A very important and powerful form of counter argument is the counter argument by analogy. This kind of counter argument says that the other argument is bad because it is like some third argument that is obviously bad. (The fact that this technique juggles three different arguments makes this a tricky category at first.) In this technique, you show that a bad argument is bad by showing that it has the same logical form as an argument that everyone can see is fallacious. That's why it's called counter-argument by analogy. You show a logical flaw in someone else's argument by presenting a different argument with exactly the same logical form and which is clearly a bad argument. (I'm going to call this the "hypothetical bad argument" because no-one's seriously offering it as an argument, and because it's supposed to be a bad argument.)
The ability to constrauct and evaluate counter arguments by analogy
crucially depends on the ability to tell whether or not two arguments
have the same logical form. So the first thing we will talk about here
is .....
Logical Form
"Logical form" is easier to demonstrate than to explain. The explanation
is that the logical form of an argument is just the particular set of
logical relationships that exists between the premises of that
particular argument. That relationship can exist between other sets
of premises, so two arguments can have the same logical form
even if they have absolutely nothing else in common.
Here is a group of arguments all of which have the same
logical form. Let's call them group one.
All dogs are canines
All
shoats are porkers Elvis is robot
All Mocklins are aliens Alice is a
Tove
Spot is a dog.
Babe is a shoat
All robots are machines Joe is
a Mocklin
All
Toves are slithy
Spot is a canine.
Babe
is a porker
Elvis
is a machine
Joe
is an alien
Alice
is slithy
If you can see what all these arguments have in common, then you are
seeing their logical form. As you can see, logical form has nothing to
do with the content of the premises. It has nothing to do with
the topic of the argument. And it has nothing to do with the order
in which the premises are presented. It is just about the
relationship between the premises and conclusion of that particular
argument. And, since all four have the same logical form, that means
that if one is valid, they are all valid, and vice
versa. If two arguments have the same logical form, you can never
have a case where one is valid and the other isn't. (Remember, "valid"
is not the same as "good." Not all logically
compelling arguments are valid, and not all valid arguments are good.)
For contrast, here's a group of arguments, called group two,
each of which has a different logical form from all
the others.
All dogs are canines
All dogs are canines
All dogs are canines
All dogs are canines
Spot is a dog.
Spot is not a dog.
Spot is a canine.
Spot
is not a canine.
Spot is a canine.
Spot is not a
canine. Spot is a
dog.
Spot is not a
dog.
At first glance, these four arguments seem much more closely related
than the first group. But their logical forms are all different
from each other, so that, logically speaking, the validity of
one says nothing about the validity of any of the others. (Before you go
on, see if you can tell which argument in group two have the same form
as all the arguments in group one. And remember, "valid" is not
the same as "good." Not all logically compelling arguments
are valid, and not all valid arguments are good.)
Similar, But Not The Same
It often happens that two arguments have
logical forms that are similar, but still not exactly the
same. When this happens, they don't have the same logical form.
The thing to think about is whether or not both arguments use the exact
same logical strategy (what I call "candidate principle") to
support their conclusions. The easiest way to explain these logical
strategies is to compare and contrast pairs of arguments. Lots of pairs
of arguments. Consider the following.
1. Dogpatch community college should not require a
freshman writing course. For god's sake, Harvard doesn't require a
freshman writing course!
2. The war on drugs is like any war. We will not begin to win until we
begin to shoot drug dealers on sight.
These two arguments are similar in that they both rely on comparisons.
In fact, they are both analogy arguments, and have the general form of
"A is like B, B has F, so A has F." But this is pretty much all they
have in common. The first one compares two institutions with similar
goals and similar methodology, while the second compares two things that
have similar names. In my view, these two arguments are not logically
similar enough to make their similarities meaningful. Compare the above
pair to the following two pairs of arguments.
1. Dogpatch community college should not require a freshman writing
course. For god's sake, Harvard doesn't require a freshman writing
course!
2. Oxford University does not require attendance at lectures, so
Podunk College should not penalize students for failing to attend
lectures.
1. The war on drugs is like any war. We will not begin to win until we
begin to shoot drug dealers on sight.
2. Our sales marathon is only four months away, so you'd better start
training now. I suggest a couple of 5K runs a week for the first
month.
Notice that the arguments in each pair are logically much more similar
to each other than they are to the arguments in the other pair. In the
first pair, both arguments compare famous international universities to
unknown local colleges. In the second pair, an activity that is given a
name in a metaphorical sense is compared to the actual activity it is
named for. The point I want you to notice right now is that the
similarity between the members of each pair might be so great that, if
one of them is logically flawed, the other one will have exactly the
same logical flaw. If this is true, then studying the logic of one
argument will tell us a lot about the logic of the other argument. If,
however, there is a logically significant difference between the two
arguments, then comparing their logical forms will be much less useful.
Here's another pair of arguments to compare and contrast. How are they
similar? How are they different?
1. Almost half of Americans are carriers for the Neiman-Marcus gene. I
tested every attendee at the O'Shaughnessy family reunion, and 45% of
them had the Neiman-Marcus gene. This is a good survey because it
included over 100,000 people taken from locations widely distributed
over all 50 states.
2. A clear majority of Americans support Lord Voldemort for president.
They admire his aggressive, first-strike, foreign policy and his
draconian domestic policy of preemptively arresting everyone who might
possibly commit a crime at any time in the future. They particularly
like his policy of executing everyone who doesn't vote for him. Yes,
Voldemort is America's choice!
These two arguments are similar in that they both make general
statements. But can you see the crucial difference between them? Notice
that the first argument backs up its conclusion with a purportedly
representative sample. Does the second argument give a sample? No it
doesn't! This is an absolutely crucial difference because
generalizations can only be supported by sample data. This means that
the first argument might possibly be good, but the second argument can
never be logically compelling. To see the difference, examine the
following two pairs of arguments.
1. Almost half of Americans are carriers for the
Neiman-Marcus gene. I tested every attendee at the O'Shaughnessy
family reunion, and 45% of them had the Neiman-Marcus gene. This is a
good survey because it included over 100,000 people taken from
locations widely distributed over all 50 states.
2. A surprise poll of American wizards revealed over 50% supported
Lord Voldemort for president. This means that a clear majority of
Americans support Lord Voldemort for president.
1. A clear majority of Americans support Lord Voldemort for president.
They admire his aggressive, first-strike, foreign policy and his
draconian domestic policy of preemptively arresting everyone who might
possibly commit a crime at any time in the future. They particularly
like his policy of executing everyone who doesn't vote for him. Yes,
Voldemort is America's choice!
2. Almost half of Americans are carriers for the Neiman-Marcus gene.
Almost half of our compatriots have this terrible genetic condition
which strongly predisposes them to the addictive condition of
Shopaholism, which can cause depleted bank accounts, houses full of
tacky furniture, and the wearing of hideous clothes.
Notice that each of the first pair of arguments bases a general
statement on the properties of a sample, while each of the second pair
of arguments merely makes a general claim and then elaborates on it
without giving any evidence in support. The second thing I want you to
notice at this point is that, while it is easy to see that both
arguments in the second pair are bad, it is not so easy to evaluate the
arguments in the first pair. The arguments in the second pair both have
clearly bad logical form, but the arguments in the first pair seem
different enough from each other that it is still possible that one of
them has good form and the other doesn't. In general, clearly bad form
means clearly bad argument, while arguments in which the logical form is
not clearly bad are still not necessarily logically compelling
arguments.
Here’s two more arguments. How are they similar and different?
1. The vast majority of Mormons support the
devaluation of women. After all, Mormonism is a lot like Christianity,
and Christianity has traditionally supported the devaluation of women.
2. It's clear that Mormonism supports the devaluation of women. A
survey of Mormons serving in the Armed Forces found that the majority
of them did not value women as highly as men.
From a logical point of view, these arguments are not similar at all.
They do have exactly the same conclusion, but their logical forms are
completely different. One of them is an analogy argument, and the other
is a generalization argument. This means that analysis of the logical
properties of one of these arguments has absolutely no bearing on the
logical properties of the other.
Now compare these two.
1. Since Reverend Jim started his Pray-For-Peace campaign, four more
wars have started. We must shut down this Pray-For-Peace campaign
before even more countries are dragged into war!
2. Of course welfare causes dependency! It stands to reason that
anyone who's been on public assistance will come to prefer sitting
around the house to working.
Both of these arguments make causal claims, but the first one backs it
up with evidence while the second one offers no evidence whatsoever.
This means that the first argument must be placed into the category of
arguments that use established correlations to back up causal claims,
and the second must be placed in the category of arguments that assert
causal claims without backing them up. Here is each argument matched
with another argument of much more similar logical form.
1. Since Reverend Jim started his Pray-For-Peace campaign, four more
wars have started. We must shut down this Pray-For-Peace campaign
before even more countries are dragged into war!
2. Once Flush Limburger went on welfare, he turned into a lazy slob,
so it's clear that welfare causes dependency.
1. Of course welfare causes dependency! It stands to
reason that anyone who's been on public assistance will come to prefer
sitting around the house to working.
2. Of course prayer causes warfare! It stands to reason that any
prayer campaign will result in a lot more wars starting.
As before, if two arguments have the same logical form, and one of them
is clearly bad because of that form, it follows that the other will also
be bad. However, if two arguments have very similar, but not identical
logical form, then proving one argument's form bad says nothing about
the form of the other.
Now here is a somewhat more complicated comparison. See if you can tell
how the following two arguments are logically different.
1. Vuntagians are not tolerant people. Stanford
University identified over a hundred people who had converted to
Vuntagism within a month after taking a general University survey on
tolerance. They readministered the survey to the same population, and
found that those people who had converted to Vuntagism were invariably
much less tolerant of lefthandedness than they had been before they
converted.
2. Vuntagism causes intolerance. Stanford University carried out a
survey of 10,000 randomly selected Americans, and found that those
Americans who followed Vuntag strongly tended to be very intolerant of
lefthandedness.
If you're having trouble figuring out the precise logical difference
between these two arguments, I should mention that I played a dirty
trick on you. Look at the relationship between the conclusion and
premises of each argument. Do you see anything funny? Try ignoring the
conclusion of each argument, and just comparing the premises used. Like
so.
1. Stanford University identified over a hundred people who had
converted to Vuntagism within a month after taking a general
University survey on tolerance. They readministered the survey to the
same population, and found that those people who had converted to
Vuntagism were invariably much less tolerant of lefthandedness than
they had been before they converted.
2. Stanford University carried out a survey of 10,000 randomly
selected Americans, and found that those Americans who followed Vuntag
strongly tended to be much less tolerant than other Americans.
Notice that the first argument relies on a before and after comparison
of two surveys, while the second argument only uses one survey. Now
notice that the premises of the first argument detail a correlation
between converting to Vuntagism and converting to a much less tolerant
attitude, while the premises of the second argument contains no before
and after data. In fact the premises of the second argument just say
that in a sample of Americans, Vuntagians are much less tolerant. This
means that the first argument has a logical form that is subtly different
from the form of the second argument. (Now can you figure out my dirty
trick?)
First Exercise Set. Here are some
arguments you can compare. For each argument, find the other argument
that is closest to it in terms of logical form. I
suggest you download and print the five page file formcompare.rtf,
which spaces out the following arguments so you can cut up the pages and
have each argument on it's own separate quarter sheet. This will allow
you to do two things. First, you can analyze each argument on it's
individual sheet. Is it a comparison? A sampling argument? A criticism
of another argument? Of an authority? Or is it a known, named fallacy?
Secondly, you can lay the arguments out on a table and group them by
logical similarity. (If you group them by topic you won't get
anywhere.) Start with big crude groups, and then make finer and finer
distinctions until eventually you get down to ten pairs of most similar
arguments.
Exercises:
1. Divide the arguments into those that seek to establish that something is true (direct arguments) and those that seek to establish that some other argument has failed (counter arguments.)
2. Divide the direct arguments according to how they attempt to support their claims.
3. Divide the counter arguments up according to what kind of direct argument they are attacking.
4. Divide each kind of counter argument up according to how it is trying to attack its target argument.
5. Finally, match up every argument with the one other argument that has the exact same logical strategy.
(Answers are given below.)
Here are the arguments:
A. 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.
B. The bottled water study did not include an explanation of how
bottled water can cause mopery, so the study doesn't prove that
drinking bottled water causes mopery.
C. It is common knowledge that herbal tea makes people taller. Ask
your friends and neighbors, and every one of them will tell you that
drinking herbal tea is an effective way of increasing your height.
D. You should not listen to Professor Mo Zart when he tells you that
classical music does not cause white-collar crime. Obviously, the
well-documented fact that he has numerous convictions for drunk
driving means that we cannot rely on what he is saying.
E. Recognized expert on height extension, Dr. Herb L. S. Ence says
that herbal tea makes people taller. But but every prediction that
he's ever made about height extension has turned out to be false, so
we don't have to believe him this time.
F. Herbal tea doesn't make people taller. Plenty of people in the
herbal tea study drank herbal tea for years without getting any
taller, so it doesn't prove anything.
G. Famed Sociomusicologist Professor Mo Zart asserts that listening to
classical music cannot possibly cause people to become white-collar
criminals, so classical music listening does not cause white-collar
crime.
H. Professor Mo Zart cannot be trusted on the issue of classical music
and white-collar crime because he is just worried that people will
stop listening to classical music.
I. Dr. Herb L. S. Ence has had widely publicized series of affairs
with mid-level government bureaucrats, so he cannot be trusted on the
issue of herbal tea and height extension
J. Dr. Herb L. S. Ence is only an expert on extending the height of
skyscrapers and other tall buildings, not people, so he cannot be
trusted when he says that herbal tea makes people taller
K. Classical music doesn't make people into white-collar criminals.
Plenty of people in the classical music study did not listen to any
classical music but still became white-collar criminals.
L. The classical music study totally fails to prove that classical
music causes white-collar crime because nowhere in that study do they
even begin to explain how listening to classical music goes about
causing white-collar crime.
M. Of course bottled water does not cause mopery! Everyone knows that
the drinking of bottled water has nothing whatsoever to do with
whether or not people mope around.
N. You should not listen to Dr. Herb L. S. Ence when he tells you that
herbal tea makes people taller. Obviously, he must have money in the
herbal tea industry, and that's why he's saying it.
O. The classical music study also showed that there's plenty of people
who listen to classical music without becoming criminals, so the study
doesn't prove that classical music causes white-collar crime.
P. The bottled water 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.
Q. You should not listen to Professor Mo Zart when he tells you that
classical music does not cause white-collar crime. Obviously, the
well-documented fact that absolutely all of his expertise concerns the
relationship between punk rock music and safety pins sales means that
we cannot rely on what he is saying here.
R. You can still believe that classical music causes crime. Professor
Mo Zart, who says it doesn't, has a long history of being wrong about
this kind of thing.
S. A major recent study just compared two demographically identical
groups, one of which listened to classical music a lot, and the other
didn't listen to classical music at all. The classical music listeners
turned out to have a much higher percentage of white-collar criminals
than the non listeners, so listening to classical music causes
white-collar crime.
T. You must believe that herbal tea makes people taller. Dr. Herb L.
S. Ence says it does, and he's a recognized expert on height
extension.
Again, you are expected to:.
1. Divide the arguments into direct arguments and
counter arguments.
2. Divide the direct arguments according to
how they attempt to support their claims.
3. Divide the counter arguments up according
to what kind of direct argument they are attacking.
4. Divide the counter arguments up according
to how it is trying to attack its target argument.
5. Match up every argument with the one other
argument that has the exact same logical strategy.
Counter
Argument by Analogy
The basic motivation behind using a counter-argument by analogy is that
sometimes it's easier to show than to explain. Sometimes it may be hard
to see that a bad argument is bad. And you may not get the
explanation, or be able to see that it's an instance of a fallacy.
However, if you can see that this argument has the same logical form as
another argument, and can see that this other argument is
no good, then you're more likely to be able to see that the original
argument is no good. Analogical counter-arguments are very powerful,
because if you can prove that two different arguments have the same logical
form and that one of them has bad logical form, then by
the nature of logic, the other argument is bad in exactly the same
way.
A good counter-argument by analogy has the following properties.
1. The two arguments being compared really do have exactly
the same logical form.
2. The "bad" argument really is logically bad.
Here are some examples of what I take to be good counter-arguments by
analogy. (In each case it is Rocofale who gives the logically
compelling argument. Fallachi's argument is there just to
be refuted. )
a. Fallachi. You say that we'll have to buy
monitors eventually, so that doing it my way will cost more.
That's negative thinking, so of course we will save money.
Rocofale. That's like saying that a suspension bridge made of
cotton candy will stay up because saying it won't is "negative
thinking."
b. Fallachi. You are extremely well qualified, but I can't
promote you because there's a perception that you're not
qualified.
Rocofale. So if there was a perception that you had been
stealing from the company you'd think that you should be fired,
right?
b. Fallachi. 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!
Rocofale. So if somone put deadly poison in your coffee with the
intention of getting you to switch brands, that would be
a brand identification issue, not a homicide!
c. Fallachi. My company had a permit from the state of New York,
and a permit from the U.S. government to put all those tons and tons of
toxic chemicals in the Hudson river, so it's completely unfair to call
my company a "polluter."
Rocofale. So if I killed you, and had a permit to
hunt you down, kill you, and have you stuffed, it would be completely
unfair to call me a "killer."
d. Fallachi. I agree that you've given a lot of reasons why the
"war on drugs" is immoral, futile, and incredibly harmful to a lot of
people, and that not even one pro-drugwar argument has stood up to
scrutiny, but drugs still cause some real problems, (which I
can't prove to be solved by the drug war) and you haven't
come up with any definite solution to those problems, so we
should continue the war on drugs.
Rocofale. That's like saying that because I'm not sure how to
fight a fire it's okay for you to go on pouring huge quantities of
gasolene on the fire and on surrounding buildings.
If I'm right about these being good counter-arguments by analogy,
both the following claims are true for each dialog.
1. The argument offered by Rocofale has exactly the same logical form
as Fallachi's.
2. The argument offered by Rocofale has a clearly false
conclusion.
You may have the urge to say "but Rocofale's arguments are silly,
and so they can't possibly be relevant to Fallachi's arguments!"
Well, they are silly, but that doesn't mean they're not relevant.
A logical form is not something that can be good in one argument but bad
in an other. If it's good, it's good everywhere. If one instance of it is
bad, all instances are bad.
You can think of it this way. In each of his arguments, Fallachi is
implicitly offering a rule that's supposed to justify his
conclusion. Here are the rules he implicitly offers.
1. If a thought is negative
thinking, then the opposite thought is true.
2. A perception justifies the same
actions that the correponding reality would justify.
3. The intention behind an action wholly
determines what kind of action it is.
4. If someone has a permit to do
something, then it's unfair to call him the kind of person who does that
thing.
5. If a policy doesn't work and
causes harm we should go on doing it until someone comes up with a
definitive solution to the problems our policy isn't solving.
To refute Fallachi by analogy, all Rocofale has to do is make up an
example where following the rule would result in an obviously
false conclusion. Silly conclusions are the most obviously false ones, so
it makes sense to use arguments with silly conclusions. If the rule is the
same, then showing it would result in a silly conclusion shows that it's a
silly rule. (The way to break a counter-argument by analogy is to
show that the silly argument uses a different rule. If Fallachi
could show that Rocofale's argument used a different rule, the two
arguments wouldn't be analogous, and Fallachi's argument would not be
refuted.)
When a counter argument by analogy works, it does so by exposing the fact that an arguer has used a candidate principle that is not actually a logical rule. In effect, he has expected us to take this candidate principle as a logical rule is just this case, even though it would not be accepted in other cases. This is called the fallacy of special pleading, as it is the idea that we should bend the rules by accepting his candidate principle as a rule of logic in this case even though noone would accept it in any other case. Here are some real-world examples.
Equal employment for women is wrong. It's perfectly right and fair to reserve high-paying jobs for men because when you think about giving a job to a woman instead of a less qualified man, you have to remember that a man has a family to support.
Abortion is wrong because when you abort a fetus you put down a burden you had previously taken up.
I'm not against equal treatment for gays, I just don't think they should be able to redefine marriage for the rest of us.
Abortion is wrong because it interrupts a natural process. .
We should not allow same-sex marriage because it does not serve the state interest of producing children .
To see that these are examples of special pleading, try deriving the candidate principle from each argument and then applying that principle in other contexts.
Here's an extended example.
Example A.
Marley. I'm tired of hearing you criticize our
glorious leader!
Winston. Have any of my factual claims turned out to be false?
Marley. Well no, but...
Winston. And has our leader produced any evidence to back up
his important claims?
Marley. Well, not actual evidence, not for the important
claims, but...
Winston. So why shouldn't I criticize him?
Marley. Well, gosh darn it, Winston, you should love your
country!
Winston. So you're saying I shouldn't criticize our leader
because I should love my country?
Marley. Exactly!
Winston. Isn't that like saying a shareholder shouldn't criticize
a manager because he should love his company?
Marley. 1. A citizen should love his or her
country.
(2. It is impossible to both love a country and criticize its
leader.)
C.
Winston should not criticize his country's leader. DIRECT
Winston 1. Saying "I shouldn't criticize our leader
because I should love my country"
is
like saying "a shareholder shouldn't criticize a manager because he
should love his company"
2. Saying "a shareholder shouldn't criticize a manager because he
should love his company" is a bad argument.
C. It isn't proved that I shouldn't criticize our leader.
COUNTER
Marley is proposing a moral rule ("you shouldn't criticize your country's
leader") so he bears the burden of proof.
Marley. Explanation argument. [It's an explanation argument
because it isn't any other kind of argument.]
Facts
offered. None, unless you count the fact that Marley is tired of having
his beliefs challenged.
Explanation
offered. "It is impossible to both love a country and criticize its
leader."
Winston. Analogy Counter argument.
Target.
"It is impossible to both love country and criticize its leader."
Hypothetical
Bad argument. "It is impossible to both love a company and criticize its
CEO."
[Notice that I expressed the analogy in terms of the basic logical
principle that Marley needs in order to make his argument work. I think
doing it this way makes the logical structure of these arguments much more
clear.]
Critique.
Based on information given here, there is no moral rule that says there's
anything wrong with criticizing the leader of one's country. Marley has
the burden of proof here, but he fails to produce any facts that support
his conclusion. The only support he offers is to say that Winston should
love his country. This is only connected to Marley's conclusion if there
is a general moral principle that love of an institution is incompatible
with criticism of that institutions leader. Winston exposes the absurdity
of this "principle" by pointing out that if it were applied in the
business world it would mean that shareholders who loved their companies
could never criticize the leaders of those companies. Since shareholders
obviously have every right to criticize those whose decisions affect their
income, Marley's principle is obviously false. Furthermore, since Marley's
principle is obviously something he cannot just assume, he commits the
fallacy of begging the question by assuming it.
Now, there are basically two ways for counter-argument by analogy to go wrong. First, the "bad" argument may turn out to have a different logical form from the argument it's trying to refute. Second, the "bad" argument may turn out not to be bad after all. What does the evidence really logically imply is going wrong with the following bad argument?
Example B.
Every time I argue against condom
distribution in schools, some idiot pipes up with the idea that at least
some teenagers are going to go out and have sex anyway, so the best way
to protect them is to try to make sure they do it safely. That is the
stupidest idea I've ever heard! Would you give teachers bulletproof
vests because you think students are going to go out and start shooting?
No of course you wouldn't! Nobody would. And yet these idiots are still
out there handing out condoms to schoolchildren.
At first glance, this might look like a straight analogy argument.
Premise Thingy:........Handing out bulletproof vests to teachers on the
theory that students are inevitably going to shoot
Conclusion Thingy....Handing out condoms to schoolchildren on the theory
that students are inevitably going to ... um, you know
Property .................Stupid, stupid, stupid
With the following standardization.
1. Condom distribution is based on the idea that some
teenagers will have sex no matter what you do.
2. Condom distribution based on that idea is like
bulletproof vest distribution based on the idea that students will
inevitably start shooting.
(3. Bulletproof vest distribution based on the idea that students
will inevitably start shooting is a very stupid idea.)
C. Condom distribution is a very stupid idea.
But notice that it's saying that somebody else's policy of condom
distribution is a bad idea, and it attacks the reasoning
behind that policy, which makes it a counter argument, by
analogizing it to a hypothetical bad policy, which makes it a
counter argument by analogy. So we should standardize (and analyze)
it like this.
Pro - 1. (Direct)
1. No matter what adult authorites do, at least some teenagers
are going to have sex.
(2. These disobedient teenagers deserve protection from STDs and
pregnancy.)
(3. Distribution of condoms would help protect the disobedient
teenagers from STDs and pregnancy.)
C. We should distribute condoms to those teenagers who want them.
HBA - 1 ("HBA" stands for Hypothetical Bad Argument.)
1. No matter what adult authorites do, at least some teenagers
are going to open fire in school.
(2. Their teachers deserve protection from flying bullets.)
(3. Distribution of bullet-proof vests would help protect those
teachers from flying bullets.)
C. We should distribute bullet-proof vests to those teachers who want
them.
Hmm, they don't look that similar, do they? Well, maybe if I
restandardize both of them, the similarities will be more obvious.
Pro - 1. (Direct) (Restandardized)
1. No matter what adult authorities do, at least some teenagers
are going to have sex.
(2. The people placed at risk by this unpreventable behavior deserve
protection from its consequences.)
(3. Teenagers are at risk here.)
(4. Distribution of condoms would help protect the people at risk.)
C. We should distribute condoms to those teenagers who want them.
HBA - 1 (Restandardized)
1. No matter what adult authorities do, at least some
teenagers are going to open fire in school.
(2. The people placed at risk by this unpreventable behavior deserve
protection from its consequences.)
(3. Teachers are at risk here.)
(4. Distribution of bullet-proof vests would help protect the people
at risk.)
C. We should distribute bullet-proof vests to those teachers who want
them.
Okay, that seems better. Now, here's the main argument against condom
distribution.
Con - 1 (Counter to Pro-1)
1. Pro-1 is logically identical to HBA-1
2. HBA-1 is a logically bad argument
C. Pro-1 is a bad argument.
This argument is deductively valid, so if it's premises are true, it's
comclusion will be true also. However, are these premises true? In the
paragraphs above, I went to considerable trouble to make HBA-1 logically
identical to Pro-1, so I think premise 1 is true. But what about premise
2? Look carefully at the logic of HBA-1. Ask yourself the
following question. If it really were the case that all of those
premises were true, would it really be the case that the
conclusion definitively does not follow logically from those
premise? This hypothetical "bad" argument has the curious property that
the closer it's logic approaches that of the argument it's attacking, the
better it looks! A counter argument by analogy can only succeed if it's
HBA is clearly a logically bad argument. When the HBA is even
the slightest bit reasonable, the counter by analogy fails.
Counter arguments by analogy work because every argument comes
with an explicit or implicit candidate principle which
needs to turn out to be a real principle of logic to work.
Counter arguments by analogy work by taking these candidate principles and
plugging in hypothetical facts to generate hypothetical conclusions. When
applying a candidate principle to some hypothetical premises produces a
hypothetical conclusion that would clearly be absurd even if those
premises were absolutely true, then the candidate principle is shown to
itself be logically absurd.
Here are some more exercises.
6. Savion. If an
argument is bad, I can refute that bad argument by showing that it has
the same logical form as an obviously bad argument
Baird. Rubbish! That's like saying you can sink a battleship by
sinking a toy boat that happens to be painted the same color!
7 . Gaven. It is pretty clear that there are no real atheists. I
have met many Vuntagians who used to profess atheism, and all of them
admitted to me that they had really always known in their hearts that
there is a Vuntag.
Mick. Oh, so I guess I'm living proof that there are no real
Vuntagians, because I once used to profess Vuntagism, but I really knew
in my heart that there is no Vuntag.
8 . Todtkopf. People who smoke both marijuana and crack
generally start smoking marijuana some months before they start on
crack. So marijuana is a threshold drug that leads people to later take
on more dangerous substances!
Revanchi. But your only evidence that marijuana is a threshold
drug is that people who smoke both generally start smoking marijuana
some time before they start on crack. But everyone who smokes crack
previously drank milk, so if marijuana has a threshold effect, then so
does milk!
9 . Crown. We know that Fnorbert exists because we know that
morality exists. We see people acting badly and we see people acting
well. This could only be true if Fnorbert existed, because Fnorbert is
defined as the only possible source of morality, so Fnorbert exists.
Laphroig. Sure, and we know that there's a secret conspiracy
fixing all basketball games because cheese exists. We see cheese sold in
supermarkets and in speciality stores and so on. This could only be true
if there was a secret conspiracy fixing all basketball games, because
this secret conspiracy is defined as the only possible source of cheese,
so there is a secret conspiracy fixing all basketball games.
10. Gem. Ideas about morality must be supported by something
more than just the facts of physics, biology and anthropology. You
cannot tell what people ought to do just from facts about what they are.
We think it is bad to make people suffer because we bring to them the
idea that suffering is bad. That idea is not found in any fact
about any person. The fact that people can suffer does not imply, by
itself, the fact that suffering is wrong, any more than the fact that
paper hats can burn can imply any fact about whether it is right or
wrong to burn them.
Teagan. This Is-Ought dichotomy states that ideas about what a
person ought to do cannot be logically deduced from ideas about what a
person is, and thus it erects an insurmountable barrier between a thing
and its proper behavior. This is like the doctrine of vitalism, which
held that life could not be generated purely from chemical forces, and
thus erected an insurmountable barrier between chemistry and life.
Vitalism has conclusively been proven false, so we should conclude that
the Is-Ought dichotomy is false also.
11. Snortblaster. Iraq was a lot like Afghanistan was before
Jimmy Carter's boy Zbigniew Brzezinski started arming Islamic terrorists
there. Like Afghanistan before Brzezinski, it had a secular government
over a Muslim people, and was far more socially progressive than any
Islamic Republic. Also like Afghanistan was, it was an independent
nation that is much more closely tied Moscow that it was with the United
States. Just as destabilizing Afghanistan led to a horrific and
unpredictable series of human disasters (Russian invasion, guerilla war,
and eventually the Taliban) in that region, destabilizing Iraq is likely
to lead to an unpredictable series of horrific human disasters in that
region.
Jolie. That's like saying that Colombia is exactly the same as
Cuba because they both speak spanish, or that Argentina is like Austria
because they're both Catholic countries! You have to understand that all
Muslim countries are different from each other, and so statements made
about one Muslim country cannot apply to all other Muslim countries.
Once you understand the differences between various Muslim countries
you'll realize that the comparison between Iraq and Afganistan gives us
no reason to think that destabilizing Iraq will have the consequences
you say it will.
12. Donavan. I think we should give an enormous tax break to the
rich. Both Forbes Magazine and the Wall Street Journal say it will
stimulate the economy, increase employment, raise wages, eliminate the
deficit, reduce the federal debt and bring peace in the Middle East.
Clifford. That's ridiculous! Giving a tax break to the rich is
like the government seizing a big stash of stolen money, and then giving
some of it back to the bank robbers.
13 . Witta. That needle's getting close to "E", so we should
stop and put gas in the tank very soon.
Courtney. I can prove absolutely that the windshield washer fluid
container is full, and will stay full for a long, long time. So you're
wrong as usual.
And consider the following questions
15. If Mutt's argument has the same logical form as a logically compelling
argument, does that mean that Mutt's argument is good?
16. If Mutt's argument has the same premises as a bad argument, does that
mean that Mutt's argument is bad?
17. If Mutt's argument has the same logical form as an argument that's bad
because it has a false premise, does that mean that
Mutt's argument is bad?
18. If Mutt's argument has the same logical form as an argument that's bad
because of it's logical form, what does that tell us about Mutt's
argument?
Exercise Answers (well, some of them.)
First Exercise Set.
1: A, C, G, M, S, and T are all direct arguments,
B, D, F, H, I, J, K, L, N, O,
P, Q and R are all counter arguments.
2: A and S both base their conclusions on studies.
C and M both base their
conclusions on what large numbers of people think.
G and T both base their
conclusions on the opinions of specific people who are supposed to be
experts.
3. B, F, K, L, O and P all criticise studies.
D, E, H, I, J, N, Q and R all
criticise experts.
4. B and L both point out that the relevant study did not provide an
explanation for the causal relationship.
F, K, O and P all point out
imperfections in the relevant studies.
E, J, Q and R all refer to the
expert's use of his expertise.
D, H, I and N all refer to the
expert's personal behavior outside of his use of his expertise.
5.A and S both base their conclusions on studies.
B and L both point out that the
relevant study did not provide and explanation for the causal
relationship. C and M both base
their conclusions on what large numbers of people think.
D and I both refer to bad things
the expert is documented to have done.
E and R both refer to the
expert's track record.
F and O point out that the study
included cases in which the cause was present without the effect.
G and T both base their
conclusions on the opinions of specific people who are supposed to be
experts.
H and N both make unsupported
claims that the expert has a self-interested motive.
J and Q both refer to the
expert's specific area of expertise.
K and P point out that the study
included cases in which the effect was present without the cause.
6. Based just on the arguments presented here, it might be true that an argument can be refuted by showing that it has the same logical form as an obviously bad argument. Okay, it's perfectly true that an argument is refuted if it can be shown that it has the same logical form as an obviously bad argument. The trouble is, this fact is not part of anyone's background knowledge until they've been shown how it works, and it's not obviously true to anyone who just has a general knowledge of logic. So it's more or less something that we have to prove, and since Savion hasn't supported his claim with reasons, he hasn't proved it. Baird, on the other hand, is trying to prove that it's impossible by comparing it to sinking a battleship by sinking a toy boat that happens to be painted the same color. That is, he is trying to prove that you cannot prove that an argument is bad by showing it has the same logic is a bad argument by giving a bad argument and implying that his bad argument has the same logical form as proving that argument is bad by showing that it has the same logic is a bad argument. In other words, he's attempting to use a counter argument by analogy to show that you cannot succeed at a counter argument by analogy. [Think about what it would mean if he succeeded. On second thoughts, don't think about it.] Baird's argument fails because showing that an argument is bad means taking something that has not worked and showing that it has not worked whereas sinking a battleship means taking something that is working and making it not work. This crucial difference means that Baird commits false analogy. (The correct analogy would be showing that a battleship design won't work by showing that an exact scale model of the battleship won't work in conditions that are exactly analogous to the conditions that the full-size battleship will be exposed to.)
7. Based on the information in these arguments, it is absolutely not true that there are no real atheists. Gaven defines an un-real atheist as one who professes atheism while all the time secretly believing that there is a Vuntag (or some other goddess). Presumably, a real atheist would be one who professes atheism while at the same time believing atheism. Ordinarily, a burden of proof argument would be deployed to show that something doesn't exist, but there are plenty of people who profess atheism. This means that Gaven cannot mount a burden of proof argument because the existence of someone who professes a doctrine is universally taken as proving the existence of someone who actually holds that doctrine. The only exception to this occurs when we can show that the person professing the doctrine is insincere. Gaven therefore tries to show that none of the people professing atheism actually believe atheism. He tries to do this by means of a generalization based on a sample of professed atheists, well, former professed atheists. His sample consists of present Vuntagists, not present atheists, and these are presumably people who would prefer to believe that they had always believed what they presently believe, so these people have an interest, albeit an emotional interest, in believing that they had always believed in their hearts in Vuntag. Furthermore, given the billions of people on the planet is likely that there are millions and millions of atheists. This means that his sample size is less than one in a million, far too small for such an unstructured population. Finally, Mick exposes the absurdity of Gaven's argument by pointing out, using himself as an example, that if Gaven's rule is a genuine rule of logic, then the existence of Mick, a former Vuntagist who had never really believed in Vuntag, proves that there are no real Vuntagists. Given that Gaven presumably does believe in Vuntag in his heart, it follows that saying there are no real Vuntagists is absurd, and therefore so is Gaven's argument.
8. If this is the only evidence we have, we should conclude that marijuana is not a threshold drug. Apparently, a "threshold" substance is a substance that somehow, by itself, causes its users to go out and become a user of some more dangerous substance. In this case, it is alleged that marijuana is a threshold substance for crack cocaine. If this is true, then a significant number of present crack cocaine users would not presently be crack users if they had not previously been users of marijuana. On this view, if marijuana had been unavailable, these people would not now be crack users. On the other hand, if marijuana is not a threshold drug, then these crackheads would have found their way to crack whether or not marijuana had been available. It's important to note that the only evidence offered here is that those users who do both generally do marijuana before they do crack. This argument will only work if it is a universal rule that doing one thing before you do another thing proves that doing the first thing caused you to do the second thing. If this is a rule, then the fact that those crackheads who also drink milk started drinking milk sometime before they started doing crack proves that milk is a threshold substance for crack. This is nonsense, and so the rule is false, and therefore Todkopf's argument fails.
9. Crown tries to prove that Fnorbert exists and fails miserably. From this we should conclude that Fnorbert doesn't exist, or at the very least there is no reason to think that he does exist. Fnorbert is presumably some kind of deity, and so Crown has a very heavy burden of proof to overcome, as he would for any other supernatural being since such beings radically contradict the well-established facts of science. Now, when you trying to prove that something exists, you've got to start with a definition of that thing. Crown starts with a definition of Fnorbert that includes the claim that Fnorbert is the only possible source of morality. Laphroig counters with a definition of a secret conspiracy that includes the claim that this secret conspiracy is the only possible source of cheese. Crown claims that the existence of morality proves that Fnorbert exists because Fnorbert, as Crown defines him, is the only possible source of morality. Laphroig points out that if this argument works, it follows that the existence of cheese proves the existence of this secret conspiracy because the conspiracy, as Laphroig defines it, is the only possible source of cheese. This is a ludicrous argument, and because Laphroig's facts are true, (cheese exists, we have a definition of a secret conspiracy as the only source of cheese) the argument can only fail if the logical principle that purports to connect the two is false. Since Crown's argument depends on exactly the same logical principle, Crown's argument is equally ludicrous.
10. Crown tries to prove that Fnorbert exists and fails miserably. From this we should conclude that Fnorbert doesn't exist, or at the very least there is no reason to think that he does exist. Fnorbert is presumably some kind of deity, and so Crown has a very heavy burden of proof to overcome, as he would for any other supernatural being since such beings radically contradict the well-established facts of science. Now, when you trying to prove that something exists, you've got to start with a definition of that thing. Crown starts with a definition of Fnorbert that includes the claim that Fnorbert is the only possible source of morality. Laphroig counters with a definition of a secret conspiracy that includes the claim that this secret conspiracy is the only possible source of cheese. Crown claims that the existence of morality proves that Fnorbert exists because Fnorbert, as Crown defines him, is the only possible source of morality. Laphroig points out that if this argument works, it follows that the existence of cheese proves the existence of this secret conspiracy because the conspiracy, as Laphroig defines it, is the only possible source of cheese. This is a ludicrous argument, and because Laphroig's facts are true, (cheese exists, we have a definition of a secret conspiracy as the only source of cheese) the argument can only fail if the logical principle that purports to connect the two is false. Since Crown's argument depends on exactly the same logical principle, Crown's argument is equally ludicrous.
11. Based on the information presented above, it's possible that destabilizing Iraq will lead to horrific human disasters, but it's not necessarily likely. Jolie's argument is much worse than Snortblaster's, but that doesn't mean that Snortblaster's argument is good enough. Jolie says that Snortblaster's argument is like saying that two countries will behave very much the same way in the same circumstances just so long as they are similar in some small way. Jolie points out that Muslim countries are all different from each other, but ignores the fact that Snortblaster goes deeper into the similarities between the two countries than just saying that they're Muslim, so Jolie's argument commits the Straw Man fallacy. However, while Snortblaster discusses some deeper similarities between the two countries, he doesn't really talk about anything that would be likely to cause horrible human disasters. Whatever it was that made Afghanistan go all to hell after Carter and Brzezinski started in on it doesn't seem to be mentioned in Snortblaster's argument, so we don't know whether it's present in Iraq or not. This means that Snortblaster's argument doesn't work.
12. Since Donavan bears the burden of proof, we would assume that his conclusion is wrong if just it turned out that neither argument here was any good. The playing field is tilted against someone who bears the burden of proof since he only wins if his argument is good and the other argument is bad. If both arguments are equally good, or equally bad, the arguer with the burden of proof loses. As an authority argument, Donavan's argument relies on his sources being competent and independent experts. Unfortunately, while they are successful publications, neither the Wall Street Journal nor Forbes Magazine are scientific journals, so they don't count as experts in economics. Furthermore they are owned by rich people, controlled by rich people, and depend on the patronage of rich people for their existence. That is a powerful incentive to say whatever they think will please rich people, so they cannot be assumed to be independent. Clifford's argument relies on the analogy between rich people and robbers. The strength or weakness of this analogy depends on how these rich people got their money. If the vast majority of rich people got their money under conditions of fair competition, then the analogy does not work. However, if the vast majority of rich people got their money from sweetheart deals, favors from government, monopolistic practices, price-fixing, deceptive advertising, corporate welfare and so on, then this analogy works very well. While there is considerable evidence that a large proportion of our rich people got rich through dishonest means, this conclusion is extremely controversial, so the analogy is likewise controversial. Clifford cannot just assume that rich people are like robbers, so his argument is weak also. Given that Donavan bears the burden of proof, the fact that both arguments fail means that the most reasonable conclusion is that the tax break is not a good idea.
13. The gas gauge reads nearly empty.
(Nearly empty gas tanks should be filled before driving much further.)
Witta and Xena should stop and put gas in the tank very soon. (deductive -
direct argument.) versus:
The windshield washer fluid container is full
The windshield washer fluid container will stay full for a long, long
time.
Witta's wrong about the gas tank. (deductive - opposing argument - red
herring fallacy.) or:
Witta says the windshield washer fluid container is nearly empty.
The windshield washer fluid container is full
The windshield washer fluid container will stay full for a long, long
time.
Witta's wrong about the gas tank. (deductive -
opposing argument - straw man fallacy.)
Okay, this is a really, really easy example. But all straw man arguments
follow the same basic strategy: Missrepresent the other side, defeat the
mistrpresentation and then pretend that the other side is defeated. Watch
out for this one!
15. If Mutt's argument has the same logical form as a logically compelling
argument, that does not mean that Mutt's argument is
good, because Mutt's argument could have one or more false premises.
16. If Mutt's argument has the same premises as a bad argument, that does not that Mutt's argument is bad, because Mutt's argument could have a conclusion that follows logically from those premises.
17. If Mutt's argument has the same logical form as an argument that's bad because it has a false premise, that does not mean that Mutt's argument is bad, because Mutt's argument could have all true premises.
18. If Mutt's argument has the same logical form as an argument that's bad because of it's logical form, it tells us that Mutt's argument cannot possibly be a good argument, because no argument with a bad form can possibly be a good argument.
Copyright © 2011 by Martin C. Young
