10. Evaluation Evaluating individual reasons and objections

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1 10. Evaluation The ability to evaluate arguments is probably the most important part of critical thinking. We have already looked at various aspects of the evaluation of arguments. But it will be useful to bring these points together in a single chapter Evaluating individual reasons and objections Justifying and persuading Justifying a conclusion is not at all the same thing as persuading the audience to believe it. Arguments are very often used to persuade people to believe things. A persuasive argument is one that succeeds in this role. After hearing it, people often do believe the conclusion. However an argument can be persuasive without being good in the sense of rationally justifying the conclusion. Here are some arguments that many people find persuasive, even though they are really pretty bad: I ll probably be dealt a strong hand this time. After all, my past three hands have been dismal. [Playing cards] Things are terrible! The economy is going to pieces. It must be President Artfulwaffle s fault. Things were fine last year before he was elected. I ll probably be dealt a strong hand this time. After all, I m on a roll, my past three hands have been strong. Things are terrific! The economy is booming. It has to be credited to President Artfulwaffle. Things were terrible before he was elected. When evaluating an argument, in the sense that matters here, we are trying to determine whether it rationally justifies the conclusion, not whether it is persuasive. Although a rationally justified argument that doesn t persuade has its own problems What makes a good reason? Remember that a reason provides evidence that another claim is true, that is, it supports the conclusion. To evaluate a reason is to decide how strong that support is. Analogously, an objection provides evidence against a claim, that is, it weakens the claim. To evaluate an objection is to decide how effectively it does this.

2 There are two aspects to the support a reason offers a conclusion. Firstly, all the premises have to be justified/acceptable to a sufficient degree. And secondly, the reason has to be sufficiently relevant to the conclusion, that is, the reason should give us grounds/evidence for accepting the conclusion. Both of these conditions need to be satisfied for a reason to support the conclusion. Satisfying just one is insufficient. For example: Australia is part of Europe. All countries in Europe have the Euro as their currency. Therefore Australia has the Euro as its currency. This reason is highly relevant to the conclusion, because if the premises were justified the conclusion would be justified. But it has an unacceptable premise Australia is part of Europe. Therefore the reason does not support the conclusion. In fact it is not a reason at all, just a purported reason. If all the premises in a reason are true, you still have to go on ask how well those true premises actually support the conclusion. Consider this silly argument: Obama is president of the U.S.A., and metal conducts electricity, therefore the moon orbits the earth. The premises are all definitely true, as is the conclusion, but the reason is clearly not evidentially relevant to the conclusion. It is a bad reason despite having true premises and a true conclusion. The above argument wouldn t be put forward by any sane person. The following argument on the other hand may initially appear reasonable: 105

3 If something is in Paris then it s in France; the Eiffel Tower is in France; therefore the Eiffel Tower is in Paris. The premises of this argument are clearly true, as is the conclusion. But it is a bad argument. The conclusion is not supported by the premises (or, at most very weakly supported), true though they are. As stated, the premises allow that the Eiffel Tower might be outside of Paris, elsewhere in France. Consider this analogous argument: If something is in San Francisco then it s in the USA; the Statue of Liberty is in the USA; therefore the Statue of Liberty is in San Francisco. It is clear that this is a bad argument we know that the premises are true, but the conclusion is false. The conclusion is not supported by the premises. Since an argument needs both acceptable premises and sufficient relevance to be good, if you notice an argument lacks one of these features, you can ignore it, and not worry about the other feature. For instance, if an argument has a clearly false premise, you don t need to go on to consider the relevance of the reason, as you know the argument s no good, however relevant the reason might be. And conversely, if a reason/objection is not at all relevant to the conclusion, you don t need to worry about whether the premises are true. You can write of the reason as bad. In an argument, both the acceptability of the premises and the relevance of a reason to the conclusion come in degrees. A premise can be moreor-less acceptable, and a reason can be more-or-less relevant to the conclusion. A very strong reason will have highly acceptable/justified premises, and be highly relevant to the conclusion. But any combination of acceptability of premises and relevance of reason to conclusion is 106

4 possible. For instance, a reason may have highly acceptable premises, and be somewhat relevant to the conclusion; or a reason may have somewhat acceptable premises and be highly relevant to the conclusion. In general, the amount of support a reason offers for a conclusion is determined by the degree to which its premises are acceptable, combined with the relevance of the reason to the conclusion Evidential relevance and belief We have said that a reason is relevant to the conclusion if it raises the probability that the conclusion is true. But a weakly relevant reason may only raise the probability a small amount, perhaps not enough for us to believe the conclusion. In evaluation, we are concerned with whether a reason, or set of reasons, provides sufficient evidence to believe the conclusion. Exactly how much support a reason must give in order for us to believe the conclusion may be disputed, but at least it must make the conclusion more likely than not. For instance, the following reason is weakly relevant to the conclusion, but not sufficiently relevant to make the conclusion more likely that not: Igor is a good reasoner. 1A-a Igor is a philosophy major. 1A-b Some philosophy majors are good reasoners. support The following reason is more strongly relevant to the conclusion. It is sufficiently relevant to make the conclusion more likely than not, and so gives us sufficient (though not conclusive) grounds for believing the conclusion (of course to support the conclusion the premises in reason 1A also need to be acceptable): 107

5 Igor is interested in the deep questions of existence. 1A-a Igor is a philosophy major. 1A-b The vast majority of philosophy majors are interested in the deep questions of existence. support Evaluating Objections Objections are evaluated in much the same way as reasons. An objection weakens a claim only if its premises are sufficiently acceptable and the objection is sufficiently relevant. Sufficiently relevant means that it gives us grounds for rejecting the claim, or at least grounds for not accepting it. The degree to which an objection weakens a claim is determined by the degree to which its premises are acceptable, combined with the relevance of the objection to the contested claim. An objection that does not weaken the claim at all is not an objection, just a purported objection Lines of Reasoning Bad reason doesn t mean false conclusion ; Bad objection doesn t mean true conclusion As we have noted before, if a reason offers no support for the conclusion, it doesn t mean the conclusion is not true. It just means that reason is no good. But there may be other, better reasons to believe the conclusion. So in the Eiffel Tower example above, the reason offered was poor it did not support the conclusion The Eiffel Tower is in Paris. But clearly that doesn t mean that conclusion is false. We know it is true. There are other, better reasons to believe it. Also, if an objection is poor, it doesn t mean the conclusion is not false. It just means that objection is not good. But there may be other, better objections to the claim. A line of reasoning is one in which reasons or objections are themselves supported or opposed by further reasons or objections. You can t evaluate a reason or objection until you ve evaluated all the reasons or objections bearing upon it. After all, a reason/objection is only as good as the evidence in its favour, so to know if it s any good you need to examine the reasons/objections bearing on it. But of course the same applies to those reasons/objections, and so on all the way down to the 108

6 bottom of the line or chain of reasoning. This suggests the way to evaluate a line of reasoning is basically to start from the bottom and work your way up. For example, consider this argument: To figure out whether to accept the final conclusion, we need to evaluate reason 1A. This means evaluating both premises. But 1A-b is supported by a further reason 2A (1A-b is an intermediate conclusion), so we need to consider that reason (2A) when evaluating 1A-b. 2A has two premises, so we need to evaluate each of these. 2A-b is supported by a basis box, so we need to inspect the basis box to determine whether to accept 2A-b. So we can in a sense just start at the bottom, with the basis box, and work our way up. If 2A is a satisfactory reason, and so is 1A, we know the final conclusion is supported and, other things being equal, should be accepted. The procedure of beginning at the bottom has the following advantage. Everything in a line of reasoning depends on what s below it; if there are defects further down they undermine what s further up. And, ultimately everything in the line of reasoning depends on what s at the very bottom. If the foundations aren t secure, the whole structure is undermined! This makes sense if you think about it if the reason at the bottom of the chain is no good, it can t support its conclusion; but if that conclusion is not supported, it can t then support its conclusion; and so on all the way up the line of reasoning to the top (in this sense it really is like a physical structure, such as a tower of bricks.) This means that if there is a problem 109

7 near the bottom, you can write off that line of reasoning straight away, and don t need to bother evaluating the other links in the chain. This can save you a lot of time! Combinations of reasons and objections So far we have been looking at how to evaluate arguments in which there is at most on reason or objection bearing on each claim. But most complex arguments have more than one reason/objection bearing on claims, so it is important to know how to evaluate those arguments. If a conclusion has several reasons and/or objections bearing on it, you should: 1. Evaluate each of the reasons or objections individually. 2. Assess the extent to which the whole group, considered together, provides evidence for, or against, the conclusion. Recall what we said in chapter 2. If there are several reasons and objections bearing on a claim, the level of confidence we ought to have in the claim will be determined by the amount that the reasons move the needle towards the (1) end, combined with the amount that the objections move it towards the (0) end. Take a very simple example. Suppose we have an argument with one reason and one objection. Suppose the reason, taken by itself, seems strong, so that it moves the needle most of the way towards (1): Conclusion 1A-a 1A-b support But suppose the objection, taken by itself, also seems strong, so that it moves the needle most of the way towards (0): 110

8 In that case, our level of confidence in the conclusion should, other things being equal, be roughly intermediate between (0) and (1): But suppose we have a strong reason: combined with an objection that, considered by itself, doesn t show that the conclusion is false, i.e., doesn t move the needle all the way to the (0) end, but rather raises doubts about the claim, so that the needle is moved part of the way: 111

9 (We could interpret this objection as showing that the conclusion is no more likely to be true than false.) So we have a strong reason and a moderate objection. In that case, other things being equal, our level of confidence in the conclusion should be roughly intermediate between (1) and (.5). So we still think the conclusion is more likely to be true than not, but we re not as sure about it as we would be without the objection: Counting reasons and objections In the previous section we had two maps, each with one reason and one objection: 112

10 The needle indicating the strength of confidence in the conclusion was at a different spot for the two arguments. This demonstrates a simple point, but one that can trip people up: when evaluating a conclusion, it s not the number of reasons and objections that counts, but their relative strengths. It might be tempting to try to evaluate conclusions by simply counting the reasons and objections bearing on it. So if a conclusion has two reasons but just one objection bearing on it, you might think we ought to accept it. But if the reasons are both weak, and the objection is strong, we should probably reject the conclusion! It is sometimes better to have one strong reason/objection than several weak reasons/objections. So don t worry too much amount the number of reason/objection boxes; focus instead on how strong each of them is. It is like money to determine whether Bill has more money in his pocket than Mary we obviously don t ask whether Bill has more notes and coins in his pocket than Mary. We need to know the value of his various notes and coins. One hundreddollar bill beats 57 separate dollar bills! Similarly one strong reason sometimes beats several weak objections, and one strong objection sometimes beats several weak reasons How reasons combine When there are several reasons for a conclusion, how do their different strengths combine? For instance, suppose we have a reason that supports the conclusion to degree.9. Then we add another reason that supports the conclusion to degree.7. How much confidence should we now have in the conclusion? You might think it should be somewhere between.7 and.9, say.8. But in fact it should be more than.9. If we have a reason, adding another reason can only increase our confidence in the conclusion, it can never lower it only an objection could do that. A very strong reason combined with a weak reason doesn t average out to a moderately strong reason. The reasons combine to make a stronger case for the conclusion than either makes on its own. A set of reasons cannot provide less support than that provided by the strongest reason on its own. If the strongest reason provides.8 degree of support, the overall support provided by all the reasons must be at least.8 (but could be more). 113

11 (Objections, on the other hand, can lower our confidence in the conclusion, as we saw above.) This means that if we have a conclusive reason one that completely establishes the truth of the conclusion then we can in a sense ignore any other reasons that might be offered for the conclusion. They can t affect our confidence in the conclusion, since that confidence is already as high as it can be Evaluating complex arguments Most complex arguments combine the two kinds of reasoning we have looked at: Lines of reasoning, where reasons/objections are supported/weakened by further reasons/objections. Combinations of reasons and objections bearing on the same claim. To evaluate such an argument we just apply the techniques covered in the previous two sections. Evaluating a complex argument can be very difficult. Sometimes there are lots of steps, but it s possible to keep track of them and eventually arrive at a well considered overall judgment. We have seen that every argument, no matter how complex, is built out of argument units. We evaluate complex arguments by evaluating the argument units that make them up, one at a time. Overall procedure: 1. At any given level, evaluate each of the reasons (or objections) in turn before evaluating them as a group. 2. When evaluating a reason, evaluate each of the premises in turn. 3. For any given reason or premise, first evaluate everything bearing directly upon it Short Cuts Clearly, there can be a lot of steps involved in exhaustively evaluating a complex argument. However there are short cuts that we can, if we are lucky, use to dramatically cut down on the work involved in systematically evaluating a complex argument. 114

12 Premises: The one bad apple rule. There is an old saying that one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. This applies to premises. For a reason to provide any support at all, every premise must be true. If even one premise is bad, the reason as a whole is worthless. This means that if we find one bad premise, we don t need to evaluate any of the other premises, or anything beneath those premises. Note that in evaluation, the order in which you evaluate the premises does not matter at all. So this shortcut is used most effectively if you scan the premises looking for one that may not be true, and evaluate that one first. Conclusive evidence To repeat a point we made before, conclusive reason guarantees that the conclusion is true; a conclusive objection guarantees that the conclusion is false. Thus, if you have a conclusive reason or objection, you need not consider any of the other evidence bearing upon the conclusion. Again, this can eliminate whole branches from consideration. Since conclusive reasons or objections are very rare in ordinary, real world reasoning and argument, you will not get much opportunity to use this short cut Fallacies??? 115

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