Ethical Arguments
Finding ethical truths depends on what you can justify in a rational argument. It's not descriptive, it's not pointing at what the world is, they're normative and trying to say what the world "should be".
One of the difficulty in arguing about ethics, is the emotion that comes in, can influence rhetoric, and result in easier "point scoring" approaches.
The central point is persuasion, but through hopefully rational reasons behind that. And you need to avoid "non-argumentative" ways of persuasion, these can include things that look like arguments, but aren't.
An arugment, is a set of propositions, one of which is the conclusion, and the others premises. In which the premises taken together are intended as a providing a reason for accepting the truth of the conclision.
A proposition is a set of facts brought across in a sentence. Not quite a sentence, but basically a sentence.
Arguments give us reasons that justify or persuade. Rhetoric is an attempt to persuade without argument. We need to distinguish arguments from any old disagreement or attempt to persuade.
It's the rational reasons that justify an argument.
A good critical arguer needs to understand the persons agenda, and why do they say what they are saying? What evidence or reasons do they have for such a claim.
You need to look for certain key elements:
1) What is their conclusion? 2) What are the premises underneath it? (Are the premises already accepted, or are they justifiable)
Step by step:
1) Whats the raw data? (Whats the text of the argument) 2) How can you represent it systematically? Identify the premises and the conclusion (Get rid of the ambiguity, the rhetoric, the redundancy) 3) Then you can evaluate it. Is the systematically represented argument a good one?
When you represent an argument you can do so systematically using "standard form"
P1) Premise one P2) Premise two C) Evolutionary Theory is false
You can use technical criteria to evaluate an argument:
- "Validity"
- "Soundness"
A good argument provides adequate reasons for believing it's conclusion. The conclusion must follow from the premises. Are all the premises true? What about the internal structure. When you put all the premises together, does that give a valid support for a conclusion.
Validity, is whether, if all the premises are true, does that provide enough structure to have to accept that the conclusion is true.
You test validity ("the validity test"). If the premises were true, would that mean you'd have to support the conclusion?
The problem is validity is testing the form of an argument. And an argument can be valid even if the premises are false.
Inductive arguments are ones that talks about probabilty, a claim that something is "more likely than not". So these arguments are never "valid", they're always invalid. But they do have "inductive force" (the conclusion is more likely than not)
What about soundness? An argument is sound, if it has already been shown to be valid, and you can show that all the premises are true.
The problem with soundness, is that it's highly likely that premises(claims) are controversial as to whether they're true or not.
Empirical claims - are claims relating to factual evidence
Normative claims - are claims relating to what you should ought to do
To disagree with empirical claims, you need more empirical evidence.
If you're disagreeing with normative claims, you come up against the "is/ought gap". This was David Hume's argument that you cannot derive a normative conclusion from purely factual premises.
So another aspect is you need to look at arguments and work out which premises are empirical and which are normative.
If you come up against an is/ought gap in analysing an argument, you need to see what normative statements are implicit. You then need to expand out the argument to make it clear.
How do you analyse arguments? What examples are problems?
Inference to the best explanation - This is making a conclusion that are based on facts gathered as premises. We've gathered a bunch of facts, and use them to make our best guess of the conclusion. This is inductive force again.
Don't dismiss an argument by labelling - If you just label something as a "value judgement", then you need to explain why this label is supposed to be a problem.
Rhetorical Ploys - people can attempt to appeal to feelings/desires, using buzzwords, connotations, scare quotes. If rhetoric attempts to mislead you to believe a false conclusion/an invalid argument, it is a "fallacy".
Some fallacies:
ad hominem arguments - can be positive or negative attempts! - positive attempts are appealing to experts/authority. negative attempts are "poisoning the well". Problem with positive attempts, who decides and agrees on who the experts are.
false alternatives - it's a fallacy which provides options, but constrained options. it misses out the true options
appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignoratium) - just because a claim has not been proven it must be false, or because it has not been disproved, it must be true. This is the "precautionary principle" coming in as a problem, there might be negative effects of this action, so should we do it? or not do it?
conflating morality and legality - just cos it's legal doesn't mean it's moral, just cos it's illegal doesn't mean its immoral
post hoc ergo propter hoc - "after the event, therefore because of the event" - it's the fallacy of correlation versus causation. Incidental correlations, are not the cause of the event
slippery slopes - "if this is allowed then you have to allow that"
think about consistency and counter-examples - what you're trying to do, in breaking down an argument, through pointing out an absurd example of it. THIS IS A GOOD THING TO DO WHEN REFUTING AN ARGUMENT IN AN ESSAY
When you're constructing your arguments:
1) State the argument as clearly as possible 2) Avoid ambiguity in phrases 3) Define your terms, be consistent in your usage 4) Anticipate criticism <- This is one of your most useful things to do 5) Don't use anecdote