Counterargument Paper
Chapter 9
Practicing Effective Criticism
The principles of charity and accuracy govern the interpretation of arguments—they help you decide what the argument actually is. But once you have figured out what the argument is, you will want to evaluate it. In general, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of arguments or other works is known as criticism. In everyday language, criticism is often assumed to be negative—to criticize something is to say what is wrong with it. In the case of argumentation, however, criticism means to provide a more general analysis and evaluation of both the strengths and weaknesses of an argument. This section will focus on what constitutes good criticism and how you can criticize in a productive manner. Understanding how to properly critique an argument will also help you make your own arguments more effective.
When criticizing arguments, it is important to note both the strengths and weaknesses of an argument. Very few arguments are so bad that they have nothing at all to recommend them. Likewise, very few arguments are so perfect that they cannot be improved. Focusing only on an argument’s weaknesses or only on its strengths can make you seem biased. By noting both, you will not only be seen as less biased, you will also gain a better appreciation of the true state of the argument.
As we have seen, logical arguments are composed of premises and conclusions and the relation of inference between these. If an argument fails to establish its conclusion, then the problem might lie with one of the premises or with the inference drawn. So objections to arguments are mostly objections to premises or to inferences. A handy way of remembering this comes by way of the philosophical lore that all objections reduce to either “Oh yeah?” or “So what?” (Sturgeon, 1986).
Oh Yeah? Criticizing Premises
The “Oh yeah?” objection is made against a premise. A response of “Oh yeah?” means that the responder disagrees with what has been said, so it is an objection that a premise is either false or insufficiently supported.
Of course, if you are going to object to a premise, you really need to do more than just say, “Oh yeah?” At the very least, you should be prepared to say why you disagree with the premise. Whoever presented the argument has put the premise forward as true, and if all you can do is simply gainsay the person, then the discussion is not going to progress much. You need to support your objection with reasons for doubting the premise. The following is a list of questions that will help you not only methodically criticize arguments but also appreciate why your arguments receive negative criticism.
Is it central to the argument? The first thing to consider in questioning a premise is whether it is central to the argument. In other words, you should ask, “What would happen to the argument if the premise were wrong?” As noted in Chapter 5, inductive arguments can often remain fairly strong even if some of their premises turn out to be incorrect. Sometimes a premise is incorrect, but in a way that does not really make a difference.
For example, consider someone who advises you to be careful of boiling water, claiming that it boils at 200°F and 200°F water can cause severe burns. Technically, the person’s premises are false: Water boils at 212°F, not at 200°F. This difference does not really impact the person’s argument, however. The arguer could easily correct the premise and reach the same conclusion. As a result, this is not a good place to focus an objection. Yes, it is worth mentioning that the premise is incorrect, but as problems go, this one is not very big. The amount of effort you should put into an objection should correlate to the significance of the problem. Before putting a lot of emphasis on a particular objection, make sure that it will really impact the strength of the argument.
Is it believable? Another issue to consider is whether a premise is sufficiently believable. In the context in which the premise is given, is it likely to be accepted by its intended audience? If not, then the premise might deserve higher levels of scrutiny. In such cases we might check to make sure we have understood it correctly and check if the author has provided further evidence for the strong claim in question. This can be a bit tricky, since it depends on several contextual issues. A premise may be acceptable to one audience but not to another. However, realize that it is just not possible to fully justify every premise in an argument. Premises are the starting points for arguments; they are statements that are presented as sufficiently believable to base an argument on. Trying to justify every premise would introduce even more premises that would then have to be justified, and so on. If you are going to challenge a premise, you should typically have specific reasons for doing so. Merely challenging every premise is not productive.
If you identify a specific premise that is central to the argument yet insufficiently supported, you should make a mental note and move forward. If you are able to converse with the proponent of the argument, then you can ask for further justification of the premise. If the proponent is not available to question—perhaps because the argument occurs in an article, book, or televised speech—then you should formulate some reasons for thinking the premise is weak. In essence, the burden is on you, the objector, to say why the premise is not sufficiently believable, and not on the proponent of the argument to present premises that you find believable or sufficiently supported. Never escalate your beliefs into accusations of lying or fraud. If you believe that the premise is false, the most productive next step is to come up with reasons why the premise is not sufficiently plausible for the context of the argument.
Are there any qualifiers? A qualifier is a word or phrase that affects the strength of a claim that a premise makes. Consider the difference between the statements “Humans are the cause of the current climate change” and “It is at least possible that humans are the cause of the current climate change.” While addressing the same point, these two statements have very different levels of believability. The qualifier phrase “it is at least possible” makes the second statement more acceptable than the first. Whatever your view on the causes of climate change, you should see the second statement as having more going for it than the former, because the second statement only makes a claim about what is possible. Accordingly, it claims much less than the first one. If the first claim is true, the second one is also, but the second claim could be true even if the first turned out to be false.
In focusing an objection on a premise, you need to be sure that your objection takes into account the qualifiers. If the premise is the second claim—”It is at least possible that humans are the cause of the current climate change”—then it would make little sense to object that it has not been fully proved that humans are the cause. Qualifiers can affect the strength of premises in many ways. The lesson here is that you need to be very clear about exactly what is being claimed before objecting to it.
Sometimes premises take the form of hypotheticals—that is, sentences stating assumed situations merely for the sake of argument. Suppose that someone is arguing that the United States should aggressively pursue investment in alternative energy. Such a person might present the following argument as part of a larger argument: “Suppose climate change really is caused by humans. If so, then investing in alternative energy would help reduce or slow climate change.” If you happen to think climate change is not caused by humans, you might be tempted to object to the first premise here. That would be a mistake, since the premise is framed as a hypothetical. The author of the argument is only making a point about what would follow if the claim were true. It must be clear that in this context the author of the argument is not claiming that the first premise is true.
The line of reasoning might continue as follows: “On the other hand, suppose that humans are not changing the climate. The increase in carbon in the atmosphere still shows that our energy production can only continue so long as we have carbon to burn on the ground. We would be well advised to find other alternatives.” Here, one might be tempted to object that humans are part of the cause of climate change. Again, this would be a mistake. The claim that humans are not changing the climate is also used here only as a hypothetical.
So What? Criticizing Inferences
Even an argument with unobjectionable premises can fail to establish its conclusion. The problem in such cases lies with the inferences. Objecting to an inference is like saying, “So what if your premises are true? Your conclusion doesn’t follow from them!” Of course, “So what!” is neither the best feedback to receive nor the best response to offer to an opponent. A better method of showing that an argument is invalid is to offer a counterexample. Recall from Chapter 3 that a counterexample is a strategy that aims to show that even if the premises of an argument are true, the conclusion may very well be false. Counterexamples do not have to be real cases, they just have to be possible cases; they have to show that it is possible for the premises to be true while the conclusion is false—that the premises do not absolutely guarantee the conclusion.
Beware, however, that counterexamples work best for deductive arguments and do not work as decisively when the argument is inductive. This is because true premises in inductive arguments at best show that the conclusion is probably true, but this is not guaranteed as it is with deductive arguments. Thus, showing that it is merely possible that the premises of an inductive argument are true while its conclusion is false does not undermine the inference. The best that can be done in the case of inductive arguments is to show that the conclusion is not sufficiently probable given the premises. There is no single best way to do this. Because each inductive argument has a different strength and may be based on a different kind of reasoning, objections must be crafted carefully based on the specifics of the argument. There are, fortunately, some broad guidelines to be offered about how to proceed.
First, be clear about just how strong the argument is supposed to be. Remember the contrast between claiming that “Humans are the cause of the current climate change” versus “It is at least possible that humans are the cause of the current climate change.” Many objections fail because they assume the argument is intended to be stronger than it is. Any objection to an inductive inference basically claims that the premises do not make the conclusion as likely as the arguer proposes. If the arguer is misinterpreted on this point, the objection will miss its mark.
Next, try to identify the style of reasoning used in the inductive argument. Chapter 5 presents several different forms of inductive reasoning. If the argument uses one of those forms, make sure that the argument follows the pattern shown. Look for any way in which the argument deviates from the pattern; these are points for possible objections.
Finally, consider whether the argument contains reasoning that is fallacious. A number of fallacies are discussed in Chapter 7. Remember that just pointing out a fallacy does not show that the conclusion of the argument is false. It can only show that the conclusion is not sufficiently supported by that specific argument.
