Tactics                                                                     (Problems printing? Click here.)

An important part of analyzing the logic of an issue is figuring out how the various arguments relate to each other. This part is so different from the other parts of logic that I've given it it's own name. "tactics," to distinguish it from other parts of logic that only require you to deal with arguments one at a time.

Counter Arguments

There's an important kind of argument that I haven't explicitly talked about yet. This is the counter argument. The counter argument is defined somewhat differently from the other kinds of argument we've discussed so far. Whereas authority and analogy arguments (and the other kinds we will discuss later) are defined on the basis of how they try to do what they're trying to do, the counter argument is defined on the basis of what it's trying to do. Counter arguments always try to refute other arguments. Regular arguments, what I call "direct" arguments, try to establish stuff about the world. Counter arguments, by themselves, cannot establish facts about the world. Direct arguments cannot ever show that other arguments are no good. I call this aspect of logic "tactics."

So, a "counter" argument is one that gives you a reason to think that some other argument has a logical problem. Now, it's not possible to do this merely by giving reasons in favor of some contradictory conclusion being true. All that would prove is that we have two arguments that contradict each other. No, a counter argument must either give reasons why one of the other argument's premises is false, or it must give us a reason to think that those premises, if true, fail to support the conclusion given. (Remember to call any argument that isn't a counter argument a "direct" argument.)

If two arguments disagree with each other, there's two ways in which they can be related to each other. They can independently support contradictory conclusions, or one argument can directly support the claim that the other argument is logically bad. I'll try to explain this by drawing an analogy to something a little less boring than logic.

If you're like me, you like to watch things get blown up. That's why I like missiles, because missiles can blow things up real good. Now, there's two basic kinds of missiles. They are offensive missiles and defensive missiles. Offensive missiles are for blowing up enemy stuff, like tanks, planes, ammo dumps (which blow up real good), and so on. Now the enemy has offensive missiles as well, which is why we have defensive missiles. Defensive missiles are for blowing up enemy missiles (in midair) before they can blow up our stuff. Now, "counter" arguments are like defensive missiles (or anti-missile missiles) in that, just as defensive missiles try to kill other missiles, counter arguments try to kill other arguments. For convenience, I will refer to the regular kind of argument, (authority arguments, analogy arguments, generalizations and so on), as "direct" arguments, since they try to prove things about the world.

If the analogy to missiles was complete, defensive anti-missile missiles would be completely unable to blow up anything that wasn't a missile, since counter arguments are completely unable to prove anything about anything that isn't an argument. Counter arguments can only prove things about other arguments. The only thing a counter argument can ever prove is that some other argument is no good. Counter arguments cannot prove anything about the world.

The basic way to tell whether some argument is a direct argument or a counter argument is to ask yourself whether the argument's premises concern the premises of another argument. This is because a counter argument is an attack on the logic of another argument. In order to attack the logic of an argument, you have to say something about the truth of the premises, or how the premises are related to the conclusion. Either way, you have to say something about the premises.

For instance, imagine that Dino offers the following argument.

                    "The moon must be made of cheese because it looks so moldy!"

Now imagine that Opie offers this argument.

                    "No, it must be made of chalk because it looks so white."

While Consuela offers this one.

                    "Cheese isn't the only thing that gets moldy."

We can standardize these arguments as follows.

Dino.        The moon looks moldy.
                (Only cheese can get that moldy.)
                The moon is made of cheese.

Opie.         The moon looks white.
                 (Only chalk can look so white.)
                 (If the Moon is made of chalk, it isn't made of cheese.)
                 The moon is not made of cheese.

Consuela.   At least one other thing gets as moldy as the moon looks.
                  (If there's something else it could be, then it doesn't have to be cheese.)
                  (The moon isn't necessarily made of cheese.)

The thing I want you to notice about these arguments is that Opie's argument is for the opposite conclusion to Dino's while Consuela's argument is for a conclusion that undermines the argument Dino uses to support his conclusion. This means that if Opie's argument is good, and Dino's argument isn't good, it proves that Dino's conclusion is wrong. All Connie's argument can prove is that Dino's argument doesn't work. Her argument can't ever prove him wrong.

In the example above, Dino's argument is a direct argument, Opie's argument is annother direct argument, while Consuela's argument is a counter argument. Notice a big difference between direct and counter arguments. A direct argument cannot show that another direct argument is no good. All it can do is show that there is a good argument for the opposite conclusion. So even if Opie's argument is good, it cannot by itself show that Dino's argument is bad. This means that if we have an opposing argument that is no better and no worse than the direct argument, then we really have no means of telling which argument is correct.

Imagine that all we knew about the moon was summed up by Dino and Opie's arguments.

Dino.        The moon looks moldy.
                (Only cheese can get that moldy.)
                The moon is made of cheese.

Opie.         The moon looks white.
                 (Only chalk can look so white.)
                 (If the Moon is made of chalk, it isn't made of cheese.)
                 The moon is not made of cheese.

We cannot logically say that Dino's argument must be bad because Opie's argument is good. We can't say this because we could equally well say that Opie's argument must be bad because Dino's argument is good. Just stating an argument for one side does not by itself say anything about the quality of the arguments on the other side. This is where counter arguments come in. If Consuela's argument is good, then Dino's argument is bad. And if there is no good counter argument against Opie's argument, then, and only then, does Opie's argument carry the day.

On the other hand, counter arguments, by themselves, cannot establish anything beyond the weakness of the arguments they attack. Now imagine that all we know about the moon is summed up by Dino's and Consuela's arguments.

Dino.        The moon looks moldy.
                (Only cheese can get that moldy.)
                The moon is made of cheese.

Consuela.   At least one other thing gets as moldy as the moon looks.
                  (If there's something else it could be, then it doesn't have to be cheese.)
                  (The moon isn't necessarily made of cheese.)

Again, we do not have enough here to settle the issue. Even if Consuela's argument is good, it cannot establish that the moon is not made of cheese. The most it can establish is that Dino's argument is no good. Even if even if it totally kills that argument, we are still left with the possibility that the moon is in fact made of cheese.

There is an important and interesting difference between direct and counter arguments. Remember that an argument only succeeds if it is clear to you, as a reasonable person, that it presents a clear and compelling logical reason for you to change your mind and agree with the conclusion. If it doesn't seem clear to you that the argument has presented such a reason, then the argument has failed. While it is certainly possible for two opposing direct arguments to both fail, is also possible for them to both succeed, at least as far as we can tell. Of course, it's logically impossible for them both to be good, since if they were good, some conclusion would be both true and false, and that is logically impossible. But the fact that one of them is logically bad is not at all helpful when you can't tell which one has the logical problem. So it is practically possible for you to be confronted with a situation in which you have two opposing arguments, each of which seems to present a clear and compelling reason to believe it's conclusion. So long as you can't find a problem with the logic of either argument, you're stuck. You can't say "the logic of argument A seems good, so the logic of argument B must be bad" because direct arguments cannot prove things about other arguments. So if we look at two opposing direct arguments and decide that as far as we can tell both arguments are equally good, we are in exactly the same position as if we had no arguments at all. And it is perfectly possible for us to be in this situation. Sometimes you will have two opposing direct arguments and be unable to find a problem with either one. Since the success of one can't mean the failure of the other, you're stuck.

We can't have this situation when a direct argument is opposed by a counter argument. This is because the success of the counter argument means the failure of the direct argument. The counter argument is only good if the direct argument fails. If it doesn't seem to you that the direct argument fails, why then the counter argument has failed. The counter argument is about the logic of the direct argument. That direct argument, seen by itself, either seems to give you a clear and compelling reason to believe it's conclusion, or it doesn't. If it doesn't initially seem to give you a clear and compelling reason to believe it's conclusion, then it fails, and you don't even need to look at the counter argument. If it does initially seem, on careful inspection, to give you a clear and compelling reason to believe it's conclusion, then you have to look at the counter argument. That counter argument either gives you a clear and compelling reason to think that the direct argument fails, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then it fails, and the direct argument succeeds, at least as far as you can tell. If the counter argument does give you clear and compelling reason to think that the direct argument fails, then it succeeds, and the direct argument fails. Either way, one argument succeeds and the other one fails. Where a direct argument is opposed by a counter argument, you cannot have a situation where both arguments succeed.

Consider Dino's argument as opposed by Opie's argument. It's possible to be a situation where, as far as we can tell, both arguments seem to work fine. The fact that Dino's argument seems to work can't mean that Opie's argument fails, and the fact that Opie's argument seems to work can't mean that Dino's argument fails. So if we are in that situation, it's just as bad as if neither argument worked at all. We fall back on the null hypothesis in either case. Now think about Dino's argument as opposed by Consuela's counter argument. If Dino's argument doesn't clearly seem to succeed, then it definitely fails. If Dino's argument clearly seems to succeed, then we look at Consuela's argument. Consuela's argument only succeeds if it clearly shows that Dino's argument fails. If it doesn't show this, then it definitely fails. We can have a situation in which Consuela's argument succeeds and Dino's fails. We can have a situation where Consuela's argument fails and Dino's succeeds. Or, we can have a situation in which they both fail, but we cannot have a situation in which they both seem to succeed. If we judge that Consuela's argument succeeds, we can only do so by judging that it shows that Dino's argument fails. If we judge that Dino's argument succeeds, we can only do so if we also judge that Consuela's argument fails.

So a "counter" argument is one that gives you a reason to think that some other argument has a logical problem. Now, it's not possible to do this merely by giving reasons in favor of some contradictory conclusion being true. All that would prove is that we have two arguments that contradict each other. No, a counter argument must either give reasons why one of the other argument's premises is false, or it must give us a reason to think that those premises, if true, fail to support the conclusion given. (Remember that any argument that isn't a counter argument is a "direct" argument.)

So, there's two ways to mount a counter argument.

1. Attack one or more of the other argument's factual claims. A counter argument that's going this route will attempt to give reasons why one or more of these factual claims can't be true.

2. Attack the "candidate principle" the other arguer is relying on to try to connect his factual claims to his conclusion. (I call it a "candidate" principle because the arguer is offering it up as a prospective logical principle, but we don't yet know whether it really is a principle or not.) This kind of counter argument will try to show that the candidate principle isn't a real principle of logic.

One way to think about it is that, in evaluating a counter argument, we look closely at the other argument to see if it really has the logical problem the counter argument says it has. But in evaluating a direct argument, we can in principle completely ignore all other arguments, because the issue of whether a direct argument works or not depends entirely on whether it's premises are true and whether, if true, they logically support it's conclusion. (If there's a counter argument about, we could think about whether our direct argument really has the logical problem alleged in the counter argument, but we can, and should, do that even if there's no counter argument.) Direct arguments can be evaluated independently. A counter argument can never be evaluated without thinking about the argument it purports to attack.

Thus there are two distinctly different kinds of responses to any given argument. There are what I call the "not" responses, which pick some crucial fact in the argument, and claim that that fact is not true. And there are the "so what?" responses that attempt to show that the facts given do not imply that the conclusion is true. In real life, a challenge to someone's facts will throw you into examining arguments for and against those challenged facts. For this course, I want you to simply assume that a mere challenge is enough to throw a fact into question. The same does not hold for candidate principles. The counter argument must do more than simply say "so what?" The "so what?" counter argument must give a logical reason why the facts given do not imply the conclusion. It cannot simply insist that the logic is bad. In particular, it cannot insist that the logic is bad merely because the arguer refuses to accept the argument's conclusion.

Here, for instance, (in red), is an attempt at a counter argument that totally fails to be a real counter argument.

Randall. Your god Vuntag is defined in such a way as to clearly imply that it is absolutely impossible for cheese to exist. And yet cheese exists in enormous variety and profusion in our world! So I think it's pretty clear that the problem of cheese proves that Vuntag doesn't exist!
Halle. That is an absolutely terrible argument. It's true that Vuntag is defined in a way that absolutely implies that cheese cannot possibly exist. And it's also true that our world contains absolutely staggering amounts of cheese in an amazing variety of colors, textures and flavors. But, it is absolutely false that these two facts together mean that Vuntag doesn't exist, because we know that Vuntag does exist, so there!

Facts:
1. Vuntag is defined in a way that excludes the existance of cheese.
2. Cheese exists.
Neither of these claims is disputed by Halle, so they're our facts.

Opinions:
1. Facts 1 and 2 together prove Vuntag doesn't exist. (Randall)
2. Facts 1 and 2 together don't prove Vuntag doesn't exist. (Halle)
Each of these claims is disputed by the opposing party, so they can only count as opinions.

Now, notice that Halle says that Randall's argument is no good, but she gives absolutely nothing that could count as a logical problem with that argument. She admits that the premises are true, and gives us no reason whatsoever to think that they don't imply Randall's conclusion. Instead, she just states that the conclusion is wrong. It's true that, if we knew absolutely that the conclusion of some argument was wrong, then we would know there was a logical problem with the argument, but that cuts both ways! Randall can equally well, (in fact, better) say that Halle's argument must be bad, because her conclusion is false!

You can only say that the logic of an argument is bad if you can identify a specific problem with the argument. If you can't come up with an identifiable logical problem, then you can't say that the argument is logically bad.

Remember, to evaluate an argument, we have to think about whether the premises are true and whether they logically support the conclusion. Halle's belief in Vuntag gives us no reason to question Randall's premises, and no reason to think that they don't imply that Vuntag doesn't exist. Halle's argument can only be a direct argument. She tries to support a conclusion contrary to Randall's without giving us any reason to think that any of his premises aren't true, or that, if true, they wouldn't make his conclusion true. Her argument is logically independent of his argument, and so it can't be a counter argument. Since it's not counter, it's direct.

Now, this will be easier to think about once you know more about the various argument strategies, and we will return to this issue again and again as we discuss the various strategies. For now, I just want you to think about whether the argument says anything substantial about either the other argument's premises, or about the logical connection between those premises. If it does, it could be a counter argument. If it doesn't, it's definitely a direct argument.

From the point of view of tactics, there are just two kinds of arguments. There are direct arguments, which, if they prove anything, prove things about the universe. And there are counter arguments, which can, at most, prove that other arguments are bad. This is an important distinction because no direct argument can ever prove that some other argument is bad, and no counter argument can ever, by itself, prove that anything is or is not true in the universe.

Examples

Tactical analysis only makes sense when we have two opposing arguments, so I've added opposing arguments to our examples.

Example 13

Holden This chocolate must be the best in the world, because its name is "World's Best Chocolate!"
Ahmad But they could have named it anything! They could have named it "beefsteak." Would that have made it taste like steak?

Facts:
1. The chocolate is called "World's Best Chocolate."
2. It could have been called anything.
(I think you can figure out people's opinions on your own, so I'm just going to concentrate on facts from now on.)

Holden: Direct argument.
Ahmad: Counter argument.

Notice that Ahmad doesn't give any positive reason why the chocolate in question is any less than sublime. He doesn't say that he tasted it and that it tasted like a mixture of cardboard, sealing wax and industrial cleaning products. He doesn't say that this alleged "chocolate" is banned in Europe as a form of culinary pollution. No, he merely focusses on the logical connection between the claim that the chocolate is called "world's best" and the conclusion that it's the best in the world. (So he's attacking the argument's candidate principle, but we'll worry about that later.)

Example 14

Ellen My dad's a flight engineer and he showed me an airplane's black box, and it was bright yellow, not black at all.
Jaquan You'd better believe that an airplane's "black box" is black. Because, if you don't I'll come over there and slap you silly!

Fact: Ellen's dad showed her a yellow box and said it was an airplane's black box.
(Some of these are tricky. Some are judgement calls, so you might legitimately disagree with me about what the facts are in some particular case.)

Ellen: Direct argument.
Jaquan: Direct argument.

Notice that neither of the speakers says anything about the factual claim(s) or candidate principle(s) of ther other's argument. Neither argument gives you any reason to think that there's an identifiable logical problem with the other, so they're both direct arguments.

Example 15

Kaylin In order to take alien abduction stories as evidence of alien kidnappers visiting Earth, we would have to be sure that those stories are valid. We don't know that they're valid, so they're not evidence of alien visitations.
Harley We know that alien abduction stories are valid because the abductees are completely accurate in their recollections of events.

Kaylin: Direct argument.
Harley: Counter argument.

Fact: Some people tell stories of being abducted by aliens.

Now, I'm saying that Harley's argument is a counter argument because he's arguing against one of Kaylin's premises. If Harley is right that the abduction stories are valid, then Kaylin's argument against taking them as evidence of alien visitations collapses. It is this "argument killer" function that makes something a counter argument. Now, Harley's factual claims could be put together into a direct argument, and his argument could stand on it's own as a direct argument, but here it's functioning, (or trying to function), as a counter argument.

Example 16

Taryn I can't tell much about the logic of this argument, but it's conclusion is true so, yeah, I guess it's a good argument.
Jermaine Bad arguments can have true conclusions, you know. So even if the conclusion is true, that doesn't make the argument good.

There's no facts here. Taryn gives two opinions, that the conclusion is true, and that it's truth makes the argument good. Jermaine isn't disputing Taryn's first opinion, but when an argument is in doubt, it's conclusion is always thrown into doubt, so I'm not taking Taryn's word for this one.

Taryn: Direct argument.
Jermaine: Counter argument.

Notice that Jermaine's argument wouldn't prove anything interesting if it was taken on it's own. What it does however is take aim at Taryn's candidate principle. While I guess he doesn't give much in the way of reasons, he does directly deny that the candidate principle works, which is enough to make it a counter argument.

Example 17

Felicity Freeway Ricky Ross has testified that people known to be CIA-controlled drug smugglers supplied him with large quantities of cocaine for distribution in America's inner cities, so it looks like the CIA was involved in the inner-city drug trade.
Jessie The CIA funneled drugs to the inner cities? Uncle Sam a drug smuggler with an eye-patch and a wooden leg? God you're gullible! I suppose you also think the US government irradiated retarded kids, or withheld treatment so that some black men died of syphilis. What an idiot you are!

Fact: Ross testified that CIA assets gave him cocaine for inner-city distribution.

Felicity: Direct argument
Jessie: Direct argument

Felicity's argument is based on the existance of testimony, and Jessie does not deny either the existance of that testimony, nor the logical principle that testimony of this kind is reliable. Instead, she describes a ridiculous image in an effort to convince us that Felicity's conclusion is ridiculous.

Remember that the success of a direct argument has a different effect on an issue than the success of a counter argument. In effect, counter arguments always support the null hypothesis because, if a counter argument succeeds, we are left back where we started. So the pro side has to offer a direct argument because, if they don't, the null hypothesis wins by default. It doesn't matter if the pro side manages to knock down all of the con side's arguments, if they don't come up with a successful direct argument, they fail. Period.

However, it is not always easy to tell whether a given opposing argument is actually a counter argument or not, so sometimes you have to think through the issue without the advantage of knowing whether a given argument is counter or direct. In such cases, you can first, treat opposing arguments as both direct and counter, and see what happens and, second, make up your own mind about the issue based on the facts provided, and then see how the various arguments in the set under consideration apply to your reasoning.

Direct Arguments.

Direct arguments are what we might call "basic," "ordinary" or "stand-alone" arguments. The defining characteristic of a direct argument is that it gives us no real reason to doubt the validity or strength of any other argument. Direct arguments, however they are phrased, only offer reasons that can support conclusions about the state of the universe, and thus they have conclusions that are not about logic. Direct arguments, when they support anything, support conclusions like "Wolverines are related to weasels," "Bigfoot doesn't exist," "the world is getting flatter," "cheese is not a vegetable," and "it is immoral to start a war based entirely on distorted and/or fabricated evidence."

If something is a direct argument, then it is going to follow one of the strategies we have looked at so far. Now, at least some of these strategies can be used in counter arguments, so identifying the strategy doesn't necessarily conclusively identify the argument as a direct argument, but if it is a direct argument, then it is going to be using one of the seven strategies.

To review, those strategies are:

Authority: The conclusion is based on the otherwise unsupported word of some person, group or institution.
Generalization: A conclusion about a whole population is based on the characteristics of a sample taken from that population.
Causal: The conclusion is based on a correlation between two kinds of events.
Analogy: The conclusion is based on a comparison between two things.
Burden of Proof: The conclusion is based on a lack of evidence for the other side's position.
Explanation: The conclusion is based on the idea that it has to be true to explain sone other, undisputed, facts.
Deductive: The conclusion is based on the claim that the premises can't all be true if the conclusion is false.


Countering the Strategies

One way of figuring out whether something is a counter argument is to see if it is trying to hook into the specific ways that each of the seven strategies can go wrong. So there are strategy-specific counter arguments as well as strategy-specific direct arguments. So:

1. If an argument tries to undermine an authority cited in another argument, then the first argument is a counter argument.
2. If an argument tries to show that there is something relevantly wrong with a sampling method used by another argument, then the first argument is a counter argument.
3. If an argument tries to show that there is something wrong with a correlation relied upon by another argument, then the first argument is a counter argument.
4. If an argument tries to show that two things compared in another argument are not relevantly similar, then the first argument is a counter argument.
5. If an argument is trying to shift the burden of proof explicitly relied upon by another argument, then the first argument is a counter argument.
6. If an argument tries to show that an explanation relied upon by another argument is not uniquely reasonable, then the first argument is a counter argument.
7. If an argument tries to show that it is easily possible for the conclusion of another argument to be false, even if all of that argument's premises are true, then the first argument is a counter argument.
8. If an argument tries to show that the premises of some other argument can't all be true, then the first argument is a counter argument.


One way to tell whether some argument is a direct argument or a counter argument is to ask yourself whether the argument's premises concern the premises of another argument. This is because a counter argument is an attack on the logic of another argument. In order to attack the logic of an argument, you have to say something about the truth of the premises, or how the premises are related to the conclusion. Either way, you have to say something about the premises.

Analysis only makes sense when we have two opposing arguments, so I've added opposing arguments to our examples.

Example 13

Holden This chocolate must be the best in the world, because its name is "World's Best Chocolate!"
Ahmad But they could have named it anything! They could have named it "beefsteak." Would that have made it taste like steak?

Facts: 1. The chocolate is called "World's Best Chocolate." 2. It could have been called anything.
(I think you can figure out people's opinions on your own, so I'm just going to concentrate on facts from now on.)

Holden: Direct argument.
Ahmad: Counter argument.

Notice that Ahmad doesn't give any positive reason why the chocolate in question is any less than sublime. He doesn't say that he tasted it and that it tasted like a mixture of cardboard, sealing wax and industrial cleaning products. He doesn't say that this alleged "chocolate" is banned in Europe as a form of culinary pollution. No, he merely focusses on the logical connection between the claim that the chocolate is called "world's best" and the conclusion that it's the best in the world. (So he's attacking the argument's candidate principle, but we'll worry about that later.)

Example 14

Ellen My dad's a flight engineer and he showed me an airplane's black box, and it was bright yellow, not black at all.
Jaquan You'd better believe that an airplane's "black box" is black. Because, if you don't I'll come over there and slap you silly!

Fact: Ellen's dad showed her a yellow box and said it was an airplane's black box.
(Some of these are tricky. Some are judgement calls, so you might legitimately disagree with me about what the facts are in some particular case.)

Ellen: Direct argument.
Jaquan: Direct argument.

Notice that neither of the speakers says anything about the factual claim(s) or candidate principle(s) of ther other's argument. Neither argument gives you any reason to think that there's an identifiable logical problem with the other, so they're both direct arguments.

Example 15

Kaylin In order to take alien abduction stories as evidence of alien kidnappers visiting Earth, we would have to be sure that those stories are valid. We don't know that they're valid, so they're not evidence of alien visitations.
Harley We know that alien abduction stories are valid because the abductees are completely accurate in their recollections of events.

Kaylin: Direct argument.
Harley: Counter argument.

Fact: Some people tell stories of being abducted by aliens.

Now, I'm saying that Harley's argument is a counter argument because he's arguing against one of Kaylin's premises. If Harley is right that the abduction stories are valid, then Kaylin's argument against taking them as evidence of alien visitations collapses. It is this "argument killer" function that makes something a counter argument. Now, Harley's factual claims could be put together into a direct argument, and his argument could stand on it's own as a direct argument, but here it's functioning, (or trying to function), as a counter argument.

Example 16

Taryn I can't tell much about the logic of this argument, but it's conclusion is true so, yeah, I guess it's a good argument.
Jermaine Bad arguments can have true conclusions, you know. So even if the conclusion is true, that doesn't make the argument good.

There's no facts here. Taryn gives two opinions, that the conclusion is true, and that it's truth makes the argument good. Jermaine isn't disputing Taryn's first opinion, but when an argument is in doubt, it's conclusion is always thrown into doubt, so I'm not taking Taryn's word for this one.

Taryn: Direct argument.
Jermaine: Counter argument.

Notice that Jermaine's argument wouldn't prove anything interesting if it was taken on it's own. What it does however is take aim at Taryn's candidate principle. While I guess he doesn't give much in the way of reasons, he does directly deny that the candidate principle works, which is enough to make it a counter argument.

Example 17

Felicity Freeway Ricky Ross has testified that people known to be CIA-controlled drug smugglers supplied him with large quantities of cocaine for distribution in America's inner cities, so it looks like the CIA was involved in the inner-city drug trade.
Jessie The CIA funneled drugs to the inner cities? Uncle Sam a drug smuggler with an eye-patch and a wooden leg? God you're gullible! I suppose you also think the US government irradiated retarded kids, or withheld treatment so that some black men died of syphilis. What an idiot you are!

Fact: Ross testified that CIA assets gave him cocaine for inner-city distribution.

Felicity: Direct argument
Jessie: Direct argument

Felicity's argument is based on the existance of testimony, and Jessie does not deny either the existance of that testimony, nor the logical principle that testimony of this kind is reliable. Instead, she describes a ridiculous image in an effort to convince us that Felicity's conclusion is ridiculous.

Remember that the success of a direct argument has a different effect on an issue than the success of a counter argument. In effect, counter arguments always support the null hypothesis because, if a counter argument succeeds, we are left back where we started. So the pro side has to offer a direct argument because, if they don't, the null hypothesis wins by default. It doesn't matter if the pro side manages to knock down all of the con side's arguments, if they don't come up with a successful direct argument, they fail. Period.

However, it is not always easy to tell whether a given opposing argument is actually a counter argument or not, so sometimes you have to think through the issue without the advantage of knowing whether a given argument is counter or direct. In such cases, you can first, treat opposing arguments as both direct and counter, and see what happens and, second, make up your own mind about the issue based on the facts provided, and then see how the various arguments in the set under consideration apply to your reasoning.

Complicated Arguments

Sometimes, an argument will consist of two or more smaller arguments mashed together. In that case, you might find it useful to seperate out the smaller arguments so that they can be related to each other, which will help you evaluate the argument as a whole. If you didn't seperate out the various little arguments in the standardization phase, you can take care of it in the analysis phase.

Example 18

Remember that I first standardized this argument

Kiley: The black community should not be upset that we created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. This wasn't intended to get people to start smoking. It was designed to get people to switch brands, so it's a brand identification issue, not a health issue!

As:
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
3. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. This advertising campaign is not anything anyone has any reason to get upset about.

But now I'm thinking that this argument is more complicated than I thought it was, so maybe I need to split it into two or more arguments. After due consideration, I decide to restandardize the argument as follows.

Kiley A. (sub-argument to Kiley B.)
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.

Kiley B. (Main argument.)
1. The issue of this advertising campaign would only be of moral concern if it was a health issue.
2. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is not of moral concern.

Since all of the claims in the above argument would presumably be disputed by people who were upset over this, I'm calling all of them opinions for now.

Since I made it two seperate arguments, I gave those arguments names so I could talk about them. Notice that the conclusion of argument Kiley A is the same as premise 2 of Kiley B. This is why I decided that Kiley A is a sub-argument to Kiley B.

Judgement Calling

The way you analyze some particular argument might depend on on what other arguments it happens to come with. Compare and contrast the following two examples.

Example 19

Let's put Kiley's argument logically downstream from an opposing argument.

Reed The tobacco industry created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. Smoking is well known to be a serious health issue, and so the black community, and all communities, should be outraged by the tobacco industry's callous disregard for the health of black youth.
Kiley The black community should not be upset that we created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. This wasn't intended to get people to start smoking. It was designed to get people to switch brands, so it's a brand identification issue, not a health issue!

Now it seems that part of Kiley's argument is a counter argument to Reed's argument. So we can analyze this issue thus:

Reed (Direct argument.)
1. The tobacco industry created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people.
2. Smoking is a serious health issue.
C. We should be outraged by the tobacco industry's actions.

Kiley A. (sub-argument to Kiley B. --Counter Argument to Reed's argument.)
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.

Kiley B. (Main argument - Direct.)
1. The issue of this advertising campaign would only be of moral concern if it was a health issue.
2. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is not of moral concern.

I'm calling Kiley A a counter argument to Reed because it attacks one of Reed's premises. And I'm saying that Kiley B is a direct argument because it attempts to establish its conclusion without directly addressing Reed's argument. However, this is not the only way we might encounter Kiley's argument.

Example 20

We might also find Kiley's argument logically upstream from an opposing argument.

Kiley The black community should not be upset that we created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. This wasn't intended to get people to start smoking. It was designed to get people to switch brands, so it's a brand identification issue, not a health issue!
Tania The fact that you only intended to get existing young black smokers to switch brands doesn't mean that your campaign won't cause hundreds and hundreds of young black people to start smoking, so it darn well is a health issue!

In which case, we might standardize and analyze the set like so:

Kiley A. (sub-argument to Kiley B.)
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.

Kiley B. (Main argument - Direct.)
1. The issue of this advertising campaign would only be of moral concern if it was a health issue.
2. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is not of moral concern.

Tania A (Counter to Kiley A.)
1. Kiley argues that the tobacco industry's brand-switching intentions make this not a health issue.
(2. The kind of issue an action is depends on that action's effects, not on the actor's intentions.)
C. This could still be a health issue.

Tania B (Direct Argument. Opposing argument to Kiley A, counter argument to Kiley B.)
(1. The tobacco industry campaign will cause many young black people to start smoking.)
2. Anything that causes people to start smoking is a health issue.
C. The tobacco industry campaign is a health issue.

I filled in premise 2 of Tania A because it seemed to me that Tania must be appealing to this particular logical rule, but I put it in parentheses as a suppressed premise because I think I'm going a little beyond what Tania actually says. Similarly with premise 1 of Tania B. I think that Tania is assuming that the campaign will cause people to start smoking, so I put that point in as a premise to one of her arguments. But since she doesn't explicitly say it, I make it a suppressed premise.

I'm splitting up Tania's argument into a direct argument and a counter argument because it also seems to me that she is intending to both knock down Kiley's argument A and independently establish that the campaign is a health issue. It also seems plausible to me that Tania wants us to think that the campaign is a bad thing, so we might fill in the following argument.

Tania C (Direct Argument. Opposing argument to Kiley B.)
(1. The tobacco industry campaign will cause many young black people to start smoking.)
(2. Anything that causes people to start smoking is a bad thing.)
(C. The tobacco industry campaign is a health issue.)

Or maybe not. Look at how I had to put everything in parentheses! This is a real judgement call, so I'll leave it up to you. If you think that Tania's explicit statements make it absolutely certain, then we should count Tania C as one of Tania's arguments. If you think that Tania's explicit statements make it reasonably possible (don't think about likely, just about reasonably possible) that she did not intend to make argument Tania C, then Tania C should not be counted as one of her arguments.

Generally speaking, standardization, contexting and analysis apply to the arguments you've got. You don't need to fill in any other arguments you might come up with until the evaluation phase. Of course, if you happen to know about Reed's arguments as well as Kiley's and Tania's, you could analyze the whole mess all at once. Or you could maybe come up with whole suppressed arguments to fill in gaps in the logical structure. That is the kind of stuff you're supposed to think about in the evaluation phase, but you don't neccessarily have to do it in the analysis phase.


Complicated Arguments

Sometimes, an argument will consist of two or more smaller arguments mashed together. In that case, you might find it useful to seperate out the smaller arguments so that they can be related to each other, which will help you evaluate the argument as a whole. If you didn't seperate out the various little arguments in the standardization phase, you can take care of it in the analysis phase.

Example 18

Remember that I first standardized this argument

Kiley: The black community should not be upset that we created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. This wasn't intended to get people to start smoking. It was designed to get people to switch brands, so it's a brand identification issue, not a health issue!

As:
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
3. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. This advertising campaign is not anything anyone has any reason to get upset about.

But now I'm thinking that this argument is more complicated than I thought it was, so maybe I need to split it into two or more arguments. After due consideration, I decide to restandardize the argument as follows.

Kiley A. (sub-argument to Kiley B.)
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.

Kiley B. (Main argument.)
1. The issue of this advertising campaign would only be of moral concern if it was a health issue.
2. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is not of moral concern.

Since all of the claims in the above argument would presumably be disputed by people who were upset over this, I'm calling all of them opinions for now.

Since I made it two seperate arguments, I gave those arguments names so I could talk about them. Notice that the conclusion of argument Kiley A is the same as premise 2 of Kiley B. This is why I decided that Kiley A is a sub-argument to Kiley B.

Judgement Calling

The way you analyze some particular argument might depend on on what other arguments it happens to come with. Compare and contrast the following two examples.

Example 19

Let's put Kiley's argument logically downstream from an opposing argument.

Reed The tobacco industry created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. Smoking is well known to be a serious health issue, and so the black community, and all communities, should be outraged by the tobacco industry's callous disregard for the health of black youth.
Kiley The black community should not be upset that we created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. This wasn't intended to get people to start smoking. It was designed to get people to switch brands, so it's a brand identification issue, not a health issue!

Now it seems that part of Kiley's argument is a counter argument to Reed's argument. So we can analyze this issue thus:

Reed (Direct argument.)
1. The tobacco industry created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people.
2. Smoking is a serious health issue.
C. We should be outraged by the tobacco industry's actions.

Kiley A. (sub-argument to Kiley B. --Counter Argument to Reed's argument.)
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.

Kiley B. (Main argument - Direct.)
1. The issue of this advertising campaign would only be of moral concern if it was a health issue.
2. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is not of moral concern.

I'm calling Kiley A a counter argument to Reed because it attacks one of Reed's premises. And I'm saying that Kiley B is a direct argument because it attempts to establish its conclusion without directly addressing Reed's argument. However, this is not the only way we might encounter Kiley's argument.

Example 20

We might also find Kiley's argument logically upstream from an opposing argument.

Kiley The black community should not be upset that we created a marketing campaign and special brand names to appeal to young black people. This wasn't intended to get people to start smoking. It was designed to get people to switch brands, so it's a brand identification issue, not a health issue!
Tania The fact that you only intended to get existing young black smokers to switch brands doesn't mean that your campaign won't cause hundreds and hundreds of young black people to start smoking, so it darn well is a health issue!

In which case, we might standardize and analyze the set like so:

Kiley A. (sub-argument to Kiley B.)
1. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was intended to get people to switch brands.
2. The tobacco company's campaign that appealed to young blacks was was not intended to get people to start smoking.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.

Kiley B. (Main argument - Direct.)
1. The issue of this advertising campaign would only be of moral concern if it was a health issue.
2. The issue of this advertising campaign is a brand identification issue, not a health issue.
C. The issue of this advertising campaign is not of moral concern.

Tania A (Counter to Kiley A.)
1. Kiley argues that the tobacco industry's brand-switching intentions make this not a health issue.
(2. The kind of issue an action is depends on that action's effects, not on the actor's intentions.)
C. This could still be a health issue.

Tania B (Direct Argument. Opposing argument to Kiley A, counter argument to Kiley B.)
(1. The tobacco industry campaign will cause many young black people to start smoking.)
2. Anything that causes people to start smoking is a health issue.
C. The tobacco industry campaign is a health issue.

I filled in premise 2 of Tania A because it seemed to me that Tania must be appealing to this particular logical rule, but I put it in parentheses as a suppressed premise because I think I'm going a little beyond what Tania actually says. Similarly with premise 1 of Tania B. I think that Tania is assuming that the campaign will cause people to start smoking, so I put that point in as a premise to one of her arguments. But since she doesn't explicitly say it, I make it a suppressed premise.

I'm splitting up Tania's argument into a direct argument and a counter argument because it also seems to me that she is intending to both knock down Kiley's argument A and independently establish that the campaign is a health issue. It also seems plausible to me that Tania wants us to think that the campaign is a bad thing, so we might fill in the following argument.

Tania C (Direct Argument. Opposing argument to Kiley B.)
(1. The tobacco industry campaign will cause many young black people to start smoking.)
(2. Anything that causes people to start smoking is a bad thing.)
(C. The tobacco industry campaign is a health issue.)

Or maybe not. Look at how I had to put everything in parentheses! This is a real judgement call, so I'll leave it up to you. If you think that Tania's explicit statements make it absolutely certain, then we should count Tania C as one of Tania's arguments. If you think that Tania's explicit statements make it reasonably possible (don't think about likely, just about reasonably possible) that she did not intend to make argument Tania C, then Tania C should not be counted as one of her arguments.

Generally speaking, standardization, contexting and analysis apply to the arguments you've got. You don't need to fill in any other arguments you might come up with until the evaluation phase. Of course, if you happen to know about Reed's arguments as well as Kiley's and Tania's, you could analyze the whole mess all at once. Or you could maybe come up with whole suppressed arguments to fill in gaps in the logical structure. That is the kind of stuff you're supposed to think about in the evaluation phase, but you don't neccessarily have to do it in the analysis phase.

Homework. For each of the following argument sets, determine whether or not the second argument is a direct or a counter argument, and indicate it as such on the Homework Answer Sheet (If you want extra practice, or you have to make up this homework, do all 10 on the Make-up Homework Answer Sheet 1. Raegan. How can you stand there and protest the war? Don't you know our boys are over there? Rohan. Well, if there wasn't a war, wouldn't they be back here instead of over there? 2. Tyshawn. I think that sex education is a good idea. It would help kids cope with their sexual feelings if they knew where they were coming from and what they could lead to. Magdalena. Ha! Dr. Laura Schlockslinger says that sex education is immoral and dangerous, so we should ban it from schools. That proves sex education is a bad idea. 3. Rocio: Jesse Jackson says that Charleston, S.C. police need better training and better pay. Estevan: We can't take Jesse Jackson's word on political issues. He wears a tie. 4. Aden. I just read a fascinating book by man called Harold Peterson, who spent ten years researching the history of baseball. He says that baseball was brought to America by the British in the 1750's under the name of "rounders." Modern baseball was established and popularized in the 1840s and 50's by Alexander Cartwright and his friends of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. Lizette. That's ridiculous. Everyone knows Abner Doubleday invented baseball at Cooperstown in 1839. 5. Regan. Don't you know that Professor Bar Soom says that the Mars Meteorites constitute definitive proof that there was once life on Mars. Madisyn. But Bar Soom is a professor of literature who studies Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels! 6. Alessandro. I was just reading a report by some feminist group or other. They took World Health Organization and United Nations statistics for the amount of the world's work that is done by women and compared it to the amount of the world's wealth that is actually controlled by women. It turns out that two-thirds of the world's work is actually done by women while only five percent of the world's wealth is controlled by women. Liliana. That is complete and utter nonsense! Don't you know that PARADE magazine reported that 86 percent of all the personal wealth in the United States is owned by women! 86 percent! Now do you see that those feminists don't know what they're talking about? 7. Cullen. I think it's pretty clear that drinking bottled water causes mopery. A recent study has shown that people who drink bottled water are four times as likely to mope around as people who don't drink bottled water. Sterling. Yes, but the study also showed that there's plenty of people who mope around without ever touching bottled water, so the study doesn't prove that drinking bottled water causes mopery. 8. Roland. Statistics show that once people start using a sunscreen, they almost never go back to sunbathing without it. So obviously use of sunscreen makes people dependent on sunscreen. Since it is bad for people to be dependent, we should abolish sunscreen now. Vilma. Doesn't it occur to you that people continue to need sunscreen because strong sunlight continues to contain dangerous ultraviolet radiation? 9. Toker. I've been smoking marijuana regularly for thirty years. I've been a stable and productive member of society all that time. I've never been in trouble, missed work, or hurt anyone. I've never driven while stoned. You haven't given me any reasons why marijuana smoking is morally wrong. In fact, all the arguments for the immorality of marijuana fail for one reason or another. So it's clearly not morally wrong to smoke marijuana. Citlalli. Can you prove that some time in the future, maybe tomorrow, someone won't come up with a good argument? Can you prove that there's no argument out there waiting to be discovered? You can't, so it is morally wrong to smoke marijuana. 10. Annabelle. I really don't see any reason to assume that Saddam Hussein and Al Queda were not allies before the Iraq invasion. In fact, I think that they were working closely together! Octavio. But what about the fact that Al Qaeda is a group of religious extremists sworn to destroy secular governments like Hussein's and the fact that Hussein vigorously persecuted Islamicists like Al Qaeda whenever he could reach them?

Possible Quiz Questions (This ain't homework! Memorize the answers for next class, cuz there will be a quiz.)
1. In your own words, define the term "conclusion."
2. In your own words, define the term "premise."
3. What is a "suppressed premise?"
4. What is a "suppressed conclusion?"
5. What is the purpose of standardizing arguments?
6. What does "basic question" mean?
7. What does "background knowledge" mean?
8. What is a "null hypothesis?"
9. What does "burden of proof" mean?
10. What is a "candidate principle?"
11. What is a "direct" argument?
12. What is a "counter" argument?



Possible Quiz Questions (This ain't homework! Memorize the answers for next class, cuz there will be a quiz.)
1. What is fact mining?
2. How exactly are facts different from opinions?
3. What is a candidate principle?
4. What is the difference between a direct argument and a counter argument?
5. How do you make a counter argument against an authority argument?
6. How do you make a counter argument against a general argument?
7. How do you make a counter argument against a causal argument?
8. How do you make a counter argument against a burden of proof argument?
9. How do you make a counter argument against an explanation argument?

Homework 2. Standardize, Context and Analyze each of the following argument sets, and then either turn your results as your second homework, OR select the most correct answers from the choices following the sets on the Homework 2 Answer Sheet (If you want hints, see the SCA hints sheet.) (For contexting you will be graded on whether or not you get the basic question right, since the other stuff can be highly arguable.) 1. Raegan. How can you stand there and protest the war? Don't you know our boys are over there? Rohan. Well, if there wasn't a war, wouldn't they be back here instead of over there? 2. Tyshawn. I think that sex education is a good idea. It would help kids cope with their sexual feelings if they knew where they were coming from and what they could lead to. Magdalena. Ha! Dr. Laura Schlockslinger says that sex education is immoral and dangerous, so we should ban it from schools. That proves sex education is a bad idea. 3. Rocio: Jesse Jackson says that Charleston, S.C. police need better training and better pay. Estevan: We can't take Jesse Jackson's word on political issues. He wears a tie.

Writing Homework (For my critical thinking and writing and critical thinking and discourse classes.) Pick three of the above homework dialogs and, for each one, write a paragraph explaining exactly what is wrong with the weaker of the two arguments. If the above homework does not include enough dialogs, pick three dialogs from the exercises that preceed the homework. It is important that you work on three dialogs for this homework.

1. What is the difference between direct arguments and counter arguments?
2. Can a counter argument ever established a fact about something that is not an argument?
3. Can a direct argument ever prove that some other argument is bad?

Copyright © 2004 by Martin C. Young

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