Richard L Epstein

by Critical Thinking (3rd Edition) (pdf)

  D. Definitions 26

  • Exercises for Section D 30

  Summary 31

  • Exercises for Chapter 2 32

  We want to arrive at truths from our reasoning. So we need to be able to recognize

  whether a sentence is true or false and what kind of standards it invokes—or whether

  it is just nonsense.

  A. Vague Sentences

  1. Too vague?

  Zoe heard a radio advertisement that said "Snappy detergent gets clothes whiter."

  So when she went to the supermarket she bought a box. She's not very happy.

  13

  14 CHAPTER 2 What Are We Arguing About?

  Some sentences may look like claims, or people try to pass them off as claims,

  but they're worthless for reasoning. If we can't understand what someone is saying,

  we can't investigate whether it's true or false.

  Vague sentence A sentence is vague if there are so many ways to understand

  it that we can't settle on one of those without the speaker making it clearer.

  We hear vague sentences all the time:

  You can win a lot playing blackjack.

  Public education is not very good in this state.

  Freedom is worth fighting for.

  They sound plausible, yet how can anyone tell whether they are true?

  But isn't everything we say somewhat vague? After all, no two people have

  identical perceptions, and since the way we understand words depends on our

  experience, we all understand words a little differently. There has to be some wiggle

  room in the meaning of words and sentences for us to be able to communicate. You

  say, "My English professor showed up late for class on Tuesday." Which Tuesday?

  Who's your English professor? What do you mean by late? 5 minutes? 30 seconds?

  How do you determine when she showed up? When she walked through the door?

  At exactly what point? When her nose crossed the threshold?

  That's silly. We all know "what you meant," and the sentence isn't too vague

  for us to agree that it has a truth-value. The issue isn 't whether a sentence is vague,

  but whether it's too vague, given the context, for us to be justified in saying it has

  a truth-value.

  E x a m p l e s Are the following too vague to be taken as claims?

  Example 1 Men are stronger than women.

  Analysis Don't bother to argue about this one until you clarify it, even though it

  may seem plausible. What's meant? Stronger for their body weight? Stronger in

  that the "average man" (whoever that is) can lift more than the "average woman"?

  Stronger emotionally?

  Example 2 On the whole, people are much more conservative than they were 30

  years ago.

  Analysis We get into disagreements about sentences like this and make decisions

  based on them. But the example is too vague to have a truth-value. What does

  "people" mean? All adults? What does "conservative" mean? That's really vague.

  Is George W. Bush conservative? Pat Buchanan? Rush Limbaugh?

  SECTION A Vague Sentences 15

  Example 3 Capricorn: This is the time to finalize travel and higher education plans.

  You are vibrant with friends and group projects. This will be a progressive period of

  unexpected change. Heather Subran, It's in the stars!, September 18, 1997

  Analysis Ever notice how vague horoscopes are? How could you tell if this

  horoscope was false? There's no claim here.

  Example 4 Greeks, Turks spar over islet

  Greek and Turkish warships faced off Tuesday in the Aegean Sea, escalating a dispute over

  a tiny barren island 3.8 miles off the Turkish coast.

  Both Greece and Turkey claim sovereignty to the uninhabited islet, called Imia in

  Greek and Kardak in Turkish.

  State Department spokesman Glynn Davies called the situation "hot and heavy . . . a

  little tense. The message we're sending to both governments is to please calm down and to

  draw back." Marilyn Greene, USA Today, February 1, 1996

  Analysis What is a situation that is "hot and heavy . . . a little tense"? What does it mean to say "warships faced off"? These are sentences masquerading as claims.

  Example 5 City officials in Murfreesboro, Tenn.—about 30 miles south of Nashville—

  say one smelly employee is responsible for a new policy that requires all city employees

  to smell nice at work.

  "No employee shall have an odor generally offensive to others when reporting to

  work. An offensive odor may result from lack of good hygiene, from an excessive

  application of a fragrant aftershave or cologne or from other cause."

  The definition of body odor was left intentionally vague.

  "We'll know it when we smell it," said City Councilman Toby Gilley.

  Knoxville News-Sentinel, August 26, 2003

  Analysis Sometimes it isn't possible to make a precise distinction, yet that doesn't

  mean we're being too vague in the intended context.

  In a very large auditorium lit by a single candle at one end, there is no place

  where we can say it stops being light and starts being dark. But that doesn't

  mean there's no difference between light and dark. That we cannot draw a

  line does not mean there is no obvious difference in the extremes.

  16 CHAPTER 2 What Are We Arguing About?

  Throughout this text we'll often point out a common mistake in reasoning and

  label it a fallacy.

  Drawing the line fallacy It's bad reasoning to argue that if you can't make

  the difference precise, then there is no difference.

  2. Ambiguous sentences

  A special case of vagueness is when there are just two, or a very few, obvious ways

  that a sentence could be understood as a claim. In that case we say the sentence is

  ambiguous.

  It's not always easy to see that ambiguity is infecting an argument:

  Saying that having a gun in the home is an accident waiting to happen

  is like saying that people who buy life insurance are waiting to die.

  We should be allowed to protect ourselves.

  The speaker is trading on two ways to understand "protect": physically protect vs.

  emotionally or financially protect. It's easy to get confused and accept unreasonable

  conclusions when an ambiguous sentence is used as a premise. We can tolerate

  some vagueness, but we should never tolerate ambiguity in reasoning.

  E x a m p l e s Is there any ambiguity in these passages?

  Example 1 There is a reason I haven't talked to Robert [my ex-lover] in seventeen years (beyond the fact that I've been married to a very sexy man whom I've loved for two-thirds

  of that time). Laura Berman, Ladies' Home Journal, June, 1996

  Analysis The rest of the time she just put up with him?

  Example 2 Your mother says you shouldn't argue with your elders. Your

  instructor is older than you, and he says that this course is about arguing. How

  can you possibly pass this course and still be a good son or daughter?

  Analysis Don't drop this course! Your mother is saying you shouldn't disagree in

  a rude manner with your elders, while your professor is trying to teach you how to

  reason. There's the colloquial understanding of "argue," and the way we understand

  that word in critical thinking and English composition.

  Example 3 Dr. E's dogs eat over 10 pounds of meat every week.

  Analysis Is this true or false? It depends on whether it means: "Each of Dr. E's

  dogs eats over 10 pounds of meat ever
y week" (big dogs!), or "Dr. E's dogs

  altogether eat over 10 pounds of meat every week." It's ambiguous whether the

  individual or the group is meant.

  EXERCISES for Section A 17

  Example 4 Homosexuality can't be hereditary: Homosexual couples can't

  reproduce, so genes for homosexuality would have died out long ago.

  Analysis The argument appears good, but only because "Homosexual couples can't

  reproduce" is ambiguous. That's true if understood as "Homosexuals can't

  reproduce as a couple" but it is false in the sense needed to make the argument

  good: "Homosexuals, who happen to be in couples, each can't reproduce." Again

  there's ambiguity between the individual and the group.

  Exercises for Section A

  1. Give an example of a vague sentence that someone tried to pass off to you as a claim.

  2. Which of the following are too vague to be considered claims?

  (You may have to suggest a context in which the sentence is spoken.)

  a. Manuel: Maria is a better cook than Lee.

  b. Lee: Manuel looks like he has a cold today.

  c. Public animal shelters should be allowed to sell unclaimed animals to laboratories

  for experimentation.

  d. Tuition at state universities does not cover the entire cost to the university of a

  student's education.

  e. All unnatural sex acts should be prohibited by law.

  f. All citizens should have equal rights.

  g. People with disabilities are just as good as people who are not disabled.

  h. Boy, are you lucky to get a date with Jane—on a scale of 1 to 10, she's at least a 9.

  i. Zoe has beautiful eyes.

  j. Dog food is cheaper at Furr's grocery store than at Smith's grocery.

  k. Alpo in cans is cheaper at Furr's grocery store than at Smith's grocery.

  1. Spot is a big dog.

  m. Cholesterol is bad for you.

  n. Parents should be held responsible for crimes their children commit.

  o. There's a good chance of rain tomorrow.

  p. There's a 70% chance of rain tomorrow.

  3. Find an advertisement that treats a vague sentence as if it were a claim.

  4. What's wrong with the following attempt to convince?

  Look, officer, if I were going 36 in this 35 m.p.h. zone, you wouldn't have given me a

  ticket, right? What about 37? But at 45 you would? Well, isn't that saying that the

  posted speed limit is just a suggestion? Or do you write the law on what's speeding?

  5. a. Can a claim be ambiguous?

  b. Can a claim be vague?

  6. How much ambiguity can we tolerate in an argument?

  18 CHAPTER 2 What Are We Arguing About?

  7. Decide whether each of the following sentences is a claim. If it is ambiguous, give at

  least two sentences corresponding to the ways it could be understood.

  a. Zoe saw the waiter with the glasses.

  b. Rumsfeld: Intelligence still lacking. (Headline in The Albuquerque Tribune, 8/7/02)

  c. Americans bicycle thousands of miles every year.

  d. If someone is under 18 years old, then he cannot vote in this country.

  e. I am over 6 feet tall.

  f. Zoe is cold.

  g. The players on the basketball team had a B average in their courses,

  h. All men are created equal.

  i. It is better to be rich than famous.

  8. Give an example of an ambiguous sentence you've heard recently.

  Additional Exercises

  9. A special kind of ambiguity occurs when we're talking about what we say. For example,

  suppose I say:

  The Taj Mahal has eleven letters.

  I don't mean that the building has eleven letters, but that the name of it does. In speech

  we use a different tone of voice or make quote marks in the air with our fingers. In

  writing we use quotation marks around a word or phrase to show that we're talking

  about that word or phrase. I should indicate that as:

  "The Taj Mahal" has eleven letters.

  We also use quotation marks as an equivalent of a wink or a nod in conversation, a

  nudge in the ribs indicating that we're not to be taken literally, or that we don't really

  subscribe to what we're saying. We call these "scare quotes," and when used this way

  they allow us to get away with "murder."

  For each of the following, indicate if any quotation marks should be inserted.

  a. Suzy can't understand what argument means.

  b. Suzy can't understand the argument Dr. E gave in class.

  c. The judge let him get away with murder.

  d. O'Brien says that there are seven legal ways to never pay taxes.

  10. Each of the following arguments depends on ambiguity or vagueness to sound

  convincing. Rewrite at least one of the sentences in each to eliminate the ambiguity.

  a. Zoe says that nothing is better than an ice cream cone on a hot summer's day. It's a

  hot summer's day. So, I'd better give Zoe nothing rather than this ice cream cone.

  b. In some places, golden eagles have used the same nesting site for hundreds of years.

  So golden eagles live longer than humans.

  c. Dick to Zoe: Anything that's valuable should be protected. Good abdominal

  muscles are valuable—you can tell because everyone is trying to get them.

  A layer of fat will protect my abs. So I should continue to be 11 pounds overweight.

  SECTION B Subjective and Objective 19

  11. The defense attorney in the first trial of the policemen charged with beating Rodney

  King argued roughly:

  If a suspect who is totally uncooperative is hit once by a policeman, then that's not

  unnecessary force. Nor twice, if he's resisting. Possibly three times. If he's still

  resisting, shouldn't the policeman have the right to hit him again? It would be

  dangerous not to allow that. So you can't tell me exactly how many times a policeman

  has to hit a suspect before it's unnecessary force. So the policeman did not use

  unnecessary force.

  Explain why this is bad reasoning, even though it did convince the jury.

  12. Mother defends decision to let daughter fly plane

  Jessica Dubroff's mother Friday defended her decision to allow her 7-year-old

  daughter to make the flight that ended in tragedy, saying, "You've no idea what

  this meant to Jess."

  "She had a freedom which you can't get by holding her back," a crying Lisa Blair

  Hathaway told NBC's "Today" while cradling her 3-year-old daughter Jasmine.

  Jessica, in an effort to become the youngest person to fly cross-country, was killed

  Thursday when her single-engine plane crashed in driving rain and snow shortly after

  takeoff, barely missing a house. Her father and flight instructor also died.

  At the site of the crash in a commercial-residential section of north Cheyenne, an

  impromptu memorial was set up as people dropped off flowers, teddy bears and even

  framed poems. By this morning the pile of teddy bears had grown to a row about 3 feet

  long by 8 feet wide. Someone placed a yellow flower on the driveway where the

  airplane's tail section came to rest.

  "I did everything so this child could have freedom and choice and have what

  America stands for," Hathaway said. "Liberty comes from . . . just living your life, . . .

  I couldn't bear to have my children in any other position."

  Hathaway said that if children were forbidden to do anything unsafe, "they would be

  padded up and they wouldn't go anywhere. They wouldn't ride a b
icycle. My God, they

  wouldn't do anything." Associated Press, 1996

  Show how Ms. Hathaway's argument relies crucially on the use of vague sentences.

  B. Subjective and Objective Claims

  Sometimes the problem with a sentence that appears to be vague is that we're not

  clear what standards are being used. Suppose Dick hears Harry say,

  "New cars today are really expensive."

  Harry might have some clear standards for what "expensive" means, perhaps

  that the average price of a new car today is more than 5 0 % of what the average

  person earns in a year.

  Or Harry might just mean that new cars cost too much for him to be

  comfortable buying one. That is, Harry has standards, but they're personal, not

  20 CHAPTER 2 What Are We Arguing About?

  necessarily shared by anyone else. They're how he thinks or believes or feels.

  Or Harry might have no standards at all. He's never thought very hard about

  what it means for a car to be expensive.

  It's convenient to have terms for these different possibilities.

  Subjective claim A claim is subjective if whether it is true or false

  depends on what someone (or something or some group) thinks,

  believes, or feels. A subjective claim invokes personal standards.

  Objective claim A claim is objective if it is not subjective.

  An objective claim invokes impersonal standards.

  So Harry might have objective standards for what it means for a car to be

  expensive; or he might have subjective standards; or he might have no standards at

  all. Until we know what he meant, we shouldn't accept what he said as a claim.

  An example of an objective claim is "Every car made by Volkswagen has a

  gasoline engine." It is false, and it doesn't depend on whether anyone thinks or

  believes that. But when Dick says, "Steak tastes better than spaghetti," that's

  subjective. Its truth-value depends on whether Dick believes or thinks that steak

  tastes better than spaghetti; its truth-value is relative to a personal standard.

  If I say, "It's cold outside," is that objective or subjective? If it's meant as

  shorthand for "I feel cold when outdoors," then it's subjective, and it's a claim. But

  if it's meant as objective, that is, I mean to assert that it's cold independently of me

  or anyone, then it's too vague for us to consider it to have a truth-value. A sentence

  that's too vague to be an objective claim might be perfectly all right as a subjective