The Making of Arguments Part 16

A well-recognized, but often subtle, form of begging the question is what is known as "arguing in a circle." Usually the fallacy is so wrapped up in verbiage that it is hard to pick out. Here is a clear and well-put detection of a case of it:

There is an argument in favor of child labor so un-American and so inhuman that I am almost ashamed to quote it, and yet it has been used, and I fear it is secretly in the minds of some who would not openly stand for it. A manufacturer standing near the furnace of a gla.s.shouse and pointing to a procession of young Slav boys who were carrying the gla.s.s on trays, remarked, "Look at their faces, and you will see that it is idle to take them from the gla.s.shouse in order to give them an education: they are what they are, and will always remain what they are." He meant that there are some human beings--and these Slavs of the number--who are mentally irredeemable, so fast asleep intellectually that they cannot be awakened; designed by nature, therefore, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. This cruel and wicked thing was said of Slavs; it is the same thing which has been said from time immemorial by the slave owners of their slaves. First they degrade human beings by denying them the opportunity to develop their better nature: no schools, no teaching, no freedom, no outlook; and then, as if in mockery, they point to the degraded condition of their victims as a reason why they should never be allowed to escape from it.[52]

In a diffuse and disorderly argument there is always a chance to find some begging of the question which may consist either of getting back to an a.s.sumption of the original proposition and so arguing in a circle, or of simply a.s.suming that what has been a.s.serted has been proved. The fallacy of the invented example, in which a fict.i.tious case is described as an ill.u.s.tration, and presently a.s.sumed as a real case, is a not uncommon form of begging the question.

48. Ignoring the Question. This is a closely allied error in reasoning that is apt to be due to the same kind of confused and woolly thinking. It consists in slipping away from the question in debate and arguing vigorously at something else. A famous exposure of the fallacy is Macaulay's denunciation of the arguments in favor of Charles I:

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony as to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, dest.i.tute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defense is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Pet.i.tion of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vand.y.k.e dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.[53]

In an argument for woman suffrage on the ground that suffrage is a right which ought not to be denied, it would be ignoring the question merely to enumerate the various ways in which the responsibility of a vote might help to better the condition of women.

To ignore the question by trying to lead the public off on a false scent is a constant device of officials who are accused of misconduct. A United States senator whose election had been questioned gave in his defense a full and harrowing account of the struggles of his boyhood. A board of a.s.sessors who had been charged with incompetence ended their defense, in which they had taken no notice of the charges, as follows:

Criticism of the Board of a.s.sessors comes with poor grace from those whose endeavors for the common good are confined to academic essays on good government. It savors too much of the adroit pickpocket, who, finding himself hard pressed, joins in the chase, shouting as l.u.s.tily as any of the unthinking rabble, "Stop, thief!"

The curious thing is that this trick of crossing the scent does lead so many people off the trail.

The so-called _argumentum ad hominem_ and the _argumentum ad populum_ are special cases of ignoring the question: they consist of appeals to the feelings or special interests of the reader or the audience which run away from the question at issue. They are not uncommon in stump speeches, and in other arguments whose chief purpose is to arouse enthusiasm.

An argument on the tariff, for example, sometimes runs off into appeals to save this grand country from ruin or from the trusts or from some other fate which the speaker pictures as hanging over an innocent and plain people. An argument for the restoration of the cla.s.sical system of education which should run off into eulogies of the good old times might easily become an _argumentum ad populum_; an argument in favor of a new park which should dwell on selfish advantages which might be gained by the ab.u.t.ters without regard to larger munic.i.p.al policy would probably be an _argumentum ad hominem_.

Obviously these two forms of s.h.i.+fting the issue trench closely on the element of persuasion in an argument, and in making the distinction you must apply common sense. Your adversary may reprove you for an _argumentum ad hominem_ or _ad populum_, when you believe that you are keeping well within the bounds of legitimate persuasion; but in general it is safe to guard your self-respect by drawing a broad line between dodging and unworthy appeals to prejudice and justifiable appeals to feeling and personal interest.

EXERCISES

1. Name a question of policy which would be settled by the establishment of some controverted fact.

2. Find in the daily papers an account of a trial in which evidence was declared inadmissible under the rules of law which would have been taken into account by the average man outside the court in making up his own mind.

3. Name three questions in which the evidence would be affected by temperamental and other prepossessions of the witness.

4. Name a scientific question in which some important fact is established by reasoning from other facts.

5. Cite a case, either from real life or from fiction, in which a fact was established by circ.u.mstantial evidence; a.n.a.lyze the evidence and show how it rests on reasoning from similarity.

6. Give a case in which what you believed to be direct observation of a fact deceived you.

7. Give an example from your own experience within a week where vague authorities have been cited as direct evidence.

8. What would you think of the writer of the following sentences as a witness to the numbers and importance of the partic.i.p.ants in the woman suffrage procession he is reporting?

Fifth Avenue has seldom, if ever, been more crowded than on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and never anywhere have I seen so many women among the spectators of a pa.s.sing pageant. Throngs, many tiers deep, flanked the line of march, and these throngs were overwhelmingly composed of women. As I pa.s.sed from block to block I could not get away from the thought that the vastest number of these were sick of heart and ashamed that they, too, were not in line behind the kilted band that headed the procession, the historic symbolic floats, and the inscribed banners, along with their three thousand or more sisters.

Here were women, fighting a good fight for the cause of women--for the underpaid factory workers and the overfed lady of fortune who is deprived the right of voice in the government over her inherited property. (Report in a daily paper, May 8, 1911)

9. Find an example of historical evidence in a case where there are no direct witnesses to the fact; discuss it according to S. R. Gardiner's tests (p. 103).

10. Find two examples from the daily papers where statistics are used to establish a complex fact.

11. Name two subjects on which you could gather statistics, and the sources from which you would draw them.

12. Bring to cla.s.s the testimony of a recognized authority on some complex fact, and explain why his testimony carries weight.

13. Name a subject on which you can speak with authority, and explain why your testimony on that subject should carry weight.

14. Give an example from your own experience of a case in which it is hard to distinguish between direct and indirect evidence.

15. Find in the daily papers or current magazines an argument based on reasoning by a.n.a.logy; one based on reasoning by generalization; one based on circ.u.mstantial evidence; explain the character of each.

16. Find an example of an argument based on reasoning from a causal relation.

17. Find an example of an argument from enumeration of like cases which might be easily upset.

18. In the proposition, "A gentleman ought not to become a professional baseball player," what meaning could be given to the word "gentleman"?

19. Distinguish between the meanings of _law_ in the phrases "moral law," "natural law," and "law of the land."

20. What different meanings would the word "comfort" have had in the days of your grandfather, as compared with the present day?

21. Give, two examples of words with "sliding meanings."

22. Give two examples of words whose denotation is fixed, but whose connotation or emotional implications would be different with different people.

23. Find an example of false a.n.a.logy.

24. Criticize the reasoning in the following extract from a letter to a newspaper urging Republican and Democratic tickets at the munic.i.p.al election in a small city in the country.

It is an acknowledged fact that compet.i.tion in the business life of our city is beneficial to the consumer. If that be so, why will not compet.i.tion in city affairs bring equally good results to the taxpayer?

25. Give an example you have recently heard of hasty generalization; explain its weakness.

26. Give an example of your own of the _post hoc_ fallacy.

27. Give an example of false reasoning based on a.s.suming a complex fact to be simple.

28. Criticize the reasoning in the following extracts:

a. [Dispatch to a daily paper.] Haverhill, March 30, 1911. Opponents of commission form of government are deriving no little satisfaction from the development of testimony borne out by figures taken from the auditing department of the city of Haverhill that this method of administering munic.i.p.al affairs has proved thus far to be a costly experiment there.... The total amount of bonds issued during the past twenty-seven months, covering the period of operation of commission form of government, was $576,000; the present borrowing capacity of the city is only approximately $35,000; that the city's bonded debt has increased from $441,264 to $1,181,314 in the past five years; the net bonded debt has more than doubled within three years; that the a.s.sessed valuation has increased $5,000,000; and the tax rate has been raised from $17.40 to $19 in five years. The borrowing capacity of $341,696 on January 1, 1906, has decreased to $95,000 on January 1, 1911.... Commission form of government went into effect in Haverhill on the first Monday in January, 1909.

b. From an article in a magazine, opposing the plan of the postmaster-general to increase the postage on the advertising sections of magazines: consider especially the word "censors.h.i.+p":

We see two grave objections to the postmaster-general's plan. First, it requires a censors.h.i.+p to determine what periodicals are "magazines" whose advertising pages are to be taxed, and what are the educational and religious periodicals which are to continue to enjoy what the President calls a "subsidy." Such a censors.h.i.+p would be a new feature in postal administration, and it would seem to be a thing very difficult to work out on any fair basis.

29. In a newspaper report of an inquiry made by the director of the Columbia University gymnasium into the effects of smoking, the following sentences occur:

In scholars.h.i.+p the nonsmokers had the distinct advantage. The smokers averaged eighty per cent in their studies at entrance, sixty-two per cent during the first two years, and seven per cent of failure. The nonsmokers got ninety-one per cent in their entrance examinations and sixty-nine per cent in their first two years in college, while only four per cent were failures. In this respect Dr.

Meylan thinks there is a distinct relation between smoking and scholars.h.i.+p.