Premise Acceptability in Arguments (GRM)

6 premises: consistent, true, acceptable \ In this chapter, we return to argument evaluation. We have already noted that a strong argument has acceptable premises. A more in-depth account of what this means needs to address the issues raised when premises are (or are not) consistent, true, or acc...

6 premises: consistent, true, acceptable \ In this chapter, we return to argument evaluation. We have already noted that a strong argument has acceptable premises. A more in-depth account of what this means needs to address the issues raised when premises are (or are not) consistent, true, or acceptable. By the end of this chapter, you should have a deeper understanding so that you can confidently decide whether premises are acceptable, unacceptable, or questionable, and be able to justify your decision. \ In Chapter 2 we saw that a strong argument has acceptable premises and a valid inference. In the latter case, the inference in an argument moves us from acceptable premises to an acceptable conclusion. This is an important element of a good argument, but it successfully establishes a conclusion only if the premises it depends upon on are acceptable in some important way. In an effort to explain what this means in practice, this chapter provides an expanded account of premise acceptability. \1 Premise Acceptability and Its Complexities Traditionally, logic understands acceptable premises as premises which are true. This remains an important form of premise acceptability we appeal to when we judge the premises in many arguments. If the lawyer in a court argues that "\[*Conclusion*:\] The butler cannot be guilty of the murder, for \[*Premise 1*:\] the victim was shot in the family mansion in Connecticut, and \[*Premise 2*:\] the butler was on holiday in Barbados at that time." In this case, *Premises 1* and *2* are acceptable if they are true or likely true. In a real court case, a lawyer might need to defend the butler by constructing an extended argument that includes arguments that prove that *Premises* *1* and *2* are true or likely true. One might do so by presenting credible witnesses who corroborate them or by presenting the court with video or photographic evidence of the butler holidaying in Barbados. Someone analyzing the lawyer's argument might identify a hidden premise: i.e., the assumption that "the butler could not be holidaying in Barbados and commit a murder in Connecticut," which we will count as *Premise 3*. This is a premise which may seem obviously true, but in a court of law one might, as in the case of *Premises 1* and *2*, need to prove that it is true or likely true. Someone arguing against it might argue that the butler could have pulled the trigger of a gun in Connecticut from Barbados by using some AI system of remote control which allows them to fire a gun in Connecticut from a hotel in Barbados. This first example of an argument is a simple one in which empirical "facts" are at issue. This is the kind of case in which we are most likely to judge premises as acceptable by asking whether they are true or false, but it still shows that it can be difficult to decide whether premises are true in real-life arguments. Instead of adopting truth and falsity as our criterion for judging premises, we will say that the premises of a strong argument can be acceptable for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways: because they are true or likely true, plausibly true, more likely true than false, or (even more tentatively) acceptable hypotheses, or acceptable in some other way relevant to an argument. Which standards we apply when deciding what we judge as acceptable depends upon the context of an argument. In some cases, we may judge arguments to be strong---or strong enough to convince us of their conclusions---if their premises are only plausible or reasonable. In other cases, and especially when the conclusion of an argument has significant consequences---as it does in a court or a scientific argument---we may insist on a very high standard of acceptability, requiring that premises be established, not only as likely true, but as certain, obvious, or impossible to reject. The complexities that arise when we judge premise acceptability are especially pronounced when argumentative discussion revolves around multiple perspectives which are endorsed by arguers who have different (and frequently opposed) views of "the facts," and different political, moral, practical, and even religious inclinations. This is a reflection of our earlier point that "the public" is not a homogeneous group of people, but a conglomerate of many different groups who have diverse and conflicting perspectives and interests. In part because of the plethora of perspectives that characterize arguing, our judgments of premise acceptability are often infused with uncertainty, disagreement, and dispute. Other complicating factors are the partial and incomplete nature of our knowledge of the world and the limited view we may have of important issues that still matter to us. It is not easy to know what the population of the world will be fifty years from now, whether it will precipitate an environmental crisis; what should or is likely to happen in Middle East politics; whether we can reclaim the Alberta tar sands after extracting the oil that they contain; if the introduction of self-driving cars will eliminate more jobs than the economy can handle; or whether cell phones increase the likelihood that we will have certain kinds of brain cancer and what we should do to regulate them; and so on. Although our experience of the world rarely yields certainty when we assess premises, it can be used to establish claims that are reasonable and acceptable---claims that can be used as premises that establish reasonable conclusions. Much the same can be said of the many uncertainties and differences of opinion that arise when we consider arguments that are founded on moral, political, and religious opinions. Some philosophers hold that these differences give rise to *deep disagreements* which cannot be resolved because of the contrary views to which different arguers subscribe. Here we will only say that the existence of such issues means that we cannot expect our assessments of premises, in every case, to be clear and certain and lead to agreement. Instead of undermining questions of acceptability, this underscores the need to reason carefully, consider opposing points of view with an open mind, and weigh all the evidence which is available when we determine whether premises should and should not be accepted. Sometimes the best outcome of critical thinking is not the resolution of a disagreement, but an understanding of different positions on an issue that explains why people disagree as they do. This is part of the fabric of the societies in which we live, where debate on major issues is a sign of a healthy community of diverse thinking. Exercise 6-1 1\. On the internet, find an argument associated with high standards for premise acceptability, and one associated with low standards. Describe the standards and explain why the standards are what they are. Then swap with a partner and see if you can determine which of their arguments requires higher or lower standards of acceptability. Do you agree with each other? 2\. Decide whether the contexts below are argumentative in nature, and if so, whether they require higher or lower standards of premise acceptability. Be able to explain your decision. a. an argument for driving an electric vehicle b. an argument against using household bleach c. an argument for safe injection sites d. an argument for going to the cinema to watch any Captain America film e. an argument about which Ben & Jerry's ice cream is the best f. an argument about whether you should live in the mountains or near a body of water g. an argument about whether a God exists h. an argument against abortion i. an argument about intermittent fasting j. an argument about whether state surveillance artificial intelligence is biased \2 Consistency and Inconsistency Responsible arguers are ***consistent***. This means that their different beliefs and claims are compatible with one another (that they fit together to create a consistent point of view). **I*nconsistent* premises** occur when they assert two (or more) contrary claims. We cannot consistently claim that we visited Zimbabwe in 1971 and that we never left London, Ontario during that whole year. If we make both these claims in the course of a conversation or an argument, we are guilty of an *inconsistency*. Usually, speakers, writers and arguers avoid explicit contradictions. But there are many circumstances in which they can be charged with inconsistency because they involve, when we think about it, claims that are not consistent. In a real case of which we are aware, a professor ("Professor X") wrote letters of reference for two classmates ("Student Y" and "Student Z") in the year that they were both graduating. The professor was impressed by both of them and wanted to help them secure jobs. So he enthusiastically recommended each of them in the letter that he wrote. But his enthusiasm got the better of him when he wrote, in their letter for each, that they were "the best student I ever taught." In this situation, it should be obvious that Professor X is guilty of an inconsistency. There can only be one student who can be described as "the best student I ever taught." If Y is this student, then it can't be Z; and if it is Z, then it can't be Y. Inconsistencies of this sort may never come to light because someone's inconsistent claims are directed at, and shared with, different audiences. That didn't happen in this case because Y and Z applied for the same job, and both submitted the letter Professor X had written for them. When the members of the hiring committee read the inconsistent letters, they dismissed the Professor X's praise for both of them, rejecting his credibility, wondering how many other students he had described as "the best student I ever taught." When uncovered, the incompatibilities that arise from inconsistencies damage the credibility of an arguer and the views and arguments they propound. Later in Chapter 14, we will explore ways in which losses in credibility may lower the trust audiences have in arguers and their arguments. In this chapter, we are interested in the issues that arise when inconsistent claims play a role in arguing. If an arguer constructs an argument with unacceptable premises, they can in many cases address this problem by providing further arguments that back their premises. In doing so they may establish their acceptability. Their problems are more serious if the premises are inconsistent, for there is no way to defend inconsistent premises, for inconsistent premises cannot all be true or acceptable (if they were, then they would not be inconsistent). The most blatant kind of inconsistency is a *contradiction*. We contradict someone in a weak sense when we disagree with what they say. They are committed to a contradiction when they make opposing claims that cannot all be true (or acceptable). Contradictions in this sense suggest confusion in someone's thinking. If they say: "She is the best sister one could have, even though she has stolen from me on occasion," this implies a contradiction. The first claim ("She is the best sister one could have.") is contradicted by the second ("She has stolen from me on occasion."). For the best sister one could have would be one who does not steal from his siblings. We exhibit contradiction in a strong sense when we utter statements that cannot be true at the same time and in the same respect (or cannot both be false). One statement has to be true, and the other false. "I voted for candidate X," and "I didn't vote for candidate X" cannot both be true, unless the person is referring to different elections, in which case the statements are not uttered at the same time and in the same respect. As an example of inconsistent claims, consider the following case, drawn from the *Hansard* record of the Question Period in the Canadian Parliament. It involves an exchange between Andrew Scheer (the leader of the opposition conservatives) and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2018. Trudeau had just returned from an official visit to India which had been marred by controversy after it was disclosed that a Sikh extremist convicted of attempting to murder an Indian politician was invited to dine with Trudeau at the Canadian High Commissioner\'s residence in New Delhi. This offended the India governed and became an international incident that raised the question of who had made the invitation. The Prime Minister's national security advisor attributed the invitation it to "rogue members" of the Indian government, but a member of Mr. Trudeau's own party also spoke up and took sole responsibility for the invitation. On his return to Canada, the Prime Minister endorsed both of these accounts. Scheer addressed the inconsistency in doing so during Question Period. \ **Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition, CPC):**   **[Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister, Lib.)](https://apps.ourcommons.ca/ParlDataWidgets/en/intervention/9992594):**   **Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition, CPC):**   \ In this exchange, Trudeau appears to endorse inconsistent claims: that (i) rogue members of the Indican government were behind this incident; and (ii) that a member of the liberal government has taken "sole responsibility." In the first case, the aim seems to be to deflect criticisms that his own government was responsible for the invitation. In the second, case, the aim seems to isolate the blame so that it is attached to a single member of the government. When we are faced with inconsistent claims---our own or those of others---we may look for a way to reconcile them (a way to render them consistent). Someone who has said that two different places are the best place to live, might try to reconcile by saying that one is the best for a young person, the other for an older person---or that one is best from a financial point of view, the other from the point of view of weather. Sometimes these attempts at reconciliation are successful, sometimes not. In his exchange with Prime Minister Trudeau, Scheer's final comment is an attempt to argue that the only possible reconciliation of Trudeau's two claims raises some serious questions that need to be answered. In this case, we would standardize his argument as follows: When you come across inconsistent claims in your own analysis of arguments (your own, or those of others), one of the questions you should ask is whether there might be a way to reconcile the inconsistencies you find. Exercise 6-2 The following excerpts suggest an argument to the conclusion that someone is inconsistent. Diagram the suggested argument in each case. Then decide if the apparent inconsistencies can be reconciled. 1\. \[From The Hill, 1 January 2020: "CNN's blatant and bizarre Tulsi Gabbard snub," by Joe Concha, on the treatment of Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard by CNN\] CNN has held more town hall events than any of the three cable news networks over the past few years and continues that programming strategy as we head into the meat of the 2020 campaign. For the most part, the network has made an effort to provide every candidate on the Democratic side during the primary season with an hour-long stage to answer questions from moderators and voters alike. And that\'s what makes CNN\'s decision to snub Rep. [Tulsi Gabbard](https://thehill.com/people/tulsi-gabbard) (D-Hawaii) from a series of town halls just days before the New Hampshire primary not only odd but optically nonsensical. 2\. \[ From *Toronto SUN,* "Ford\'s Tories shouldn\'t repeat Liberal mistakes," by Lorrie Goldstein, 3 November 2018:\] 3\. \[From the website, *Science Feedback*, Oct. 31, 2023\] \3 Truth and Acceptability As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, judging premise acceptability is a complex matter. Premises are acceptable when they are true, likely true, or acceptable for some other reason---because they are morally or politically justified, reasonable scientific hypotheses, and so on. When premises are acceptable, they provide a *reasonable* basis for inferences that support whatever valid conclusions follow from them. In many cases, the key question raised by premise acceptability is the question whether premises are true or false. This can be an especially important question in a digital world in which information and "facts" that are not credible (and clearly, or likely, false) often circulate widely on the internet, on social media, and in the popular press. In November of 2020, as President Biden was preparing to take office in the United States, he assembled a task force to manage the American response to the coronavirus pandemic. It was responsible for the vaccination of Americans---a somewhat controversial issue given that many Americans claimed that they had a right to refuse the COVID-19 vaccination. Shortly after the task force was established, a story that circulated widely in the media claimed that it was planning to force Americans to be vaccinated by withholding food stamps and government aid from anyone who refused. A detailed "fact check" carried out by *USA Today* found this claim to be false, concluding that there was no evidence to support it, and that the task force was in fact committed to the opposite point of view: that vaccinations should not be forced on anyone. It can be difficult to assess the truth or falsity of premises, for there are many circumstances in which we do not have access to the information or the evidence we would need in order to reasonably decide. Sometimes such evidence is simply not available. In other circumstances, it is purposely hidden, as it is when people obfuscate matters by lying about things in ways that protect their interests or deliberately withhold information because they do not want others to be able to draw uncomfortable conclusions. At the start of President Trump's presidency, he was dogged by an FBI investigation into the accusation that he had colluded with Russian agents in an illegitimate attempt to influence the American election that he won. According to his account, the charges and the investigation were a politically biased attempt ("a witch hunt") which was purposely designed to unfairly discredit him. Four years later, declassified emails from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that details of the FBI investigation which might be taken to support the claim that it was politically motivated had been withheld from Congress when it had held its own investigation into the FBI's conduct. A Republican member (Devin Nunes) commenting on the e-mails complained that: "This is clearly lying and obstructing Congress. This is information that we asked for numerous times. We sat in meetings with DOJ and FBI, and they sat there and stone cold said there's no more information, there's no more text messages." In cases in which it is difficult to judge whether a prospective premise is true or false, we must consider whatever evidence can shed light on this question. We must do the same when it is not obvious whether a premise is acceptable from some other point of view. When arguments address a broad range of people---in public debates, in news commentaries, or the editorial or letters to the editor section of a newspaper, for example---this means that premises need to be acceptable to open-minded people who subscribe to different points of view. As we noted in Chapter 1, we call this audience a "universal" audience which is made up of diverse people who are *reasonable* because they are committed to opinions that are consistent with critical thinking ideals. The question of whether specific audiences find premises acceptable is especially important when the goal of arguing is *agreement* on some issue. In many such cases, arguments are not an attempt to establish certain or absolute truth, but an attempt to establish consensus, make decisions, create understanding, or influence social, political, and legal deliberations. When an audience is made up of people who disagree, there are many circumstances in which agreement can be secured without resolving fundamental disagreements that might still exist. This may be done by appealing to premises acceptable to those on different sides of a disagreement or, in more complex cases, by employing different sets of premises to convince those with different views that they should accept a common conclusion. In a situation in which a union and a company's management are bargaining to establish a new contract, a successful outcome ultimately depends on the ability of both bargaining teams to support the new agreement with premises that will be accepted by two very different audiences: the company's board and shareholders, and the union membership. The complications that surround issues of premise acceptability can be illustrated with an example. In urban areas across North America, there are growing sightings of coyotes. Often this leads to passionate debates over how to proceed in the affected cities. In some places, residents have established social media groups that share sightings, photographs, stories, and arguments about their urban coyotes. According to some coyote supporters, coyotes do not pose a serious threat to humans. Given this, they advocate for a peaceful co-existence between urban coyotes and humans. Non-supporters take a very different view, arguing that coyotes are a problem, especially as they are highly adaptive, sometimes attack people and pets, and increasingly demonstrate little fear of people, even when they traverse residential neighbourhoods during daylight. **Suppose that you decide to try and resolve this disagreement in a way that establishes what** should---and should not---be done to manage the coyote issue. Doing so will require an argument that convinces those in authority (perhaps by convincing the general public) what should be done. To build a strong argument, you will **need to find acceptable premises that lead to some clear conclusion and the actions this implies.** **In trying to build an argument you will need to understand who your audience is. It will include both those in authority and the general public (a type of universal audience). This means you will need an understanding of each audience and what premises they will find acceptable. This can raise complicated issues because it is not always clear who should be considered. In the case of the city of Ottawa, local authorities have said that the coyote issue is the responsibility of the provincial government; the provincial government has said it is the responsibility of the federal government; and the federal government has said it is the responsibility of the city. So, who is the authority to be addressed in that community?** Whatever audiences are addressed in an argument about urban coyotes, you will need to try and determine what risks the animals actually pose. Coyote supporters often cite generalizations like "Coyotes in cities pose no threat to humans" and "Coyotes are adapting to cities in a way that makes them a threat to humans." It is difficult to definitively declare either of these claims "true" because there are many documented instances in which coyotes run from humans but other cases in which humans (or the pets they own) have been attacked. Sorting out what is true or likely true in this regard requires a detailed investigation that could usefully appeal to experts and studies on coyote behaviour. Assuming that you can determine the risk that coyotes pose to humans, your recommendations about coyotes will have to be based on arguments which include considerations about other kinds of risks. When you drive in an automobile, for example, there is a risk that you will be involved in an accident, but most of us accept this risk as one that is not significant enough to stop us from doing so. In the case of coyotes, this raises the question of whether the risk they pose (whatever it is) requires a response. If coyotes very rarely cause harm to humans, some will say that they should be left alone. Others may argue that any risk to humans (perhaps especially children or even to pets), is unacceptable. Some may suggest that urban coyotes pose some risk, but that residents have a responsibility to take measures that eliminate or minimize it. Deciding (or establishing) what premises are acceptable in these cases will require a discussion of risk and what we need to do about it from a moral, political, and practical point of view. Some may argue that the risk coyotes pose does not justify what it would cost to eliminate them. Still further questions arise because a decision about what to do about coyotes in different cities must take into account the attitudes of their residents. In an argument, this means that premises that might be acceptable in one city might not be acceptable in another. In one city, residents may view coyotes as dangerous nuisances. In another, they may welcome them as fascinating wild neighbours. In the latter case, they might compare coyotes to the wild dogs that are allowed to roam the streets of Santiago, to deer that inhabit some cities in northern Ontario, or to the kangaroos that inhabit some cities in Australia. In your own arguing, you need to remember that judgments of premise acceptability have, as we noted in Chapter 2, important implications for the *burden of proof* associated with an argument. In judging a premise, you must ask whether a claim or position is acceptable as it stands. If it is, then the onus in arguing rests with those who reject the premise. If you want to use a premise that is not clearly acceptable, then the burden of proof shifts to you. All your premises must be subjected to this same test. Exercise 6-3 1\. \[The following excerpt addresses coyote issues in cities in California. There are two arguments that Quinn suggests. Diagram and discuss whether their premises are acceptable. How might you further strengthen them from this point of view? \[From "People and Pets Contend With Urban Coyotes in Los Angeles," *SpectrumNews1*, Dec. 16, 2020\] 2\. In New York state electric scooters are legal, but they must be ridden on (some) streets. You are vacationing with your friend in New York and your friend insists it would be okay to rent scooters and ride them on city sidewalks. You state that it is illegal. Who has the burden of proof in this case? How does the burden of proof in this case relate to acceptable premises? \4 Questionable Premises When considering any premise provided in support of a conclusion, ask yourself whether there is acceptable evidence that undermines the assumption. If you answer "Yes," then the premise is unacceptable. **Unacceptable premises** are premises that are contradicted by empirical evidence, inconsistent with some acceptable claim (in the most serious case, with another premise used in the reasoning), or vague or ambiguous. In some cases, you may have doubts about a premise, but not enough evidence to clearly establish it as unacceptable. In such a situation we say that there exists a **questionable premise** *and needs to be investigated* before it is deemed acceptable (or unacceptable). Imagine that you and a group of friends are planning to go out for the evening. Someone says: "Hans says that the new James Bond movie is the best movie he has seen in years, so we should go and see it." This is a simple argument, which can be diagrammed as follows---recognizing an important hidden premise as HP2. Assuming that the members of your group are friends, they and you are likely to accept what one of you reports about Hans's view of the James Bond movie. This makes P1 acceptable. HP2 goes much further, implying that Hans's judgment should guide the group's decision on what it should do. If this is something that everyone in the group regularly accepts, then HP2 might be judged to be another acceptable premise. But it is easy to imagine circumstances in which HP2 is unacceptable or at least questionable. If Hans has a history of liking movies that the group dislikes, one might declare HP2 unacceptable. If you do not know whether Hans is a good judge of movies, but want to be sure he is before you spend your hard-earned money watching one he likes, then you might treat HP2 as questionable. To investigate it you might ask what kind of movies Hans likes, what movies he has recommended in the past, and so on. In doing this, you investigate the acceptability of the premise. When criticizing others' arguments, you have a responsibility to support any suggestion that their claims are questionable. Ask yourself what evidence would be required to make it acceptable. What assurance do you need that has not been provided? In the course of such an investigation, keep an open mind. When you scrutinize a premise, you may find that it is acceptable and that there is evidence to back it. Amid a debate over the question of whether the Canadian government should introduce legislation about the sex trade, one commentator wrote a letter to the *Cape Breton Post* (4 July 2011) arguing that "prostitution" should not be treated as just another business called "sex work." One of the premises they offered in support of this claim was the statement that "It is an affront to the innate dignity of the human person to regard her (or his) body as just a commodity to be bought or sold." When we consider whether this premise is acceptable, we must ask what sort of evidence we *would* need to convince us that it is. This brings with it some significant challenges. For what does the letter writer mean by "dignity" in this context? Especially as dignity is a notoriously vague concept in moral debates. And how can the dignity in question be shown to be innate? That is something inborn or existing from birth. Perhaps we could say that treating humans with dignity means that they have a certain kind of importance that sets them apart from other things in nature. This resolves the definitional issue, but makes the premise controversial, for many would say that this is exactly why we need to have laws to make sure that sex workers, who are human beings, are treated well. Perhaps there is an audience that believes that it is obvious that dignity is incompatible with sex work, but we deem this premise questionable until someone clarifies its meaning in a way that makes it clearly acceptable. In some cases, questionable premises turn out to be unacceptable because an investigation leads to the conclusion that there is no clear way to assemble evidence that would make them acceptable. In another argument on laws governing sex workers, an arguer based their conclusions on the premise that "No woman would choose prostitution if she were warm and fed." This is a generalization which is acceptable only if it is likely true. But it is difficult to conceive of evidence that would corroborate such a strong statement. How could we acquire data that tells us what *all* women (including those of the past and the future) would choose? In this case, the difficulty is so great that we deem a claim that might at first have *seemed* questionable turns out, on reflection, to be unacceptable. As these examples illustrate, premises can be questionable because they are vague or ambiguous (or suffer from other problems of meaning), or because there is no evidence that can be provided for them. Keep in mind that you should be ready to give a reason why you dismiss a premise in an argument as unacceptable or questionable. In most cases, this means that you should state what specific missing evidence or information is needed to rectify the problem, or what needs to be clarified in some way. 1. **It is acceptable without further support**. This means that the statement itself is generally accepted, or is supported by other statements to such a degree, that a reasonable audience will accept it. Exercise 6-4 Each of the following claims is from a documentary entitled *The Grind* \[April 2015\]. The film discusses the complexities of yearly pilot whale hunting in the Faroe Islands from different perspectives. The Faroese call a whale hunt "the Grind." Decide whether each claim is acceptable without further support, unacceptable, or questionable. Justify your answer in each case. 1\. The Faroese kill whales that have lived a free life. 2\. The Grind is a humane process. 3\. More food comes from the sea than land in this part of the world. 4\. Hunting whales is like playing violent video games---you get a rush from both of them. 5\. The Grind is a barbaric practice. 6\. Whales are sentient beings. 7\. Whales travel in families/pods. 8\. The Grind does not compromise the welfare of the whales. 9\. Traditions are very important to a culture. 10\. It's more unethical to support factory farming than The Grind. \5 Conditions of Acceptability Having expanded the details we provided in Chapter 2, we can elaborate our account of an **acceptable premise** as follows. A premise is judged acceptable if: 1. 2. We have already seen that (1) raises the question: what do we mean when we say that a premise is a claim that "would be accepted by reasonable people"? It is not always easy to categorize claims this way, but in answering this question you should consider whether a premise: What can and cannot be defended in front of a universal audience is open to argument, so this does not settle issues of acceptability in a simple way, but it does tell us what matters when we discuss and defend claims about acceptability. To make this even clearer, we have compiled a list of conditions for acceptability that you can rely on when you attempt to decide whether a premise is acceptable. \By Definition or Self-evident Some claims can be established as acceptable by appealing to definitions. We know from the meanings of its component terms that the statement "All squares are four-sided" must be true. A claim that is acceptable by virtue of the meaning of its component terms is acceptable in view of the way in which we use language. In that case, the attempt to deny a self-evident claim results in an absurdity because it contradicts the meanings of the terms the claim employs. Other claims are self-evident for other reasons. "Sally was in Washington or Ottawa or somewhere else that day" is obviously the case because it exhausts all the possibilities. Sometimes we take moral, political and legal principles to be self-evident. "All defendants should be treated in the same way by a court of law" is a principle many take to be self-evident. \As a Factual Statement Reporting an Observation, or as a Statement of Eye-witness Testimony Observation is another way of establishing the acceptability of some claims. We constantly rely on observation in this way, as when we report that "There has been no snowfall during the last two hours," possibly as a prelude to the conclusion that we do not need to go outside and shovel snow off the driveway. When someone else presents us with such an observation, there are no grounds to reject it unless we do not trust their reports (because they are sometimes mistaken or purposefully misleading), or because it contradicts other observations or reports of observations which we are aware of. The most difficult observational reports are those which are based on someone's eye-witness **testimony** but not verified by others' observations. In normal conversation, there is a presumption in favour of a speaker's truthfulness, and this principle transfers to the realm of argumentation. Ordinarily we would have little reason to reject someone's testimony that "I have relied on my smartphone's alarm clock for two years, and it has never failed me." If we did not accept such statements, and did not trust each other in this way, we would be skeptical of anything we are told. And yet, there are limits to acceptability of this sort. If someone has proved repeatedly that they are untrustworthy, then that is a reason not to accept what they say. In other cases, an individual's testimony is not reliable because other individuals provide testimony which contradicts it. In this case, we must carefully compare the credibility of those providing testimony, though it may be impossible to decide between opposing claims. In other situations, observational reports may be best categorized as questionable. If someone provides testimony that favours their own interests---as when the person who claims that their smartphone's alarm clock has been remarkably dependable is a salesperson trying to sell us a smartphone---a decision that some claim is acceptable needs to be based on corroborating evidence. More generally, reports and testimony are questionable when they are not in keeping with our normal understanding of the world and our experience. If someone claims they were removed from their car in broad daylight and taken up into an alien spacecraft and subjected to an operation, this is an experience too far removed from our understanding of the world to be accepted just because someone has reported it. In this case, an acceptable claim is difficult to establish, and will have to be based on something more than personal testimony. \By Common Knowledge Premises of a good argument must be acceptable claims for audiences; and for arguers as well, if they are being honest. Sometimes a claim is found acceptable by everyone (or almost everyone) without the necessity for additional argument. Then that claim is thought of as **common knowledge.** That a claim is common knowledge is frequently invoked as a reason for the acceptability of a statement but we need to treat it cautiously. Many treat almost anything they believe as though it were a part of some shared knowledge. Others reject claims when they are not known by *all* members of an audience. The claim may still be true, but if it isn't common knowledge, then it needs argument. These two views of *common knowledge* set the bar for assent too low (for many of our reasonable beliefs are not commonly accepted) and too high (for common knowledge does not need to be accepted and acknowledged by *everyone*). In an attempt to judge whether a premise is an instance of common knowledge, it is important to distinguish between factual claims and value judgements. "The government has proposed a separate justice system for indigenous peoples" is a factual claim that may be a part of common knowledge. "The government is wrong to propose a separate justice system for indigenous peoples" is a value judgement. Value judgements may convey the information conveyed in a corresponding factual claim but they add an evaluative component. Common knowledge as we understand it includes factual claims ("Paper books are less prevalent than they once were," "California is susceptible to earthquakes," and "Two Trudeaus were Canadian Prime Ministers"), and moral, political, and aesthetic convictions ("Slavery is wrong," "The Mona Lisa is a remarkable painting," and "We have a right to express our ideas freely"). "Elon Musk has a plan to build a city on Mars" is a factual claim that could be used as a premise in arguments about the future of space exploration. "Misleading the public is wrong in an election campaign" is a value judgement that might be the basis of an argument that criticizes the behaviour of a political party. Though common knowledge is widely acknowledged, there will be individuals in our communities who do not know what informed people take to be obvious. They may not be able to tell you who the British Columbia Premier is, when the shortest day of the year occurs, and the names of the two political parties in the United States. In an argument with such individuals, you may need to inform them of what you normally take for granted, but this should not constrain you in other contexts. Usually, you can count as common knowledge what you can reasonably expect informed members of your community to know and accept because it is widely acknowledged within that community. In the case of factual claims, what is generally known is an acceptable premise in an argument. In arguments directed at a specific audience, other claims are acceptable because they can be expected to be known by that specific audience. In their arguments with each other, a group of physicists can, for example, reasonably understand common knowledge to include many claims that are not known by the general public. Widespread agreement in many value judgments can be expected within some particular audiences, but on certain matters, there may be considerable difference in values in the wider public. More care is needed here in the assumption that a value premise is common knowledge. s. \Defended in a Reasonable Sub-argument When we construct arguments, we are obligated to support premises that would not be otherwise acceptable with arguments in their favour. Good arguers accept this burden of proof. When they do so, and the support they provide is reasonable, then we have good reasons to categorize the supported premise as one that is acceptable. Supported in this way, the premise becomes the conclusion of a strong sub-argument. Consider the following: \ We have good reason to believe that juries are more likely to convict those accused of murder when capital punishment is not an option. For 1960--74, when the death penalty was in place, the conviction rate for crimes punishable by death was about 10 per cent. Capital punishment was abolished in 1976 and the conviction rate rose to 20 per cent by 1982. If you think about it, this suggests that if we bring back the death penalty, as the Conservatives have suggested, this is likely to mean that murderers will have a smaller, not a greater, chance of being convicted for their crimes. \ Using the short cut diagramming method that we introduced in Chapter 4, we can diagram this argument as follows. When evaluating the acceptability of the premises in this argument, we begin with statement 1, a premise in support of the main conclusion. Taken by itself, the claim that (Canadian) jurors are more willing to convict for murder since the abolition of the death penalty is questionable, for it is not obvious, and is an important claim in the discussion of a controversial issue. Recognizing this, the authors of the argument have provided statistical data needed to support 1 in statements 2 and 3. Each describes the conviction rate for murder in Canada, statement 2 prior to the abolition of capital punishment, statement 3 after the abolition. In this way, 2 and 3 represent the kind of premises needed to support the sub-conclusion 1. Once we see that this is so, our consideration of premise acceptability must shift to the acceptability of the premises in our sub-argument, i.e. 2 and 3. Here it is enough to say that the acceptability of these two statements is supported by the authority of their source, a topic we discuss in Chapter 14. For now, it will suffice to say that the authority is a (highly) reputable source and we therefore judge these premises acceptable. Exercise 6-5 Each of the following claims can be taken as an acceptable premise in an argument. In each case, explain why the claim is acceptable in terms of the conditions of acceptability we have introduced. 1\. The presence of a cause is demonstrated by the existence of its effects. 2\. The former Soviet Union included Uzbekistan. 3\. The intersection of these two major roads is the worst location for accidents in the city. 4\. Soccer is a popular sport throughout the world. 5\. \[Stated in a tourist guide\] Hamburg has more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined. 6\. AI is radically changing the world of teaching and learning. 7\. Computer technology will either improve daily life, or it will not. 8\. \[Explain why the first sentence can be used as an acceptable premise\] 9\. Human beings cannot always be trusted to tell the truth. 10\. Instagram is a social media platform. 11\. Cramming before an exam is not conducive to learning material (according to studies in the area of Memory and Cognition). \6 Fallacies of Unacceptability An argument should properly address whatever issue is at hand, respond appropriately to any prior argument it answers or builds upon, and anticipate reasonable objections from opponents. When arguments fail in these respects, they often exhibit the kinds of weaknesses that are traditionally identified as "fallacies." A **fallacy** is *a common mistake in argument*. Fallacies are erroneous patterns of reasoning, but many people do not recognize this and employ fallacies themselves. A course on logic is one good way to remedy this shortcoming. You have already learned one fallacy in Chapter 5 related to language, the fallacy of equivocation. You will learn about more fallacies as you make your way through the rest of this book. In this text, we focus on *good* reasoning, emphasizing the construction of strong arguments, and treating fallacies as a failure to meet the requirements good arguments must satisfy. *Equivocation* is a fallacy we discussed in the previous chapter. It arises when arguers argue in ways that are ambiguous, failing to recognize that words or symbols or phrases or illustrations are used with different meanings, and shifting a meaning over the course of a single argument. In this chapter on premise acceptability, we will consider how to detect a fallacy when you are considering whether premises in an argument (your own or someone else's) are acceptable. Earlier in the chapter, our discussion of consistency involved a problem of inconsistency that is often identified as a fallacy (the fallacy of "Inconsistency"). The following is another common fallacy associated with unacceptability. \ Begging the Question One fallacy that can undermine the acceptability of an argument's premises is "begging the question." Nowadays, the term "begs the question" is sometimes used to mean "raises the question." This is a relatively recent use of the phrase which robs the term of its original meaning. The latter belongs to logic, where **begging the question** is a fallacy which occurs when arguments are circular---i.e., when their premises assume the very conclusion they are supposed to prove. Sometimes this fallacy is called "circular reasoning." In the most obvious instances of the fallacy, a premise says what the conclusion says. The wording may be different, but the meaning is the same, creating an argument in which the same claim is used to support itself. Consider the following exchange during a news conference with President Trump in February 2017 (https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/donald-trump-news-conference-transcript/index.html): \ \ Consider the question the interviewer asks Trump ("And on the leaks, is it fake news or are these real leaks?") and his answer to it ("The news is fake because so much of the news is fake."). Perhaps Trump's answer is just a sarcastic remark, a joke, a refusal to answer the question asked. But even in this case his claim is peculiar, for he has expressed it in a way that turns it into a fallacious argument that begs the question. For the word "because" in his remark is naturally understood as a premise indicator, turning it into an argument that can be standardized as follows: Needless to say, this is not informative. Rarely is the circularity of an argument so obvious. The following argument illustrates a more complex version of the fallacy, where the conclusion itself is assumed by the premises. \ How do we know that the Bible is the right criterion of truth? All through the Scriptures are found... expressions such as "Thus says the Lord," "The Lord said," and "God spoke." Statements like "Thus says the Lord" occur no less than 1,904 times in the 39 books of the Old Testament. \[Adapted from *Decision Magazine*, January 1971\] \ \  This is an argument that an uncritical audience which is sympathetic to the conclusion might find persuasive and compelling. But the argument is weak, not strong. For its premises---statements 2 and 3---assume the very conclusion they support. A reasonable person who has doubts about this conclusion ("The Bible is the right criterion of truth.") will not accept its own testimony that this is so, for this assumes (not proves) that what the Bible says is true. In this way, the argument begs the question by assuming the very principle it is supposed to prove. In order to avoid begging the question, you will need to resist the temptation to use premises that restate or depend upon the claim you are trying to establish. The premise "People living below the poverty line ought to receive a basic income" is not distinct from the conclusion "The poor should be given financial subsidies up to a pre-established minimum." While it is not as obvious a restatement as the Trump example, it does not provide evidence for the conclusion but simply states the same idea using different language. When arguers beg the question, their premises cannot provide strong evidence for the conclusion. A premise that simply repeats or assumes a conclusion will be acceptable only to those who already accept the conclusion, making it acceptable only to those who do not need to be convinced with an argument in support of it. Exercise 6-6 1\. Identify the arguments if the passage contains an argument, and in the case of fallacies explain what has gone wrong and why. 4\. In 2019 U.S. Democrats investigated President Trump on the belief that Trump was not fit to continue acting as President. In response to this investigation of himself, Trump tweeted "We the people will now be subjected to the biggest display of modern day McCarthyism.... which is the widest fishing net expedition.... every aspect of the presidents \[sic\] life.... All in order to get power back so they can institute Socialism" (\@RealDonaldTrump, 4 March 2019). 5\. Since animals can experience pain and are also capable of nurturing relationships, it is wrong to use them indiscriminately in experiments, and hence there should be strict guidelines governing such use. **[Major Exercises 6-M]{.smallcaps}** **[(A) Knowledge Exercises ]{.smallcaps}** 1\. The following are key terms or concepts discussed in this chapter. Review them. If there are any that are unfamiliar, or confusing, look them up in the Glossary. You should leave this chapter comfortable with this language. +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | acceptable premise | questionable premise | | | | | begging the question | testimony | | | | | common knowledge | true premise | | | | | contradiction | unacceptable premise | | | | | fallacy | | | | | | inconsistent premises | | +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ 2\. In order to keep track of the important criteria needed when you are assessing the acceptability of a premise, develop a chart like the one below and fill it out to help your comprehension and application of the acceptability condition. Criteria Explanation Example ------------------------------------------ ------------- --------- Unacceptable by inconsistent premises acceptable by definition or self-evident acceptable by observation or testimony acceptable by common knowledge acceptable by sub-argument Unacceptable by begging the question Questionable premises 3\. In Chapter 5 several problems with language were discussed (vagueness, semantic ambiguity, etc.). Discuss the connections between being unclear with language and questionable premises. **[(B) skills Exercises]{.smallcaps}**  1\. Diagram each of the arguments that follow. Then assess the premises in each argument with reference to the criteria of acceptability, unacceptability, and questionability. Be sure to defend your assessments. i. **[(C) Reflective Questions]{.smallcaps}** A light bulb in a head Description automatically generated 1\. The chapter begins with a discussion of inconsistent premises. Sometimes we charge arguers with the label "hypocrite"---when their actions contradict their values---or with other forms of contradicting themselves. Think about how you have used these terms in the past, or how they have been used to describe yourself, and reflect on whether there are any similarities and differences with having inconsistencies in an argument. 2\. Choose one or more questions below and respond to them in writing; take approximately five minutes for each response. a. At what moment while reading Chapter 6 were you most engaged with the material? b. At what moment while reading Chapter 6 were you most distanced from the material? c. What material while reading Chapter 6 did you find most affirming or helpful? d. What material while reading Chapter 6 did you find most puzzling or confusing? e. What about the material in Chapter 6 surprised you the most? (This could be about your own reactions to the content or exercises, something that someone (e.g. your peer or instructor) did, or anything else that relates to reading this chapter). \ For more online exercises, review questions, and quizzes related to the material in this chapter, please go to https://sites.broadviewpress.com/reasoning