be justified by yet another argument, and so on forever. This infinite regress lays out another way in which arguments are hard to stop after they start. It makes some skeptics wonder whether arguments can accomplish anything beyond what is already packed into their premises. This chapter will discuss some ways to address that challenge.
CAN WE STOP SOON?
To see the problem, imagine that I believe that the film Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India. (It is a great film. You should watch it.) My belief is true, but is it justified? The mere fact that I believe it cannot make me justified in believing it. After all, many people believe all sorts of silly claims without any justification.1 Moreover, the fact that my claim is true also cannot make me justified in believing it, since I might believe it for no reason or for a very silly reason. We need at least some decent justification, reason, or evidence in order to be justified. One way for me to become justified is by watching the film so that I gain visual evidence from my own eyes. Even if I have never seen the film, I might become justified in believing my claim by reading a review that describes its plot. However, if I have never seen it and have neither heard nor read any reports about it, then it is hard to see how I could be justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.
If I do have evidence, then I can transform that evidence into the form of an argument. If my belief is based on personal experience, then my argument might be as simple as something like this: “I watched the film Lagaan. I could see and hear that it was about taxes and cricket in India. I can recognize taxes, cricket, and India when I see and hear about them. Therefore, Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.” Alternatively, if I did not see it but read about it, then I could argue like this: “Wikipedia reports that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India. Wikipedia usually gets such facts right. Therefore, Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.” Either way, I am justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India only because I have information that could be built into some argument or other (although I might not need to formulate any argument explicitly). If I do not have enough evidence for any argument of any kind, then I cannot be justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.
Of course, each of these arguments has premises that could be questioned. My appeal to personal experience assumes that I can tell cricket from other sports and that I did not mishear or misremember what was said in the movie. However, I need some reason to assume that I can reliably detect cricket, since Lagaan might be about some other sport that I have never heard of that looks a lot like cricket. I also need a reason to assume that I can tell whether the movie is about India as opposed to Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka, for example, since the borders have changed, and I am no expert on that area of the world. Moreover, I need some reason to assume that my hearing and memory are reliable in this case, since I sometimes misunderstand what people say, and my memory is not perfect. Thus, I need several reasons to back up the assumptions in my original argument. That requires other arguments with their own premises, such as that I watched the film several times, the film mentions taxes, cricket, and India often, and I have made mistakes only rarely when there is repetition like this. However, these premises still could be questioned, and then they would need to be justified by yet another argument, and so on. If this regress never comes to an end, then it is hard to see how I could ever become justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India. That result would be surprising and upsetting.
This problem generalizes to all beliefs, according to philosophical skeptics.2 They assume that every premise needs to be justified by some evidence, that evidence can always be put into some kind of argument, that every argument needs premises, and that an argument cannot make its conclusion justified unless its premises are justified. These plausible principles together generate an infinite regress: premises need justification that needs more premises that need more justification that needs more premises that need more justification, and so on forever. If there is no escape from this regress, then how could anyone ever be justified in believing anything?
WHAT IF WE CAN’T STOP?
The challenge here is to show (1) how any claim could be justified without any evidence, or else (2) how a claim could be justified by evidence that could not be put in the form of an argument, or else (3) how an argument could justify its conclusion by appealing to premises that are not justified themselves. Philosophers have debated for centuries about whether and, if so, how this challenge can be met. I personally doubt that this regress problem has any general theoretical solution.3 To some extent, then, skeptics are correct that no belief is justified to the extent and in the way that they require.
So what? What does this show? Some conclude that
arguments can never accomplish anything at all. In my opinion, they are far too quick to jump to such a strong conclusion. Instead, I would suggest that the regress shows only that skepticism arises from requiring too much. To avoid skepticism, we just need to moderate our desires, hopes, and standards.4 We need to learn to live with what we can accomplish, even if that is not all that skeptics might have wished.
Skeptics are not satisfied by any argument unless it rules out every contrary possibility and convinces everyone. That is why they are never satisfied. There is always some alternative that we cannot exclude. You might feel certain, for example, that you know your own name, but how can you rule out the possibility that, shortly after you were born, the hospital switched you with another baby who had a different name?5 You might refuse to take this alternative seriously, but that refusal does nothing to show that it is false. Nonetheless, we can still accomplish a lot by ruling out the alternatives that we and our audiences are able to take seriously.
Do we need to convince everyone? No. After all, some people are delusional, and they can reject our premises or refuse to listen to us. Fewer people than we imagine are so immovable. Nonetheless, we cannot reach everyone, and that is fine.
We can still accomplish a lot by appealing to premises that some people reject but most people accept, especially if the audience whom we are trying to reach are among those who accept our premises. Each argument needs to aim at an audience that is open to the argument in order to succeed in reaching them.
To illustrate how to limit our target in political arguments, let’s simplistically and artificially divide the political spectrum into thirds. The most extreme third on the left will probably question some premise in any argument for a conservative policy. In return, the most extreme third on the right will probably question some premise in any argument for a liberal policy. These extremes will be unreachable by any argument from the other side, even if they take time to listen. Despite these limitations, however, arguments can still achieve moderate goals by aiming at the third in the middle of the political spectrum.
Think Again: How to Reason and Argue Page 8