Making Arguments: Reason in Context

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Chapter 1: Modes and Principles of Argumentation

Lee and Bailey, two attorneys, are airing their frustrations with the process of presenting cases in court.

Lee:

I don’t think it’s worth the effort any more. I just concluded a trial in which I offered five compelling and independent lines of argument in favor of my client, the plaintiff in the case. My logic was flawless, my evidence unimpeachable, my witnesses solid. It was a slam-dunk. Yet the jury voted a 0 award. I was so perplexed by their decision that I asked the judge if I could interview them about their verdict. He and the jurors agreed that this would be OK.

To my surprise, one—and only one—silly question asked by the defense attorney turned them against me. When I heard the question during the trial, I blew it off in my own mind as inconsequential and petty. I didn’t even attempt to respond, so insignificant was it. Nevertheless, that’s what got to them and made up their minds. I asked the jury about my five compelling points. To a person they agreed with all my points and felt that I had presented a virtually ironclad case. Yet they voted on that one question.

What’s the point? Since rationality and logic can’t prevail in a court, why bother to do it the right way, if at all?

Bailey:

I’ve had a successful run as an attorney. But I find increasingly that I can’t win, because juries can’t deal with complex technical issues put before them. Jurors don’t have Ph.D.’s, they are not scientists, and they can’t follow complex technical issues in the law. If I can’t boil down a case to something that a twelve-year-old could process, I have very little chance of assuring a good outcome for my client. For instance, I recently was in a case where the jury, mostly high school graduates or less, had to listen to weeks of forensic and medical evidence that was very difficult to follow. In fact, before the jury even heard this evidence a consultant had to give them an orientation to understanding the evidence. It was How to Understand Evidence 101, and I could see on the jury’s faces that they were checking out, just like bored and under-prepared students check out from a monotonous science lecture they don’t understand. If I can’t get to the jury, how can I win?

Lee and Bailey represent the two main threads of thought that weave through the study of argument and have woven through it almost since the beginning of discourse studies. Lee believes that argument is, ultimately, a rational enterprise. His yardstick for success in argumentation is pure and formalistic, almost mathematical. He believes that if his arguments are logical, the evidence true and unchallenged, the positions meticulously and unambiguously organized… that in such cases he cannot lose. In this view, the rational process must triumph over its opposite or its lesser, necessarily and inevitably. Lee doesn’t just present a case: he proves it. And the proof—true facts linked with universally accepted logical connections—should hold for any audience, anywhere, any time.

Bailey on the other hand, is focused almost entirely on the immediate audience for her case. She is not unconcerned with truth or logic, but she knows that if she can get to the jury, then the complexities of evidence and reasoning will matter less. For her, argument is about what works, what hooks this particular audience (or jury or market) into the conclusion and outcome she wants. As an attorney, she is reluctant to admit that there are universal standards or criteria for well-made arguments, because, in her view, a given case requires a specific strategy keyed to a particular audience, in a particular context, on a particular day. Logic and evidence alone rarely prevail—unless the advocate can also tap into, and manipulate, the evaluative processes of the decision makers. Her approach is anathema to Lee, who can’t imagine why any group of reasonable people would not be convinced by the irresistible logic of his case.

Both these threads can be traced two and a half millennia to Aristotle. In his Rhetoric, the first comprehensive treatment of argument, he discussed—in separate sections—first, how one can build logical arguments, or, second, how one can appeal to the responses of the audience. In Aristotle’s conception, the logical argument is the province only of the rational person—the philosopher—who can be dispassionately devoted to the study of reasoned discussion. In contrast, the need to examine the audience—including its prejudices and even its ignorance—recognizes that not all people are as rational as philosophers. These lay, less-than-fully-rational audiences—driven by emotion and susceptible to flattery and pity—are so different from philosophers that logical, rational argumentation may be regarded as the philosopher’s proprietary method of reasoning (dialectic), which is an entire, separate system in its own right..

Argument as Presented in this Book

For as long as people have been teaching and learning this set of skills, the field has typically distinguished sharply between argumentation (meaning logic and dialectic) and persuasion (meaning rhetoric and the influencing of a particular audience). As a result, the subject is frequently divided into:

• The formal (critical thinking, logic, and fallacies), sometimes called inquiry , and

• The practical/applied (debate, delivery, adaptation, and analysis of the audience), sometimes called advocacy .

In a typical college course, argumentation is usually taught in both the Lee and Bailey versions simultaneously. The traditional course teaches both the formal and applied versions, inquiry and advocacy, side by side. Rarely, however, will a course or textbook in argumentation attempt to show that adherence to logical rules translates into success in arguing, or that a successful argument was the result of flawless reasoning. On the contrary, it is apparent that many effective arguments succeed without the force of reason, and, similarly, many well-formulated arguments fail utterly, unable to convince an audience.

A New Standard

When Lee and Bailey presented their respective views, each missed an opportunity to enrich the other’s viewpoint. (Incidentally, enriching the other’s viewpoint is a principal purpose of having arguments in the first place—although you would never guess it from watching political debates on television.)

Lee complained about the jury’s paying attention to a petty question. By doing so, Lee is accusing the audience, in the tradition of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, of being less than rational. Lee designed an argument for a rational audience and when the audience wanted the answer to a question other than the ones Lee was answering, that audience was tagged as non-rational. That is, they seemed immune to the Laws of Reason.

Conversely, but with the same mistaken exclusiveness, Bailey places her audience of jurors outside of the rational domain of the educated experts, lawyers and witnesses (including the judge) who populate the courtroom. She feels she must appeal to the jury directly, and sees the process of winning an argument as that of perhaps simplifying or dumbing down the argument, reducing it to a short list of simple talking points, understandable to the least sophisticated person in the audience, possibly triggering reactions that engage their feelings or prejudices.

Making Arguments: Reason in Context

Is there a standard for evaluating arguments broad enough to apply to both models? Is there a set of criteria that both Lee and Bailey might use?

The process of simultaneously designing a rational case and delivering it to a real audience can be appraised within this single standard: We argue with a judge in mind. How does this standard differ from the standards invoked by Lee and Bailey, those historically used in the study of argumentation?

In the traditional approach, judgment is only important insofar as it entails the persuading of a particular audience that is qualified to evaluate a claim. If jurors were scientists, like those that present the evidence in court cases, then Lee would have no frustration about their listening to his rationally constructed evidence. Similarly, Bailey’s adaptation of her case to the jury would involve designing it for a predictable audience, with known attitudes and limitations, and with predictable rules for evaluating evidence. In other words, her particular audience would not be much different in kind from the nearly abstract (rational) audience that Lee has in mind: both would follow predictable rules of reasoning and inference.

In contrast, our goal here is to merge whatever standards we have for success in argumentation with the notion of those who will judge the argument itself. In our approach, how one argues and whom one argues for are not separate dimensions of argument, but, rather, can be viewed as one and the same thing.

The implication is straightforward. When Lee became upset by the jury’s abandoning him over a petty question, he missed an essential component in argument. He shouldn’t have made any distinction between the rationality of his points and the quality of the decision makers. He should have, moreover, anticipated how his jury would have responded to a question like the one the defense asked. Ironically, it is Bailey’s viewpoint (what the audience needs) that should have been paramount in Lee’s proceeding with his case. More important, however, Lee need not have replaced his way of arguing with Bailey’s; rather he should have added Bailey’s technique of argument to his own and included it in the rationale for arguing his case. Likewise, Bailey could have taken advantage of every possible rational inclination of her audience by absorbing some of Lee’s way of arguing.

Lee and Bailey represent respective extremes, archetypes, of the application of reason-based and context-based standards for argumentation. The viewpoint of this book is that, insofar as argumentation is concerned, reason and context occupy the same argumentative space. They are neither opposite, nor even alternative ways to argue. They are fused into a single notion: Who judges your argument, and how you construct your argument, are often indistinguishable.

Why study argument?

For some, arguing is as natural as breathing. In fact, there is a type of person labeled argumentative. Often, the association with this label is negative, connoting a disagreeable person, a curmudgeon. Why would someone want to learn to be this type of person?

Although argumentativeness is a trait, and although having an argument can be psychologically uncomfortable, the values of arguing, and of being able to argue effectively, are well established. Success in argumentation translates into success in many aspects of life. Good arguers tend to have the following traits:

• Leadership

• Effectiveness in Writing and Speaking

• Ability to Think Critically

• Confidence

• Decisiveness

Learning to argue can lead to specific goals and special types of success. It is tied obviously to careers in law, politics, and journalism. Less obviously, arguing is associated with success in such fields as advertising, public relations, and religion. Virtually every scholarly and scientific profession has an argumentative community that serves as the judge for claims advanced in those fields—including the humanities, social science, and physical science. The professional guilds and organizations to which virtually everyone belongs have business meetings characterized by spirited debate and deliberation.

Teachers who argue well have a powerful pedagogical tool for working with their students. They also possess a skill that they can carry over into their instruction of students in speech, language arts, debate, and activities like model U.N.

Because argument is a communication skill, knowing how to use it has a synergistic benefit for other skills of communication as well. Good arguers tend to be good public speakers, debaters, writers, and proofreaders. Those who study argumentation learn to read critically and to make good policy analyses; they also acquire the ability to do sound research. Many debaters go on to law school, where their research skills are often valued as much as their skills of advocacy and public speaking.

Arguing can be enjoyable, an intellectual sport, akin to chess, or any other contest that involves strategy. Often though, the stakes in argument are more than a game, involving real issues in one’s community. Argument can help someone fight a parking ticket and has been known even to get a teacher to change a grade.

How do we study argument?

Like many other fields, argument is studied by attention to its principles, which have developed since the time when the ancient Greek Sophists began teaching clients how to win cases in court. Argument is one of the oldest of all intellectual disciplines and involves a number of related skills, including logic, linguistics, grammar, composition, critical thinking, and public speaking. For at least 2500 years, those skilled in argument have been sought after as leaders and professionals.

Because the field of argumentation has such a long history, it has a tremendously rich tradition, including a vocabulary of terms, concepts, and definitions that comprehensively describe its scope. To study it not only means mastery of these concepts, and how they operate, but also their application in debates, discussion, and argumentative writing.

The word argument shows up in many forms, both colloquial and formal. Here are some examples:

• In logic, formal deductive reasoning, where premises lead to a conclusion.

• The universe of discourse characterized by reason-giving (the notion explored in this book)

• The social communicative act entered into by parties in dispute; their dispute may be political, legal, or otherwise. More particularly, their dispute can be of an interpersonal nature, as in having an argument.

• An extended and justified case for some belief or action; it develops a thesis and may provide a comprehensive set of sub-arguments and sub-claims. If a historian offers a book-length argument about the causes of WWII, he or she provides many sub-arguments along the path to the conclusion.

• The study of argumentation. In Britain, the words argumentation and argument are synonymous in describing the arguments an advocate makes.

To argue can mean to make an argument or it can just mean, colloquially, to be disagreeable. The famous Monty Python Argument Clinic sketch focuses on the question of whether just being disagreeable is tantamount to having an argument.

Man:   Well, an argument's not the same as contradiction.

Mr.   Vibrating: It can be.

Man:   No, it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition.

Mr.   Vibrating: No it isn't.

Taking all these definitions and traditions into consideration, we propose that an argument is the process in which one gives good reasons for a particular judge to accept a disputed claim or proposal. This definition includes all the methods associated traditionally with both models (Lee’s and Bailey’s approaches, respectively). Most important though, under this definition, those traditional approaches are shaped and tempered by a constant mindfulness—awareness and anticipation—of the importance of judgment.

Studying argument, then, converts an everyday activity into a formalized study. In that sense, it is like any study that transforms what people acquire naturally into the realm of an artistic enterprise. And just as a naturally good musician benefits from music instruction, often more than someone with no musical ability, so does studying argumentation either enhance the effectiveness of those that already have ability, or, alternately, build that ability from scratch in others.

Not surprisingly, students of argumentation come to their study with vastly different expectations. Some feel that they already argue well and often, so that the study of argumentation should come easily to them. Other students, perhaps because of shyness or introversion, fear the prospect of publicly defending arguments with evidence, organization, and reasoning. Whether or not students feel comfortable with argumentation, however, seems to have little to do with their ability to master it. That is, being naturally argumentative or comfortable in public debates seems to have little effect on the student’s success in studying or mastering the subject.

About the only student who cannot learn to argue is the one we call the opinion monger; this student is given to asserting that everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion, that one opinion is as valid as another, and so forth. Of course, such students are indeed entitled to that opinion, but, so long as they hold it, they are not likely to learn much or have much influence in their communities. (And if they cannot argue their point, they’ll never convince us.)

What is important is that nearly every student, regardless of temperament, can succeed at, and learn from, this subject matter. And, what is even more important, the skills acquired in the study of argumentation will serve the student well in nearly every academic course —and in most professions as well.

How We Argue: The Principles of Argumentation

Nearly everyone argues. In fact, some people argue so much that we have an adjective that describes them—argumentative. The connotation of this adjective is nearly universally negative. One Communication Theory student, when asked to describe a person she didn't like, provided this description: He's disagreeable. He challenges me on everything. He's one argumentative son of a gun.

From the time we are young we are admonished against arguing. Don't argue with your sister. Don't talk back to me. I really don't want to argue about this. Our language and behavior are full of restrictions against arguing. In many situations, arguing is construed as downright rude and offensive. Moreover, arguing with those in authority, including those who have real power over the circumstances in our lives, is profoundly discouraged. Many individuals are hesitant to confront teachers, police officers, and clergy. Many are conditioned to bite their tongues when the social conditions for argumentation put them at a perceived disadvantage.

Yet the discouragement of argumentativeness—as well as the social pressure to refrain from arguing—is ironic, when one considers that our society values the ability to argue perhaps above all other abilities. Nearly every important profession and activity is dependent upon success in argumentation. Jurisprudence, politics, religion, and education are highly regarded and widespread vocations that rely on sound argumentative practice. Less obviously, science, the arts, and medicine reward persons with a facility in arguing. And some professions—sales, advertising, and investing, for examples—make such obvious use of argumentation as to become paradigm cases of what it means to argue for a living.

The degree to which argumentative ability is rewarded and valued in our culture is not surprising. We exist in an environment where good jobs, good educations, healthful choices, and informed decisions all purport to promote the quality of our lives. Being able to argue well, and effectively, is perceived as closely connected to personal and societal success. Moreover, the ability to discriminate good arguments from specious ones, sound plans from half-baked schemes, helps all of us recognize the best courses of action, pursue the best kinds of living.

So why the contradiction? Why on the one hand is arguing so frowned upon, and on the other so lauded? We know that if we were ever in legal trouble, we would want to hire an attorney with good skills of advocacy. But, in ordinary social circumstances, would we find that tenacious and effective attorney to be abrasive or disagreeable?

The apparent contradiction, the opposite values attached to the powers of argumentation and the traits of argumentativeness, derives from several myths and misconceptions. Let us address the confusion with some principles that clarify what arguing really is:

Principle #1—Arguing is primarily a rational activity.

When one disputes with a family member, a friend, or a stranger (in a confrontation), what characterizes the communication event is its psychology. The motive (as well as expected outcomes) is what drives the contentious situation. No matter how right or justified one feels in arguing, the primary aim is to self-satisfy, to have the feeling of interpersonal power. While such a disagreement might entail an attempt to provide good reasons, it is generally not judged for its appropriateness, logic, organization, clarity, or language.

In contrast, argumentation, as we present it in this book, is an idea surrounded by rules and norms that go beyond the emotions and psychological needs of the arguers. Argumentation is rational, meaning that it proceeds according to regularities and traditions over which the participants have little control, but to which they must acquiesce. In the same way that scientists need to adhere to methods and rules of inference, arguers must accept some rules for rational discourse.

This is not to say that arguers should lack emotion or that argument must proceed in an emotional vacuum, without regard for the feelings of the advocates. Rather, what we are suggesting is that one should not mistake the passions of the arguers for the arguments they are making. The way we formulate, craft, present, and judge argument is distinct from the circumstances that bring about disagreement. Saying something loudly does not make the statement any truer or more credible.

Further, in interpersonal conflict, the source of the dispute is sometimes purely relational, that is, a contest of wills or a battle for affection or control. In contrast, the controversy in a rational dispute, what this text calls an argument, might rely wholly on the positions arguers are assigned arbitrarily in a controversy. College debaters, for example, are told the positions (affirmative or negative) they are to argue without deference to their feelings or emotions on an issue. So, a student who is committedly anti-drug, but also a skillful advocate, can make a compelling case to legalize all drugs. His or her personal commitment is simply irrelevant to the rational process of adjudicating the defense of a claim.

Emotional advocates can trigger the emotions of an audience, but this does not constitute good arguing. For example, an openly gay student in an argumentation class, while debating in favor of the legalization of gay marriage, personalized the issue: If you vote against this proposal, then you are telling me that I am less of a human being than you are. While this is a poignant example of how someone personally experiences injustice, it doesn’t go very far in advancing the case. Interestingly, when the same student had to attack gay marriage (in his next debate), he did a better job, not because the other side of the issue is stronger, but because he detached himself from the issue and saw some larger, demonstrable societal impacts.

Principle #2—Arguing is not just expressing opinions.

Argument is too often confused with the mere expression of one’s opinion, an idea rooted largely in the previously discussed misconception about argument as a form of verbal fisticuffs. Most people view argumentation as a conflict in which competing interests are being aired, perhaps without regard to whether the participants in the dispute make sense. For many, argument is ventilation, a way of getting emotion and frustration aired.

To study argument, however, one should avoid the tendency to characterize arguments dismissively as opinions or mere opinions. Any statement or claim can be qualified as an opinion. Adding this qualification to a claim does nothing to diminish its status as the conclusion of a rational chain of reasoning coupled with evidence. Nor does saying something is just an opinion put it on an equal footing with a rationally adduced claim, assuming that the baseless claim is made without support. (Calling something just an opinion is nearly as vacuous as dismissing a scientific argument as just a theory.)

A similar error is to believe that an unsupported opinion, expressed by someone else, is evidence in support of