Tactical Analysis.

Hopefully, the main concepts of this chapter will already be more-or-less familiar to you by this point. Just in case they aren't, and because these fundamental concepts are both very important and often very hard to grasp, I'm going to go over some important topics a second, or even a third time here.

"Tactics" is my name for the ways in which the premises of various arguments relate, or fail to relate, to the specific strategies embodied in specific other arguments. There are two basic kinds of logical impact that one argument can have on another argument. The first, and weakest logical impact that one argument can have on another is to merely have a conclusion that implies that the other argument's conclusion isn't true. (In this case the second argument also implies that the first argument's conclusion isn't true, so that neither argument says anything about the logical strength of the other.) The second, and strongest logical impact one argument can have on another is to raise questions about the logic used by the other argument, either by trying to imply that at least one the other argument's premises isn't true, or by suggesting that the premises given do not logically support that argument's conclusion. (In this case, the first argument will have no implications for the second argument's conclusion. Even if the first argument proves that the second argument is absolutely terrible, it will have absolutely no chance of proving, by itself, that the second argument's conclusion is false.)

Direct Arguments.

The first kind of argument is called "direct." 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."

Counter Arguments

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, (unless that other argument relies on the claim that no direct argument exists) and no counter argument can ever, by itself, prove that anything is or is not true in the universe.

Strategy

If something is a direct argument then, in addition to asserting that its premises are all true, it is also going to follow some kind of strategy. Now, at least some of these strategies can sometimes 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.

The strategies we have discussed are:

Sampling: A conclusion about a whole population is based on the characteristics of a sample taken from that population.
Correlation: 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.
Authority: The conclusion is based on the otherwise unsupported word of some person, group or institution.
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. (We here ignore the other two ways arguments can be valid.)

We have also discussed two ways of reasoning that I don't call "strategies" because they absolutely always fail. These are the two "general classes of fallacies," which are:

Relevance Fallacies: These are fallacies in which the arguer tries to support his conclusion with points that are actually not relevant to the issue.
Presumption Fallacies: These are fallacies in which the arguer supports his conclusion with points that not themselves supported or which are just as controversial as his conclusion.


Strategy and Tactics

The way a counter argument attacks it's target depends on how that target is trying to establish it's point. Unless the counter argument is simply claiming that some premise in the target is false, the strategy used by the target argument will determine what the counter argument has to do to defeat that argument. For instance, if the strategy of the target is authority, then the only way a counter argument can defeat that target argument is to undermine the authority. If the target's strategy is analogy, the only way to defeat that target is to break the analogy. In general, the way to defeat any bad argument is to figure out it's strategy, figure out how that strategy fails, and then come up with some way of showing clearly how it fails.

This means that when you're analyzing a pair of opposed arguments, the way to tell whether or not the con argument is a counter argument is to figure out whether or not it addresses the strategy used by the pro argument. If it does, it's a counter argument. If it doesn't, it's a direct argument.


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.

Strategy		Might be countered by:
Citing an authority		1. Finding a reason why the authority was not using the right qualifications. 2. Questioning if the authority really made that statement.
Making a comparison		1. Explaining the similarity without assuming the conclusion. 2. Finding a reason why the thing cited as having the property really doesn't have it.
Taking a sample, and generalizing its features to a larger population.		1. Finding a reason why the sample might not represent the population. 2. Finding a reason why the sample doesn't even have the property.
Finding a correlation between two things, and thus claiming that one thing causes the other.		1. Showing that the correlation is weak or nonexistant. 2. Finding that a third thing that might be the cause of both things.
Claiming that the pro conclusion is the only possible explanation for some set of known facts.		1. Finding another, equally good explanation. 2. Finding a reason why your explanation isn't really a good explanation after all.
Claiming that lack of evidence for the con conclusion means that the pro conclusion is true.		1. Coming up with some actual evidence for that opposite conclusion. 2. Showing that the pro conclusion is the one that really bears the burden of proof.

The fallacies of relevance and presumption can show up in arguments with or without an identifiable strategy.

Any strategy or no visible strategy.

1. Showing that the factual claims can be explained without assuming the conclusion. 2. Showing that at least one factual claim is as controversial as the conclusion.

Tactics and Sampling Arguments

The key to tactical analysis of sampling arguments is to not think about whether the second argument is good or bad, but instead ask yourself if the second argument explicitly refers to specific details of the sample used in the first argument. If the second argument says that the first argument's sample is too small, the second argument is a counter argument. If the second argument says that the first argument's sample is too old, the second argument is a counter argument. If the second argument says that there's something wrong with way the first argument's sample was taken, the second argument is a counter argument. Because size, age and method are the only three ways a sampling argument can go wrong, these are the only three ways to criticise the logic of a sampling argument, and so any counter argument must refer to one of these factors.

Consider the following example, and ask youself if the second argument attacks the first on the basis of size, age or method. If it doesn't, it's not a counter argument.

Example 18. Raven. I just spent two weeks in Mount Sausage, and I think that must be a very safe town. There's lots of police around, but they are always friendly and helpful. In fact, the cops are perfectly relaxed in even the poorest neighborhoods. People are friendly wherever I go, and whenever I say I'm thinking of buying a house in Mount Sausage, people always say that I'll love it. I always ask if there's any neighborhood I should stay away from, and people always say "no, there isn't."
Sandy. You're committing hasty generalization because we know that Mount Sausage is one of the most crime-ridden towns in Kumquat County. I have here the complete crime statistics for Kumquat County for 1992, and they prove that your sample is probably too small. The entry for Mount Sausage says that it had 90 murders and over 400 residential burglaries, which is over 20 times the crime rate for other towns the same size, which means that your argument must be based on old data, or something like that. They had ten times as many muggings per capita in that year than any other town in Kumquat County, and the number of showings of Steven Segal movies in 1992 was over 50 times higher than the state average, so your sampling method is probably not at all random with respect to the feature you're investigating! You must be out of your mind to even think that your argument has any logic in it at all. You've absolutely got to be using too small a sample, old data, dependent method or all three!

For this exercise, I want you to ignore the factors that might make these arguments good or bad, and concentrate on issues of logical relationships. Does Sandy say anything about the size of Raven's sample? Does she mention the age of Raven's sample? Does she even begin to refer to the method by which Raven's sample was taken? She doesn't explicitly refer to size, age or method, so this cannot be a counter argument. Since it's not a counter argument, it's a direct argument.

The difference between a direct argument and a counter argument is important because direct arguments cannot knock down other arguments. Even if we were to think that Sandy's argument was perfect, that by itself would not give us any reason to think that Raven's argument wasn't also good. Being in a position of seeing each argument as equally good would put us in the position of being unable to decide. The only way to resolve the issue would be to look harder at the arguments until we found an actual flaw in one of them.

I also want to remind you that merely saying that someone's argument is bad does not make something a counter argument. It might seem at first glance that Sandy is ripping Raven's argument to shreds, but if you look closely you will see that she is in fact wildly flailing at the air several feet away from Raven's argument (which just sits where it is, sipping tea and slyly smiling). Although she raves on about sample size, age and method, Sandy makes no reference to the specifics of Raven's argument, and so she says absolutely nothing that has anything to do with how Raven's argument actually works and so, although she denigrates Raven's argument, she says nothing that would even begin to lead a reasonable person to question it at all.

Examples.

Example 1

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.)

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 basically pointing out that the premise isn't relevant to the conclusion. (He's also attacking the argument's candidate principle, but we'll worry about that later.)

Holden: Direct argument. Strategy: None visible. Maybe it's deductive?
Ahmad: Counter argument. Attacks the relevance of Holden's evidence.

Example 2

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.)

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.

Ellen: Direct argument. Strategy: Hmmm: she's taking her dad's word as a flight engineer, so I'll say it's authority.
Jaquan: Direct argument. He's just making threats, which isn't a recognized strategy.

Example 3

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.

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 also support the claim that alien abductions are real, so his argument can stand on it's own as a direct argument as well.

Kaylin: Direct argument. Strategy: Burden of proof.
Harley: Direct and counter argument. Counters a claim that there's no valid evidence by claiming that the abductee stories are valid.

Example 4

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.

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.

Taryn: Direct argument. He's claiming that some other argument is good. He isn't attacking any arguments. His "strategy" is to assume, without reason, that the conclusion is true, and then to assume, again without reason, that true conclusions make for good arguments. (He's actually committing both begging the question and red herring here.)
Jermaine: Counter argument. He's pointing out that Taryn's premise isn't relevant to his conclusion, so he's drawing attention to the red herring in Taryn's argument.

Example 5

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'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.

Felicity: Direct argument. Based on testimony, so I'm calling it an authority argument.
Jessie: Direct argument

Example 6

Helmuth. You know, the American Revolution was as much a civil war as anything else. After all, thousands of American colonists fought for the British during the revolutionary war.
Igor. That's not true! Admit that all colonists were patriots or I'll tar and feather you!"

Helmuth's strategy #######################

These are both direct arguments. Igor's argument doesn't attack Helmuth's logic, so it's not a counter argument. Helmuth's argument doesn't attack Igor's logic, so it's not a counter argument either.


Say we examine Igor's argument and find that, as far as we can tell, it's a good argument. What would this mean? Well, the success of Igor's argument wouldn't mean that Helmuth's argument was bad, because it doesn't say anything about Helmuth's logic. Igor only wins the argument if his argument is good, and he comes up with a successful counter argument against Helmuth's argument.


Example 7

Finn. Saddam Hussein was a lot like Stalin. Both were vicious dictators with their hands on weapons of mass destruction. Both were self-important megalomaniacs. Both were extremely cruel to anyone who comes in their power. Deterrence kept Stalin bottled up behind the iron curtain until he died. We have absolutely no reason to think that deterrence would not have kept Saddam similarly bottled up. Thus we had no reason to go to war when we did.
Benny. Deterrence worked on Stalin? That's a laugh! Next you'll be telling me that deterrence turned Stalin into a pacifist, or that he spent the rest of his life cowering in a secret bunker! Will deterrence do the dishes? Will deterrence cure cancer? Maybe deterrence caused Stalin to have an involuntary sex change, move to New York and have a career on Broadway under the name Ethel Merman! Would deterrence have made Saddam a pacifist? Would it make him grow his hair, wear tie-dye shirts and Birkenstocks? I don't think we'd have seen "Saddam the hippie," do you?

The question here is whether one argument is attacking the logic of the other. Finn's conclusion is that the United States had no reason to go to war with Iraq. He bases this on a comparison between Saddam and Stalin, and the fact that deterrence worked on Stalin. Benny's argument consists of an attack on the claim that deterrence worked on Stalin. Since this claim is one of Finn's premises, this makes Benny's argument a counter argument. Since Finn's argument doesn't address Benny's logic, Finn's argument is a direct argument.


Example 8

Declan. Tobacco company executives spend a lot of money persuading people to purchase an extremely addictive substance, which makes them drug pushers. And this product kills masses of people every year, so they're mass killers too.
Corinne. You've got to stop calling tobacco company executives "drug pushers" and "mass killers." Don't you know they feel really, really bad when they hear themselves described that way in anti-tobacco advertisements.

Declan has the direct argument, since the null hypothesis agrees with Corinne. Corrine's argument says nothing about whether or not these executives advertise tobacco products, or whether or not they kill hundreds and hundreds of people, so her argument is also a direct argument.


Example 7

Phillip. Scientific Creationism is not a scientific theory because it's not falsifiable. We can't come up with an imaginary observation such that, if we saw it in the real world, it would prove creationism false. We can do that for any scientific theory, so creationism isn't one.
Duane. Phillip says that creationism isn't scientific because it isn't false. That's like saying that it isn't scientific because it's true! How can being true make something unscientific? It can't, so we can dismiss Phillip's argument!

Duane directly comments on one of Phillip's premises. That means that Duane is making a counter argument. Phillip's argument is about something that isn't an argument (creationism), so it's a direct argument.


Example 8

Wilbur. It has been scientifically documented that people with certain medical problems can heart attacks and even die from one dose of cocaine. I know it's unlikely that I have such a condition, but it is still possible that I have an undetected, but potentially fatal heart problem, so I'll refuse your kind offer of two lines of cocaine.
Velma. But you're suppressing the fact that cocaine has no sugar, no cholesterol, it doesn't have tar or nicotine like cigarettes, it isn't greasy, it has no salt, no free radicals, it's non-alcoholic, and has none of those chemicals they put in food nowadays, so it's okay for you to take cocaine.

Both Wilbur and Velma have direct arguments. Wilbur doesn't say anything about what's in cocaine, and Velma says nothing about scientific documentation, heart attacks or Wilbur's heart, so neither says anything about the logic of the other argument.


Example 9

Cristopher. I don't think we can take the word of Professor Malt Barley when it comes to the health effects of beer. After all, his family made it's fortune in the beer industry, and his current research is lavishly funded by the brewing industry.
Alivia. We can be sure that beer is in fact the perfect food, with pound for pound over 100 times the nutritional content of fresh vegetables. Professor Malt Barley assures us that is so, and he is a professor of nutrition with twenty five years of highly respected work in the field.

Christopher's argument attacks the authority of Malt Barley. Alivia's argument reilies on the authority of Malt Barley. This means that Christopher's argument is a counter argument. Does it matter that Christopher's argument comes before Alivia's argument? Not at all! What matters is the logical relationship between the arguments, not the order in which they appear.


Example 10

Coleman. The D.A. has a rock-solid case against Fanny Tos. He's got a dozen eye-witness statements from a variety of unimpeachable citizens. And he's got letters in which she made threats against those Armalite nuns, and videotapes in which she swore undying vengance against the Sisters of Saint Kalashnikov. He has the dealer who sold her the missiles, the Boy Scouts who helpfully carried and set up the launcher for her, (boy, are they embarassed!), and the lumberjacks who felled the trees to block the road for her. Finally, he has security camera and satellite image footage of her firing those thirty armor-piercing, high-explosive, white-phosphorous and fuel-air-explosive missiles directly into that school bus full of nuns. It's a good thing no-one was hurt!
Eliana. That's ridiculous. All that evidence must be wrong. All of those citizens, those Boy Scouts, those lumberjacks and that dealer must be mistaken. Those letters, videotapes, and satellite images must be all be fakes. You know why? Because Fanny Tos is just too nice to attack a busload of nuns.

This is a tricky one. Eliana is claiming to have a reason why all the evidence mentioned by Coleman must be wrong, so it sounds like she's giving a counter argument. But what is this reason? She gives no facts that would cause an independent observer to doubt any of the evidence, but instead just claims that Fanny Tos is too nice to have done what she is accused of doing. But no matter how nice Fanny Tos is, her niceness cannot possibly affect the validity of the evidence cited by Coleman. For this reason, Eliana is giving a direct argument, not a counter argument.



Okay, now you try it.

For each of the following dialogs say whether the second argument is a counter or direct argument. If you think the second argument is a counter argument, write down what specific part (size, age, method) of the target argument is being explicitly attacked, and how it's being attacked.

One final thing to remember is that direct arguments can only be counter arguments if the target argument is using the burden of proof strategy, so if the second argument turns out to be a sampling argument opposed to another sampling argument, the fact that sampling arguments are direct arguments will mean that that second argument can't be a counter argument.

34. Deangelo. I don’t think many people believe in Bigfoot nowadays. A very reliable public opinion company has been taking belief surveys every year for the last forty years. Forty years ago about half the population took Bigfoot seriously, but since then the percentage has slowly and steadily declined. The last survey was eight months ago, and it found that only 20% of Americans think Bigfoot might be real.
Micah. Well, your information is really out of date. Just a few weeks ago, the network of Fake-Jamaican Psychics gave a telephone survey to everyone who called in for psychic or astrological advice. They had 27 million callers, and 74 percent of those 27 million asserted that they firmly believed in the reality of Bigfoot. Two weeks ago is very recent. 27 million is an enormous sample for this kind of poll. No other opinion poll has used a sample size of more than about 10,000, and many of those polls are considered extremely reliable! So we can take it as proved that about 74 percent of Americans believe in Bigfoot.
 
35. Pierre. The latest AARP survey says that American seniors are living longer and healthier lives than ever before. Old people make up around 10 percent of American society, and respondents to the AARP survey turned out to be both significantly healthier, and to have on average lived considerably longer than a demographically identical group surveyed only five years previously. I think this survey is reliable, because it is based on responses from nearly the entire membership of the AARP, which is of course composed entirely of seniors, and was supervised by the best statistical survey analysts available.
Sonya. You're forgetting one thing. The AARP only makes up just over 5 percent of the American population. How can you make any kind of serious generalization based on a sample that is just 5 percent of the population?
 
36. Freddie. I've got to say that in a weird way my respect for conservatives has increased during the present crisis. I've talked to a lot of conservatives about the present situation and most of them present very reasonable case for their own side. They are not a bunch of bloodthirsty warmongers, or knee-jerk jingoists who support any military action no matter how ill-advised. Rather, the overwhelming majority of the ones I've talked to are extremely upset by what they see as the necessity for military action, and although I firmly disagree with their reasoning, I have to say that most of them have taken a great deal of time and effort to think through the issues. Let's face it, there's plenty of intelligent conservatives out there.
Martina. I don't know how you can say that there are plenty of intelligent conservatives out there. I've listened to A.M. radio dozens of times and every Conservative talk show host I've ever heard has been an ignorant, irrational blowhard who does nothing but disparage liberals without ever bothering to find out what any actual liberals are actually saying about anything! Yes, there's a lot of variety in these talk show hosts. There are loud blustery idiots, and quiet vicious idiots, and pedantic boring idiots, and self-important patronizing idiots. But there's nobody who's willing to even begin to talk about the real issues and arguments!
 
37. Gino. I'm worried about the sulfur content in that load of crude oil you've got tied up at the docks there. I've just heard that it has come from an oilfield where the crude usually has a high sulfur content. That's a large capacity supertanker you've got there with over a hundred separate storage tanks, so if I load all your oil into my refinery, I could end up contaminating my entire works with sulfur products.
Elsa. I anticipated your concern, and I dipped out this five gallon sample from the No. 42 hold before I came over to your office. Your own lab has certified that it has a very low sulfur content, so you don't have to be concerned about the sulfur content of my oil.

38. Kathy. My cousin just came back from a business trip to Viet Nam. She said the people were nice enough, but she thought there was an undercurrent of resentment and suspicion towards Americans among most of the people she dealt with there. I guess the Vietnamese over there are still not quite as friendly towards American business people as people in other parts of the world.
Madisen. Your cousin is dead wrong. All the people in Viet Nam love and admire Americans. After the Japanese occupiers surrendered, Ho Chi Minh and other Vietnamese leaders welcomed the Americans in as liberators and supporters of Vietnamese independence. Why, love and admiration for America was part of the Vietnamese language at that time. People used to say "oh, to be as rich and wise as an American!" Does that sound to you like people who are suspicious and resentful of Americans?
 
39. Gideon. You know you thought that we would never be able to get any kind of accurate idea about the composition of the Earth's core? Well, scientists have discovered that a massive meteor or asteroid whacked into the Earth while it was still relatively hot, and the shock wave kicked up some of the core material through the soft mantle and crust. The crust was solid enough by then to hold this material in place. Although some of the material was exposed by erosion, a lot of it was protected from the elements by being buried in stable rock structures. This material was shielded from water and other kinds of erosion, and scientists were able to recover a sample. The samples were 90% iron and 10% nickel, there is nothing that can turn into nickel-iron over time, and nickel-iron won't turn into anything else if it's kept away from water and air down in the core, so the Earth's core is 90% iron and 10% nickel
Anaya. Wait a minute! That asteroid impact must have been over ten billion years ago. Ten billion years must be the oldest sample ever taken in science! We commonly discard hundred-year-old samples as too old, and we don't even look at some thousand year old samples. Your sample is ten million times as old as that, so it can't possibly be any good.

Exercise Answers

Practice Exercises. For each of the following argument sets, determine the strategy of the first argument, and then determine whether or not the second argument is a direct or a counter argument. (If you want extra practice, or you have to make up the quiz, do the Practice / Make-up)

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?



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.


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?




34. Direct argument. Micah says Deangelo’s information is really out of date, but doesn’t even mention the actual age of Deangelo’s sample, let alone give reasons for thinking it isn’t recent enough.

35. Counter argument. Sonya might be giving a horrible argument, but her entire argument is based on the number of members in the AARP, which is what Pierre is talking about. This means her argument is specifically about Pierre’s sample size (even though she gets that wrong). Also notice that she does not give any reasons to believe a conclusion different from Pierre’s, so she’s not giving a direct argument.

36. Direct argument. Martina says nothing about Freddie’s sample age, size or method, so she’s not making a counter argument. And she changes the subject from people Freddie has met to A.M. radio hosts, which tells us she’s not talking about Freddie’s argument.

37. Direct argument. This one is tricky because Gino is not making a sampling argument. Rather he’s worried about reports that the oil comes from a contaminated source. However Elsa does not say anything about whatever Gino has heard about her oilfield, but instead gives new information which she takes to prove Gino’s conclusion wrong. In fact, the only argument Elsa gives is a sampling argument, which is a direct argument form, and therefore cannot be a counter argument.

38. Direct argument. Both of these are sampling arguments, which makes them both direct arguments. Furthermore, although Madisen says Kathy’s cousin is wrong, she gives us no reason to think either Kathy or her cousin have made any logical mistakes.

39. Counter argument. Anaya refers explicitly to the age of Gideon’s sample.




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