Abstract
We all seem to have a sense of what good and bad arguments are, and there is a long history—focusing on fallacies—of trying to provide objective standards that would allow a clear separation of good and bad arguments. This contribution discusses the limits of attempts to determine the quality of arguments. It begins with defining bad arguments as those that deviate from an established standard of good arguments. Since there are different conceptualizations of “argument”—as controversy, as debate, and as justification—and since arguments in each of these senses can be used for different purposes, a first problem is that we would need a large variety of standards for “good” arguments. After this, the contribution focuses in particular on proposals made in the literature on how to assess the quality of arguments in the sense of justification. It distinguishes three problems of assessment: How to determine (1) whether reasons are acceptable, (2) whether reasons are sufficient to justify the conclusion, and (3) how to identify arguments in real-world speech acts and texts? It is argued that limitations of argument assessment result from unavoidable relativism: The assessment of many—if not most—arguments depends on the epistemic situation of the evaluator.
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Notes
An exception is Rationale which offers templates for each of them: https://www.rationaleonline.com.
Evidence for this can be seen in the fact that the index in van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004 lists only “argument(ation),” and not both concepts separately.
See Barth and Krabbe (1982, p. 25 and p. 52) regarding “argumentation,” and pp. 15–18 for “argument”; see also their notion “chain of arguments” on p. 63 and others. It is a bit surprising that neither van Eemeren and Grootendorst nor Barth and Krabbe define “argument.”
See https://consider.it, http://www.procon.org, http://www.debate.org/, and http://www.livingvote.org/. All accessed February 15, 2017.
See http://evidence-hub.net/, https://www.rationaleonline.com/, https://www.bcisiveonline.com/, https://www.mindmeister.com, http://copeit.cti.gr/, and http://cci.mit.edu/klein/deliberatorium.html. All accessed February 15, 2017.
Toulmin 2003 [1958]. For Toulmin, the corresponding model constitutes a “micro-argument” which he contrasts to the “macro-argument” of which it is a part like an organ in an organism. Also macro-arguments are considered exclusively as justifications. Even though they might proceed over a number of pages or hours, the lead “to the final presentation of a conclusion” (p. 87). See also Freeman (2011) and Benn and Macintosh (2012). It should be noted that Freeman interprets Toulmin's model as “analyzing arguments as dialogical exchanges between a proponent and a challenger” (p. 12), that is, as representing a controversy.
Govier (2010, p. 1). See also Hamblin (1970, ch. 7), Johnson and Blair (2006 [1977], pp. 9–10), Fisher (2001, p. 235), and Groarke et al. (2008, pp. 1–9). The fact that many of these authors discuss arguments as situated in the context of dialogues, controversies, or debates should not distract from the fact that their definitions of the term argument refer only to a certain set of propositions.
Lives of Eminent Philosophers (VII 45). My translation from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0257%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D1.
See http://ova.arg-tech.org/, https://www.rationaleonline.com/, https://www.bcisiveonline.com/, http://www.argunet.org/, http://agora.gatech.edu/. All accessed February 15, 2017.
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/. Accessed February 17, 2017.
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules. Accessed February 17, 2017. On this web page, the interested reader can find extensive justifications and clarifications for each of these rules. It has to be noted that formulations that I am quoting here have changed substantially over the past years.
“Mods” are the moderators. CMV is moderated by volunteers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules. Accessed February 17, 2017.
Carpenter and Kennedy (1988, p. 29). Since Toulmin proposed to use jurisprudence as the paradigm case for the “use of argument,” argumentation theory seem to be preoccupied with the notion that winning an argument or persuading an opponent is the main purpose of constructing arguments. It is time, I think, to give up these limitations. See also Zarefsky (2016).
As suggested, for example, by Richard Feldman in his discussion of “Good arguments”: “If the purpose is persuasion, then good arguments are the ones that persuade. Period” (Feldman 1994, p. 175).
See also Freeman (2005, p. 19). It has to be noted that my understanding of “acceptability” differs from Johnson and Blair's as developed in the first edition of Logical Self-defence. Since they discuss “begging the question” here as violating the principle of acceptance (Johnson and Blair 2006 [1977], p. 65), it is clear that for them “accepting” includes “acceptable as a justification.” I prefer instead—following Feldman (1994, p. 176), Rosenberg (1996), and Govier (2010, p. 87)—to interpret “acceptable” solely in the sense that Johnson and Blair themselves characterize in the book's second edition as follows: “One way to express this point is to say that in some contexts an argument's premises are worthy of acceptance only if they are known or reasonably believed to be true by the arguer, and can be shown to the audience to be true or reasonable to believe. One way to show that an argument's premise is unacceptable is to show that it is false” (Johnson and Blair 2006 [1977], p. xiii).
http://en.arguman.org/the-death-penalty-is-wrong, accessed Sep 9, 2017.
http://en.arguman.org/the-death-penalty-is-wrong; my addition in brackets.
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Acknowledgements
This research has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies, Award 1623419). I am thankful for important feedback that Bryan Norton, Justin Biddle, Matt Cox, and two anonymous reviewers provided to earlier versions of this paper.
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Hoffmann, M.H.G. The Elusive Notion of “Argument Quality”. Argumentation 32, 213–240 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-017-9442-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-017-9442-x