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Claims of association by similarity are useful when debaters need to ascribe the characteristics of one thing to another. For instance, some have compared exploitation of animals for work and food to human slavery. To make such a claim, a debater might argue that in order to use animals for work or for food, humans need to consider animals as “property” in the same way that slaves were considered property. Since most audiences reject slavery on moral grounds, this kind of claim of similarity is used in an attempt to convince an audience to reject the idea that animals can be considered property.
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15.1.1.3 Claims of Evaluation
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Claims of evaluation include several kinds of claims, all of which involve values or evaluations in similar ways. First, these kinds of claims can be used to order values so that one value is considered more important than another. For instance, a debater might assert the claim that “Freedom is more important than security.” Such a claim is interesting by itself because it brings to light a particular hierarchy of values. A value hierarchy can be used to assign certain concepts, people, institutions, or actions a higher or lower value in terms of how those things will be evaluated. Thus, this kind of value hierarchy may also become important when debaters create claims to assign values to objects.
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Second, some evaluative claims assign values to objects. These claims are quite common in debate. For instance, the claim that “The culture of ancient Greece was the most enlightened in human history,” assigns a positive value to the culture of ancient Greece. Similarly, to argue that “The 2008 Beijing Olympics were the best Olympic games in modern history,” assigns a very high value to the 2008 Olympics relative to other Olympic games.
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Third, another very common type of evaluative claim involves policy or action. “The nations of the world should reduce dependence on nuclear power” is an example of a claim that supports a particular policy. Another is “The government of Botswana should do more to protect wildlife within its borders.” Both of these claims evaluate a particular action, whether that action is reducing dependence on nuclear power or protecting wildlife.
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15.1.2 A Taxonomy of Claims
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Claims recommending changes in policy may involve debates about definitions and descriptions, associations of cause and effect or similarity, as well as values. Policy claims are among the most complex claims that can be debated. Still, as a matter of convention, they are probably the most common.
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Thinking about how to classify different kinds of claims is more than just an academic exercise. By considering how a particular claim is classified, a debater can also better think of how to support that claim. As they become more experienced, debaters will learn to use certain types of claims, either singly or in combination with one another, to support various kinds of claims. Methods of combining types of claims to support claims of evaluation will be considered more fully in Chapter 20.
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The category system used in this text is different from systems used in other books about argumentation and debate. As stated earlier, the traditional and most common taxonomy is fact, value, and policy. Because debaters will undoubtedly come in contact with this traditional method of organizing claims, a description of the similarities of the traditional taxonomy and the one used in this text is presented in the table below. The table uses Hill and Leeman’s taxonomy as a starting point because it is perhaps the most complete.
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The categories of “definition, description, and association,” as they are used in this text, correspond to Hill and Leeman’s category of “fact.” Hill and Leeman’s category of “fact” includes three subcategories: “being, designation, and relationship.” Hill and Leeman’s subcategory of “being” corresponds to this text’s category of “description.” When a debater describes an object, that description is frequently offered in terms of brute facts, especially when the object to be described is one that exists in the empirical world. Hill and Leeman (1996: 134) describe the subcategory of “being” as “concerned with whether an object of focus exists or whether an action occurred.”. Their “being” subcategory appears to be similar to what Searle called “brute” facts. Hill and Leeman’s subcategory of “designation,” seems similar to what Searle called “institutional” facts. In their words, designation involves “naming or classifying an object of focus” (Hill and Leeman, 1996: 135). Thus, Hill and Leeman’s category of “facts” corresponds to “definitions and descriptions” in the taxonomy used in this text. This text’s category of “association” is similar to Hill and Leeman’s subcategory of “relationship” although they exclusively discuss relationships of cause and effect. As they state, “Propositions of fact can address issues of relationship[emphasis mine]” (Hill and Leeman, 1996: 135). Hill and Leeman’s system does not explicitly include associations of similarity.
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Hill and Leeman’s (1996: 135) taxonomy contains a category called “value” which “generally posits some sort of evaluative judgment about the object of focus”. Therefore, their category of “value” corresponds to this text’s category of “evaluation,” specifically as to how values are sorted into hierarchies or how values are assigned to objects.
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Finally, Hill and Leeman (1996: 129) include a category they call “policy,” about which they assert, “that some type of action—policy—needs to be undertaken”. Their “policy” category is the same as a subcategory of our “evaluation” that is called, “evaluating policies and actions.”
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Since the system used in this text is so similar to the traditional taxonomy as presented by Hill and Leeman, some might question the need for a different taxonomy. Why not simply adopt the more traditional and well-known taxonomy? The answer to that question is that the category system used in this text is more than a taxonomy. It is a functional system that can be used to show how various forms of claims can be combined to create other kinds of claims. A complete answer to the question will be presented during the discussion of “combining claims coherently” in Chapter 20.
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15.2 Exceptions
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A question that no traditional debate texts consider is that of an exception. An exception is what Stephen Toulmin called a reservation. An exception allows the arguer to identify circumstances in which the claim does not hold. So, one might claim that in cases of divorce, the wife ought to have custody of the children except in cases where she is proven to be an incompetent parent. Another example might be that China should adopt an odd-even system for automobiles except for taxis.4 In both of those cases, exceptions allow the arguer to further define the circumstances under which the claim ought to be accepted. This is especially useful because an arguer who proactively describes his or her own exceptions will be more persuasive than an arguer who allows the opposing debater to point out the exceptions. Exceptions thus allow a debater to make the claim clear and focused.
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The following diagram illustrates the use of evidence to create a claim that contains an exception:
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Some exceptions are more appropriate than others. Appropriate exceptions are those that follow the implicit reasoning used in the original evidence-claim relationship. The exception mentioned above is a reasonable one, because the original evidence-claim relationship involves who is a good parent and, therefore, which parent ought to have custody of a child during a divorce. An inappropriate exception is one that simply tries to protect the claim from legitimate objections that are not a part of the original evidence-claim relationship. For instance, to claim that, in case of divorce, custody should be granted to the mother unless she is a member of a certain religion or minority group is less legitimate because being a member of such a group is not obviously related to whether or not she is a good parent.
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This chapter has discussed the idea of a claim that is sometimes combined with an exception. Claims are a fundamental element of an argument because they directly involve and articulate the point that the arguer is trying to debate. Exceptions provide the debater with an opportunity to focus and clarify the claim by identifying situations and circumstances when the debater does not support the claim, thereby strengthening the claim against the opponent’s refutation.
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15.3 Summary
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This chapter focused on the most basic element of any argument, the claim, along with any exceptions that might accompany that claim. The chapter briefly touched on the concept of evidence, which will be more fully explained in the next chapter. Evidence was considered here because it is the element of argument that is designed to support the claim. Without evidence, no claim can be persuasive.
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In this chapter, claims were divided into four categories: descriptive, definitional, associational, and evaluative. These four claims are the basic taxonomy of argumentative claims in this text, replacing the more familiar taxonomy of fact, value, and policy.