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Many times debaters express a desire to produce the perfect argument, the argument that has no possible refutation. That desire reflects a basic misunderstanding about the nature of debate. Debate exists to find critical points of disagreement about substantive and controversial issues. If disagreement does not exist, the issue is not debatable and, thus, is not the kind of issue that debaters engage. Therefore, the perfect argument, even if it were possible to produce, would be trivial because it would not be about a substantive and controversial issue. An argument about a substantive and controversial issue is, by its nature, never irrefutable. An argument about a substantive, controversial issue can never be proven beyond all doubt. Therefore, this text speaks of supporting a claim rather than proving a claim.
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The question is, what are some logical criteria for determining whether the support that an argument offers is more or less adequate or inadequate? The criteria used in this text follow directly the work of Johnson and Blair and, for the purposes of this text, will be called the Johnson and Blair Model of Argument Cogency. Following the Johnson and Blair model, this text maintains that the three criteria for assessing the quality of an argument are acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency (Johnson and Blair, 2006: 45-55). The following diagram, which this text has renamed the Johnson and Blair Model of Argument Cogency, is taken directly from their book (Johnson and Blair, 2006: 54) and illustrates those criteria:
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Johnson and Blair Model of Argument Cogency
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Before examining each of the standards individually, a few words about how the standards relate to the structure of an argument is in order. The standard of acceptability applies to the evidence on which the argument is built. In other words, to be logically adequate, an argument needs to be based on evidence that is acceptable to the audience. The standards of relevance and sufficiency apply to the links that are drawn between evidence and claim. At minimum, the link needs to relate to the evidence-claim relationship. Sometimes, a link is relevant to a claim, but is still not sufficient. The relationship between those three criteria and the structure of argument that has been presented in this book is illustrated in the chart below:
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Johnson and Blair’s Model applied to the Structure of Argument
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As the chart above indicates, the standard of acceptability applies to the element of argument called evidence, and the standards of relevance and sufficiency apply to the element of argument called the link. Each of those standards will now be considered individually.
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21.1.1 The Standard of Acceptability
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As stated earlier, the standard of acceptability applies to evidence. As suggested in Chapter 16, evidence is the foundation of an argument. Without that element of argument, a claim cannot be established.
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The standard of acceptability means that evidence must be acceptable to the judge or audience before the argument can proceed. Audiences and judges will have different levels of acceptability for any particular piece of evidence. For instance, an audience or judge may view certain evidence as “unquestionably true,” “probable,” “plausible,” etc. At minimum, the judge or audience ought to be willing to accept the evidence “for the purposes of this argument.” To say that evidence is acceptable “for the purposes of this argument” means that the audience or judge is willing to tentatively accept the evidence so that the argument can proceed.
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Realizing that the standards for acceptability of evidence may vary from audience to audience and from circumstance to circumstance, this text suggests three conditions that determine, more or less, the acceptability of evidence. Govier (2009: 140-155) originally posited seven acceptability conditions that this text has reduced to three that are the most useful for debaters. Like other standards of argument quality, the position taken in this book is that evidence should be viewed as “more or less” acceptable rather than absolutely or categorically “acceptable” or “unacceptable.”
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First, evidence can be considered acceptable if it is common knowledge. In other words, if the evidence is known to be accurate by virtually everyone in the debater’s audience, that evidence meets the condition of acceptability. Some examples that most would consider to be common knowledge include statements like “Nelson Mandela served as President of South Africa,” or “Mahandas Gandhi employed non-violent civil disobedience.”
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Second, if evidence is not common knowledge, it could still be considered acceptable if a published source or a recognized authority supports it elsewhere. For instance, most people would not consider as common knowledge the idea that genetically modified food may do harm to our offspring. However, to make this evidence acceptable, a debater could cite a prestigious resource. The knowledge that this evidence was published by a reputable source would make it acceptable to most audiences. Recognized authorities also can be used to help a debater make evidence acceptable. For instance, quoting Liu Yang about challenges for females in the Chinese space program would make that information more acceptable because she was the first Chinese female astronaut.
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Finally, evidence that is not common knowledge can be made acceptable by constructing a cogent sub-argument. In a case where a debater comes to believe that the evidence presented is of questionable acceptability to the judge or the audience, the debater can create a sub-argument to support the evidence. Using a cogent sub-argument to make evidence acceptable is illustrated as follows:
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The debater transforms the evidence of questionable acceptability into a claim supported by evidence that is acceptable. The original evidence of questionable acceptability can lead to an unsuccessful claim. To remedy that situation, the debater can transform or replace the old evidence by producing a new sub-claim, using new acceptable evidence, and that sub-claim can then replace the old evidence that was questionably acceptable, thereby producing a successful claim.
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In summary, the standard of acceptability applies to evidence. Without acceptable evidence, the claim itself cannot be supported. Acceptable evidence meets one of three standards: It is common knowledge; It is supported by a respected publication or an authority, or it is supported by a cogent sub-claim. Those three standards are neither absolute nor perfect, thus, meeting one of them makes the evidence more-or-less acceptable, but not absolutely acceptable.
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21.1.2 The Standard of Relevance
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The standard of relevance is related to the link between evidence and claim. It asks whether the link successfully connects the evidence to the claim. The goal of an argument is to transfer the acceptability of evidence to the claim. The link is what determines success or failure in achieving that goal. The relevance of the link is actually a minimal standard. The standard is met if the evidence has anything at all to do with the claim. In other words, the standard of relevance asks whether or not the link, even minimally, succeeds in transferring the acceptability of the evidence to the claim.
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The previous section provided three criteria of acceptability. However, those criteria do not exist for the standard of relevance. The standard of relevance is met if the acceptability of evidence has anything at all to do with the acceptability of the claim. The standard is such a minimal one that failure to meet it is quite rare. Usually, the evidence is not totally irrelevant to the claim.
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However, one way that evidence in a cause and effect claim can be irrelevant is when the cause comes after the effect. One example of such an argument that fails to meet the standard of relevance is the causal claim that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising caused Kristallnacht, a series of violent anti-Jewish attacks led by Nazi Party officials and Nazi storm troopers. The argument attempts to link the Warsaw Ghetto uprising with Kristallnacht. That link is completely irrelevant because Kristallnacht occurred in November 1938 and the Warsaw Ghetto uprisings did not occur until 1943. The link between cause and effect is not at all relevant because the purported cause happened after the effect.
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Another example involves the claim that the death sentence imposed on Yao Jiaxin was justified because he was a member of the fu er dai, or the “rich second generation.” Whether or not he was rich is not related to whether or not he deserved the death sentence. Thus, the link between the appropriateness of the death penalty and his wealth does not meet the standard of relevance.