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10.1.1.1 Internal Refutation The first method of refutation can be called internal because it involves examining the argument by looking at its component parts and the relationship of those parts to one another. When debaters examine an argument internally, they are trying to decide whether or not it meets the criteria for a good argument. If it does not, the argument is said to be “fallacious.” Thus, the internal method of refutation involves the process of detecting fallacies.1 The concept of fallacies is briefly developed here simply to illustrate the idea of internal refutation. Fallacies will be discussed briefly in this section and more extensively in Chapter 21.
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To understand the process of detecting fallacious arguments, the criteria for the logical assessment of arguments needs to be examined more fully. A good argument must have good evidence, and the evidence should be soundly linked to a claim. The features of argument—claims, evidence, and links—will be more fully discussed later. For now, we will simply say that an argument is a good one if it is built upon good evidence and good links between the evidence and the claim.
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Canadian Philosophers, Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair, developed three standards for distinguishing good arguments from poor ones. Those standards are related to the quality of evidence and the quality of the links between evidence and claims; the first standard is related to evidence, and the second and third standards are related to links. The three standards are called acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency. The following diagram, that we will henceforth call the Johnson and Blair Model of Argument Cogency, is a simple illustration of these three criteria (Johnson and Blair, 2006: 55).
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Johnson and Blair Model of Argument Cogency
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Arguments that satisfy the three criteria are logically good arguments, and those that fail to satisfy one or more of them are not as good. If an argument fails to satisfy one of the criteria, the debater presenting that argument has committed a fallacy. The sections below outline each of the three criteria and the basic fallacy associated with each criterion.
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The standard of acceptability is related to the concept of evidence. Evidence is the material that debaters use to support their arguments. For instance, debaters might use information or statistics from published sources as evidence to support their argument. A debater thinking about refuting an argument based on a published source would want to ask if the published source was a good one; does the publication have a good reputation for publishing accurate information? Sometimes a debater might use persons of authority to support their arguments. Here, the rebuttalist might ask whether or not the author who is cited is qualified in the field that is the subject of the published source.
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Statements such as “the publication my opponents have cited has a reputation for only publishing liberal (or conservative) information” or “the person my opponents cite as an authority may be an authority in some field, but not in one relevant to this argument.” Statements like those involve internal refutation. If those statements prove acceptable, they indicate that the opponent’s argument involves a fallacy.
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Sometimes, an argument can be supported by acceptable evidence but still be a logically poor argument because it does not meet one of the two other standards. Such would be the case if the evidence were acceptable but not properly linked to the claim. In that case, the standard of relevance is used to judge whether or not the evidence, however good, is related to the claim the debater is trying to make. Let’s say that a cancer drug was tested on 25 males and found to have a positive effect, and that study was used as evidence to support an argument that the cancer drug was good for a particular kind of cancer that occurred primarily in females. Because the evidence only involved males and the conclusion only involved females, the evidence is not relevant to the conclusion. Such an argument would be open to a charge that it does not meet the standard of relevance and, thus, the debater has presented a fallacious argument.
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An argument can begin with acceptable evidence that is relevant to the claim and still not be good enough to persuade the judge or the audience. A number of examples exist where evidence is relevant to an argument but still not sufficient. Say, for instance, that a lawyer says, “Because of the place of the wound, we know the murderer was left-handed and the accused man is left-handed, thus, the accused is guilty of murder.” Of course, the evidence that the accused is left-handed is relevant to whether or not he was, in fact, the murderer, but that evidence is not sufficient to convince a reasonable judge or audience because the murderer could have been any number of left-handed men or women.
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The standard of sufficiency demands that the combination of evidence and reasoning be good enough to convince an audience or judge to accept the argument with a reasonable degree of certainty. A reasonable level of certainty is never 100%. In most argumentative situations where they are expected to choose between two competing arguments, judges will accept the argument that they consider most probable. The standard of sufficiency is the standard that ensures that the argument meets this level of probability.
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Thus, if a debater can show how the argument does not meet the standards of acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency, that debater can show how the opponent has presented a fallacious argument. The charge of fallacy may inspire the original debater to make the argument better, in which case, refutation has served the generative function of causing improved arguments. If the argument cannot be repaired, it will be rejected.
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10.1.1.2 External Refutation A second method of refutation involves the external method of presenting a counter argument. We may think of this method as external because, rather than criticizing the internal structure of the argument, it brings another, outside argument to bear on the critique of the original argument. Even if the arguments presented by an opponent are not fallacious, debaters may be able to present arguments that directly counter them. In the earlier example of the left-handed murderer, if the defense attorney proclaims, “Yes, but the defendant is really right-handed,” even though the defense attorney did not criticize the internal method by which the other attorney made the argument, the defense attorney nevertheless has refuted the original argument by presenting a counter argument.
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Imagine a debate in which a debater on the Government side argues for changes in education policy, and a debater on the opposition side claims that the present system is already making necessary reforms and those reforms make the changes suggested by the Government debater unnecessary. The Government debater might present a counter-argument to suggest that the reforms being undertaken are of a cosmetic nature only and do not address the main issues of educational opportunities. That kind of counter-argument constitutes what this chapter calls external refutation.
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Thus, refutation may involve either an internal method of examination of the argument to detect fallacious reasoning, or an external method of presenting a counter argument. Either of these methods may succeed in refuting the argument. But perhaps the strongest method would be to refute an argument by using a combination of both methods—to show that the argument fails to meet one or more of the standards of a good argument and, in addition, to present a counter argument.
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思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132413]
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10.1.2 Deciding What to Refute
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Time does not usually permit refutation of each and every argument. In a competitive debate situation, each debater has a limited amount of time and needs to think about the judicious use of time. Debaters need to remember that, not only will they be engaging in refutation, but they need to have time to present constructive arguments as discussed in previous chapters of this text.
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Even in a situation where time is not limited, the choice to try to refute every argument still may be unwise. Imagine how an audience might react to a debater who said “no” to every point raised by a speaker. The audience might perceive the debater to be particularly arrogant and disrespectful of the speaker of the opposite side. So, whether time is or is not of the essence, the debater needs to make some judgments about which arguments to refute.
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Since every argument cannot and should not be refuted, debaters will need some guidelines to decide where to focus their efforts. A frequent error committed by beginning debaters is to look for their opponents’ weakest arguments and focus their efforts there. The implicit idea is that, because something can be refuted it should be refuted. In cases like these, the beginning debater frequently refutes a number of arguments that have no overall impact on the outcome of the debate.
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Instead of focusing on refuting weak arguments, debaters with more experience focus on refuting particularly important arguments. By focusing on the important arguments, debaters have a greater likelihood that their overall plan of refutation will have a greater impact on the debate. Every argument a debater makes is not equally important. Debaters should refute only those that are the most important.
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Deciding whether or not an argument is important involves at least two considerations:
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First, is the argument essential to the case made by the opposing speaker? If it is, the debater will want to consider refuting that argument. For example, if an opponent suggests that the principle that supports reform of hukou is equality of the individual, the debater may want to refute the fact that equality is not an important principle in collectivist society. In this example, because the opponent has held equality of the individual as a high value, presenting the value of a collectivist society as higher than that of the individual is an important factor in the overall judgment.
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Second, does the argument stand in the way of some important argument that the debater engaging in refutation wants to make? If so, that debater needs to refute it. For example, a debater on the Government side intends to advance an argument that reform of education will advance the principle of sustaining one’s community. If, in this case, an Opposing debater claims that the current education system is congruent with community values, the Government debater supporting the proposition should consider refuting the connection between the educational system and community values. Otherwise, the debater defending the motion cannot possibly continue to advance the argument because the principle of sustaining a community is no longer held as important.
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After debaters think about internal and external methods of refutation and consider what arguments should and should not be refuted, they are ready to think about the method of refutation that they will use.
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