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17.1 Argument by Authority
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An authoritative link is used to create a positive association between an arguer’s claim and the statement of some authority. But what exactly is “an authority?” People who have engaged in certain positive acts become “authorities,” and their words carry more weight than those of persons who are not authorities. For example, persons who have earned advanced degrees in nuclear physics are considered authorities in that subject, and audiences tend to accept, without further argument, what they say regarding nuclear physics. A person with a degree in French literature would not be accepted as an authority on nuclear physics.
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To assess the adequacy of an authoritative link, debaters should ask at least three questions about the particular source used to support the claim:
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1) Is the person an expert? Many qualities identify people as experts, but usually, experts hold advanced degrees or have particular experiences that give them access to information beyond that which is available to the general public.
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2) Is the person an expert in a field relevant to the claim? Even if a person is a well-recognized expert, his or her expertise might not be in an area relevant to the argument. A person trained in nuclear physics may be a qualified source about nuclear energy but is not likely to be qualified to talk about international relations.
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3) Is the person trustworthy? Even if a person is an expert in a relevant field, that person may not be trustworthy. Trustworthiness is related to a person’s ability to make relatively unbiased conclusions. As an authority, a person may lack trustworthiness because of either a lack of honesty or unwillingness to change his or her pre-formed opinions. For example, in the statement by the former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, to US President, George W. Bush, Tenet told Bush that the prospects of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would be a “slam dunk”.10 Tenet’s prediction proved to be false. Some believe that Tenet was being dishonest; some believe he was simply unable to get past his previous beliefs about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.
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Authoritative links are used to connect experts’ statements directly to the claim that a debater wishes to make. Debaters need to make sure to only use authoritative links to support appropriate kinds of claims, and to ensure that the authority is an expert in the particular field under consideration, and is trustworthy.
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17.2 Argument by Generalization
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An argument by generalization can be used to describe an entire group by presenting evidence from specific cases selected from within that group. Such an argument almost always relies on examples as evidence (discussed in the previous chapter). Generalization is based on the probability that examples selected from a group are likely to exhibit many of the same features of the group as a whole. In other words, by examining a representative sample of a group, one is able to make a statement about the group as a whole. The assumption is that characteristics observed in the group probably belong to not only the sample, but also to the group as a whole.
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Thus, an argument by generalization moves from evidence about specific examples to a claim regarding the group as a whole. For instance, a debater wanting to argue that student athletes will become successful business people should begin by examining examples of students who were athletes in school and who later became successful in business. To construct such an argument, the debater would describe several representative examples of student athletes, then would show how each of them turned out to be successful in business. The point of the argument is not to merely describe the members of the group—the examples of student athletes—but to argue that the entire population of student athletes (or at least a substantial portion of them) shares the characteristic of becoming successful business people. Thus, the argument is designed to link examples chosen from a sample group of student athletes to the entire population of student athletes.
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The above example illustrates a descriptive claim, the most common type of claim supported by argument by generalization. The argument only shows that they become successful business people. It does not explicitly state that being a successful businessperson is good or bad. This description however, like most descriptions, has evaluative dimensions. If one believes that successful business people are fundamentally unhappy, the argument could be used to argue that participation in athletics is a bad idea. If, on the other hand, one believes that becoming a successful businessperson is valuable—because it provides a good income, stability for a family, etc.—then this argument can be used to argue that participation in student athletic programs is valuable. Probably, most people believe that success in business is valuable, but the point is that, although the argument is explicitly and primarily descriptive, it contains implicit evaluative dimensions, as well.
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Some arguments using generalization links are better than others. The adequacy of a generalization link is based on at least two assumptions: 1) that a sufficient number of examples are presented as evidence, and 2) that the examples are representative of the entire group. For example, to argue that student athletes become successful business people by pointing to only a couple of examples would not be sufficient as a generalization. In that particular case, two examples are not sufficient to allow the debater to make a statement about student athletes in general. The second question to be asked about the adequacy of a generalization link is whether the examples are representative of the group as a whole. If the examples of student athletes came, for instance, from a single university, one might not be able to argue that they are representative of the entire population of student athletes. More will be said about the adequacy of this and other kinds of links in Chapter 21, “Fallacies in Argumentation.”
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Argument by generalization functions because several examples drawn from a group are linked to the overall group. This link allows debaters to create descriptive arguments. Other kinds of links can also be used to create descriptive and other kinds of arguments.
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17.3 Argument by Analogy
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In an argument by generalization, a claim about a group is based on information about selected members of that group. The link created by analogy is different. Analogy, based on an association of similarity, occurs when the arguer makes a claim about one member of a group based on the features of some other member. As a generalization link moves from specific cases to a generality, a link by an analogy moves from one specific case to another.
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Two subtly different kinds of analogy will be discussed in this chapter, using the first kind, the debater argues that one example is similar to another; in the second kind, the debater argues that two examples are so similar in known regards that they should be expected to also be similar in unknown regards.
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With regard to the first kind of analogy, a debater might simply want to establish the similarity between two examples. For instance, consider the claim that “Life in 21st century China will be like life in 20th century United States.” That argument makes a statement about 21st century China based on the similarities between it and the life in the United States in the 20th century. To make such an argument, an arguer needs to describe some features of life in 20th century United States, then show that those features are likely to be present in 21st century China. The similarities of the features of those two examples then allow the arguer to make the general claim that, “Life in 21st century China will be like life in 20th century US.”
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The conclusion of that analogy is a general one about similarities between the United States and China. That type of analogy might be used for evaluative purposes. If life in 20th century US was good, life in 21st century China might be expected to also be good. So, in a general way, something we know about the first example (life is good in 20th century US) predicts something we do not know about the second (life will be good in 21st Century China). However, that prediction is only implied and is not an explicit part of the analogy. The prediction becomes explicit in the second kind of analogy.
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In the second kind of analogy, a debater might want to argue that two examples are so similar in known regards that they are also expected to be similar in unknown regards. That kind of argument by analogy also uses two parallel cases. The cases are said to be parallel because they both contain known similar features. However, the first case contains a known feature that is unknown in the second case. This argument by analogy infers that the features known in the first case and unknown in the second probably are present in both cases.
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Using the earlier example of China and the US, the arguer might focus on similarities between the two parallel cases, China and the US. The arguer might suggest that those two cases are similar in two known regards: the presence of strong economic power and increasing numbers of women in the workplace. Based on the presence of those two known similarities, the arguer then might infer that a known feature of the first case, e.g., a general lowering of the rate of unemployment, will also be present in the second case. Thus, the claim made in that argument could be that 21st century China will witness a general lowering of the rate of unemployment. The analogy allows the debater to infer that something known in the first case is present, although unknown, in the second case.
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In many instances, an argument by analogy supports a descriptive argument. Consider again the general analogy that 21st century China will be like 20th century US. A precise reading of that claim suggests that it merely describes, without evaluating, life in 20th century US, and 21st century China. However, this and most analogies are at least implicitly evaluative because the audience evaluates the first case (here, life in 20th century US.) in a particular way and, therefore, will likely come to evaluate the second case (here, life in 21st century China) in the same way. Depending on the audience, people may have either a negative or positive association with 20th century US. They may see the US, as an arrogant superpower and a terrible polluter, or, on the positive side, may see the US as an economic powerhouse and an advocate for human rights. So, depending on whether the audience sees 20th century US as positive or negative, the argument by analogy will lead them to evaluate 21st century China in the same positive or negative way. Thus, an analogy has the function of transferring the positive or negative evaluation of the 20th century US to 21st century China.
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A precise reading of the second example’s claim that “21st century China will witness a general lowering of the rate of unemployment” also indicates that this is a descriptive claim. A more insightful reading, however, suggests that the claim is also evaluative given the assumption that most audiences perceive lowering the rate of unemployment as a positive thing. Thus, a more subtle reading of this claim indicates that it is evaluative as well as descriptive.
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17.4 Argument by Causality
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