Once arguments start, they are hard to stop. This truism does not mean that it is hard to stop a fight. We already saw that arguments are not fights. Instead, the problem here is that an argument needs premises. Why should we believe its premises? To justify the premises, we need another argument. But then that second argument also has its own premises that need to be justified by a further argument that then has premises of its own that also need to be justified by yet another argument, and so on for ever. This infinite regress lays out another way in which arguments are hard to stop after they start. It makes some sceptics wonder whether arguments can accomplish anything beyond what is already packed into their premises. This chapter will discuss some ways to address that challenge.
Can we stop soon?
To see the problem, imagine that I believe that the film Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India. (It is a great film. You should watch it.) My belief is true, but is it justified? The mere fact that I believe it cannot make me justified in believing it. After all, many people believe all sorts of silly claims without any justification.1 Moreover, the fact that my claim is true also cannot make me justified in believing it, since I might believe it for no reason or for a very silly reason. We need at least some decent justification, reason or evidence in order to be justified. One way for me to justify my belief is by watching the film so that I gain visual evidence from my own eyes. Even if I have never seen the film, I might become justified in believing my claim by reading a review that describes its plot. However, if I have never seen it and have not heard or read any reports about it, then it is hard to see how I could be justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.
If I do have evidence, then I can transform that evidence into the form of an argument. If my belief is based on personal experience, then my argument might be as simple as something like this: ‘I watched the film Lagaan. I could see and hear that it was about taxes and cricket in India. I can recognize taxes, cricket and India when I see and hear about them. Therefore, Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.’ Alternatively, if I did not see it but read about it, then I could argue like this: ‘Wikipedia reports that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India. Wikipedia usually gets such facts right. Therefore, Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.’ Either way, I am justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India only because I have information that could be built into some argument or other (although I might not need to formulate any argument explicitly). If I do not have enough evidence for any argument of any kind, then I cannot be justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India.
Of course, each of these arguments has premises that could be questioned. My appeal to personal experience assumes that I can tell cricket from other sports and that I did not mishear or misremember what was said in the movie. However, I need some reason to assume that I can reliably detect cricket, since Lagaan might be about some other sport that I have never heard of that looks a lot like cricket. I also need a reason to assume that I can tell whether the movie is about India as opposed to Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, for example, since the borders have changed, and I am no expert on that area of the world. Moreover, I need some reason to assume that my hearing and memory are reliable in this case, since I sometimes misunderstand what people say, and my memory is not perfect. Thus I need several reasons to back up the assumptions in my original argument. That requires other arguments with their own premises, such as that I watched the film several times, the film mentions taxes, cricket and India often, and I have made mistakes only rarely when there is repetition like this. However, these premises still could be questioned, and then they would need to be justified by yet another argument, and so on. If this regress never comes to an end, then it is hard to see how I could ever become justified in believing that Lagaan is about taxes and cricket in India. That result would be surprising and upsetting.
This problem generalizes to all beliefs, according to philosophical sceptics.2 They assume that every premise needs to be justified by some evidence, that evidence can always be put into some kind of argument, that every argument needs premises, and that an argument cannot make its conclusion justified unless its premises are justified. These plausible principles together generate an infinite regress: premises need justification that needs more premises that need more justification that needs more premises that need more justification, and so on for ever. If there is no escape from this regress, then how could anyone ever be justified in believing anything?
What if we can’t stop arguing?
The challenge here is to show (1) how any claim could be justified without any evidence; (2) how a claim could be justified by evidence that could not be put in the form of an argument; or else (3) how an argument could justify its conclusion by appealing to premises that are not justified themselves. Philosophers have debated for centuries about whether and, if so, how this challenge can be met. I personally doubt that this regress problem has any general theoretical solution.3 To some extent, then, sceptics are correct that no belief is justified to the extent and in the way that they require.
So what does this prove? Some conclude that arguments can never accomplish anything at all. In my opinion, they are far too quick to jump to such a strong conclusion. Instead, I would suggest that the regress shows only that scepticism arises from requiring too much. To avoid scepticism, we just need to moderate our desires, hopes and standards.4 We need to learn to live with what we can accomplish, even if that is not all that sceptics might have wished.
Sceptics are not satisfied by any argument unless it rules out every contrary possibility and convinces everyone. That is why they are never satisfied. There is always some alternative that we cannot exclude. You might feel certain, for example, that you know your own name, but how can you rule out the possibility that, shortly after you were born, the hospital switched you with another baby who had a different name?5 You might refuse to take this alternative seriously, but that refusal does nothing to show that it is false. Nonetheless, we can still accomplish a lot by ruling out the alternatives that we and our audiences are unable to take seriously.
Do we need to convince everyone? No. After all, some people are delusional, and they can reject our premises or refuse to listen to us. Fewer people than we imagine are so immovable. Nonetheless, we cannot reach everyone, and that is fine.
We can still accomplish a lot by appealing to premises that some people reject but most people accept, especially if the audience whom we are trying to reach are among those who accept our premises. Each argument needs to aim at an audience that is open to that argument in order to succeed.
To illustrate how to limit our target in political arguments, let’s simplistically and artificially divide the political spectrum into thirds. The most extreme third on the left will probably question some premise in any argument for a conservative policy. In return, the most extreme third on the right will probably question some premise in any argument for a liberal policy. These extremes will be unreachable by any argument from the other side, even if they take time to listen. Despite these limitations, however, arguments can still achieve moderate goals by aiming at the third in the middle of the political spectrum.
This middle third is more willing to listen and to try to understand us, and it does not reject common-sense assumptions. One recent study6 found that people who held extreme positions on both sides of the climate change debate updated their views only with respect to information that supported their positions and not with respect to information that conflicted. That is the bad news. The good news is that moderates in the same debate revised their views in light of information from both sides. They responded to evidence of all kinds. If this trend is repeated in other debates, then some arguments can reach this middle third by using premises that they accept, even if some extremists reject those premises. And reaching the middle third is usually enough to sway an election – if we are lucky – and then this moderate audience matters. In this way, arguments can often achieve important practical goals, even if these practical goals are limited and there is no general theoretical reply to the challenge of the sceptical regress.
How can we stop arguing?
We still need to figure out how to reach limited audiences with premises that they will not reject. In other words, we need regress stoppers for real life. Luckily our language already supplies tools for this purpose. There are four main categories of regress stoppers: guarding, assuring, evaluating and discounting. These groups of words offer different ways of handling potential objections.
GUARDING
Our first way to stop the regress is to weaken the premise. To see how this works, imagine that you own a house in a low-lying area. A visiting insurance agent argues, ‘You should buy a flood insurance policy, because all houses in low-lying areas are destroyed by floods.’ This argument is easy to refute, because its premise is false: it is not true that all houses in low-lying areas are destroyed by floods; some survive. To guard against this objection, the insurance agent can restate the premise: some houses in low-lying areas are destroyed by floods. Now this guarded premise is true, but the argument runs into another problem: its premise is too weak to support its conclusion. If only one house in a million in a low-lying area is destroyed by a flood, then this is not enough to justify spending money on flood insurance. What the insurance agent needs is a middle path between a premise that is too strong to defend (‘all’) and another premise that is too weak to support the conclusion (‘some’). Here’s one intermediate possibility: many houses in low-lying areas are destroyed by floods. This premise seems both true and strong enough to provide a reason to buy flood insurance. Of course, the term ‘many’ is too vague to specify how strong this reason is (which affects how much you should spend on flood insurance). Nonetheless, the move from ‘all’ to ‘many’ improves the argument by avoiding some initial objections.
The same goal can be achieved by admitting uncertainty. Instead of claiming that your house definitely will be destroyed by a flood, the insurance agent could say this: ‘You should buy a flood insurance policy, because your house might be destroyed by a flood.’ However, the fact that there is some possibility of a flood is hardly enough to justify buying flood insurance. If it were, then we would also have to buy meteor insurance, since any house might be destroyed by a meteor. A persistent insurance agent could try this premise: ‘Your house has a significant chance of being destroyed by a flood.’ The vagueness in the term ‘significant’ raises questions, but at least it makes the premise easier to defend and still strong enough to provide some reason for the conclusion.
These simple examples illustrate how guarding terms work. To change the premise from ‘all’ to ‘many’ (or ‘most’) or ‘some’, or from ‘definitely’ to ‘possibly’ or ‘significant chance’ (or ‘probably’ or ‘likely’) is to guard the premise. Other ways to guard premises include self-description, as in ‘I believe (or think or suspect or fear) that your house will be destroyed by a flood’, since to object to this claim about my own mental state would be to deny that the speaker believes what he says he believes. How could we deny that? The purpose of all such guarding terms is to make premises less vulnerable to objections and thereby to turn bad arguments into better arguments and to stop the regress of reasons.
Despite their usefulness, guarding terms can be misused. One common trick is to introduce but then drop a guarding term. An insurance agent might argue, ‘A flood might destroy your house. That would be horrible. Just think of your cherished possessions. Your family could incur huge medical bills and would have to live elsewhere until you found a new home. In that case, our flood insurance policy will pay all of those expenses. Those costs add up to much more than the price of flood insurance. So flood insurance is a good deal.’ What happened here? At the end, the insurance agent compares the costs of a flood destroying your house to the price of flood insurance. That comparison is relevant if your house will in fact be destroyed by a flood. However, the opening premise claimed only that a flood might destroy your house. If there is only a minute chance that a flood will destroy your house, then the costs of such destruction would need to be many times more than the price of flood insurance in order to make insurance worth the cost. The insurance agent has tried to hide this obvious point by dropping the guarding term. Watch out for this trick.
Another trick is to omit quantifiers entirely. People often say things like, ‘Houses in low areas are destroyed by floods.’ Does this mean all, some, many or most houses? If it means all houses, then it is false. If it means only some houses, then it is true, but not enough to support buying insurance. If it means many houses, then it is vague. Which is it? Until we know more precisely what this premise claims, we cannot determine whether the argument around it works. When someone tries to pull this trick, your best reply is usually: ‘What do you mean: all, some, many or most?’
Let’s apply this lesson to a controversial political example. In early 2017, the United States stopped issuing visas to people from six Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Although the list of countries was modified later in 2017, let’s ask what kind of argument could support the original travel ban.
One common premise is simple: Muslims are terrorists. But what exactly does this mean? This premise is too vague to assess until we specify whether it refers to all, some, many or most Muslims. The first possibility suggests this argument: ‘All Muslims are terrorists. Everyone from these six countries is Muslim. Therefore, everyone from these countries is a terrorist.’ This argument is obviously so bad that nobody ever presents it like this. Even the most ardent defender of the ban realizes that some people from these countries are not Muslims, and most Muslims (as well as most visa applicants) from these countries are not terrorists.
How can we fix this argument with a guarding term? One way is to weaken the premise from ‘All Muslims are terrorists’ to ‘Some Muslims are terrorists.’ This premise is easier to defend than the claim that all Muslims are terrorists. However, now it is too weak to support the conclusion. If we start the argument with ‘Some Muslims are terrorists’, then the premise will not be enough to support a ban on all people from these countries. How can we justify banning some political refugees who are not terrorists just because they happen to live in a country where some other people are terrorists? We need more justification for a ban on the whole country, so this premise has been guarded too much.
As with insurance, what we need is a middle path between a premise that is too strong to defend and one that is too weak to justify the conclusion. What about ‘Many Muslims are terrorists’? Is that premise strong enough to support a ban on everyone from these countries? I do not see how. One simple reason is that, even if many Muslims are terrorists, it still might be true that no terrorists come from these six countries. So at least we need a premise like ‘Many Muslims in each of these countries are terrorists.’ Now, is that enough? Not yet, partly because the term ‘many’ is so vague. Ten thousand terrorists is many terrorists. But then, if ten million people live in a country, and ten thousand are terrorists, that means that many people in that country are terrorists even though only one in a thousand is a terrorist. If we refuse visas to everyone from that country on the grounds that ‘many’ are terrorists, then we ban 999 non-terrorists for every one real terrorist.
Maybe another kind of guarding term will work. It is true that every visa applicant from any of these countries might be a terrorist. However, it is also true that anyone from any country might be a terrorist. There is always some possibility, so a premise with the guarding term ‘might’ cannot justify a ban on these countries without also justifying a ban on all other countries. Next, defenders of the travel ban could try this premise: ‘There is a significant chance (or too much chance) that any visa applicant from any of these countries is a terrorist.’ However, some visa applicants have evidence that they are fleeing terrorism, so it is not clear why there is a significant chance that these particular applicants are terrorists. But then that guarded premise seems false.
Thus it is hard to see how guarding in these ways could save this argument. Indeed, the fact that this argument is so dubious should make us wonder whether this argument is what proponents of a travel ban really have in mind. If we want to make fun of them, we might put such words into their mouths. But if we really want to understand them and their position, then we need to try to look at the issue from their perspective.
What other arguments could they have in mind? One answer is suggested by asking why these six countries were singled out. It cannot be simply that they have Muslim majorities, since many other countries with Muslim majorities were not on the list. (Two non-Muslim majority countries – North Korea and Venezuela – were added to the ban later in 2017.) Instead, defenders of the ban claim that these countries’ governments are weak, corrupt and chaotic, which makes it easy for terrorists to obtain false documents. Without trustworthy evidence, border officials cannot tell which visa applicants from these countries are terrorists. If even one in a thousand of those applicants are terrorists, and we have no reliable way to tell which ones they are, then it is dangerous to issue visas to any of them. Whether it is too dangerous is another issue, but there is surely some danger in issuing visas without adequate evidence of safety. If this is the problem, then there is no need to guard the premise by moving from ‘all’ to ‘some’ or ‘many’ or from ‘definitely’ to ‘possibly’. The issue here is not the number of terrorists or the probability in a specific case, but the unreliability of information about which visa applicants are terrorists. That lack of trust in available evidence explains why defenders of the ban want extreme vetting in all doubtful cases, and a complete ban when the political situation makes extreme vetting insecure or impossible.
I am not, of course, saying or suggesting that this argument is good or that it is bad. Evaluation is a separate task for later chapters, and it requires detailed factual information about the particular case. Here I am merely trying to determine which argument lies behind the travel ban so that I can understand why good and reasonable people support it and so that I can appreciate their reasons, learn from them and figure out how to compromise with them. I suspect that at least some supporters of the ban have in mind something like this argument about trusting sources, but other ban supporters may have in mind very different arguments. If so, then we need to figure out what those other arguments are and then try to learn from them and work with them.
ASSURING
The issue of trust is addressed directly by a second way to head off questions and objections. Suppose that you wonder whether Sharif likes you, and I want to convince you that he does. I might say, ‘I assure you that he likes you a lot.’ It would be impolite or at least uncomfortable for you to reply, ‘Your assurances are no good, because I do not trust you.’ Thus my assurance prevents you from objecting to what I say. But notice that I did not give any particular reason or evidence for my claim that Sharif likes you. I did not say that he told me that he likes you, that I overheard him praising you or saw him acting as if he likes you, or that a mutual friend reported such things about Sharif. When I say, ‘I assure you that he likes you’, I suggest that I have some reason for assuring you, but I do not openly specify what that reason is. As a result, you have no particular reason to object to. I also avoid saying how strong the reason is and how trustworthy the sources are. By specifying so little, my claim or premise becomes less objectionable and easier to defend. That is how assurance stops the argument and avoids a regress.
Instead of saying, ‘I assure you’, I could say, ‘I am sure’ or ‘Surely’, ‘I am certain’ or ‘Certainly’, ‘I have no doubt’, ‘Undoubtedly’, ‘There is no question’ or ‘Unquestionably’, ‘Obviously’, ‘Definitely’, ‘Absolutely’, ‘As a matter of fact’, and so on. All such assuring terms suggest that there is a reason for a claim without specifying what that reason is. They thereby prevent the audience from asking for any more justification of the claim.
Assurances are perfectly fine in many cases. Some premises really are obvious, and sometimes opponents agree on certain premises as well as on the reliability of certain sources of information. It makes sense to say that evidence and experts support a claim without specifying any particular evidence or experts in situations where it would be pointless or distracting to go into more detail. Assurances can save time.
Despite these legitimate uses, assuring terms can also be misused. One common trick is abusive assuring. People often resort to excesses like these: ‘You would have to be blind not to see that …’, ‘Everybody who knows anything knows that …’ or (in the opposite direction) ‘Only a naive fool would be deluded into imagining that …’ Whenever people turn to abusive assurances like these, you should wonder why they adopted such desperate incivility instead of giving evidence for their claim.
Another trick is to allude to some source – authority or evidence – that you know your audience would reject, without admitting that you are relying on this dubious source. Disputed reasons cannot resolve disputes. Imagine that a liberal watches a liberal news show (such as on the American network MSNBC) and says ‘Of course the President colluded with our enemies’ or ‘Anybody who keeps up with the news knows that.’ These assuring terms do not explicitly mention the particular news source, so conservative opponents cannot object to this claim by criticizing its particular source. The same point applies to a conservative who watches conservative news (such as Fox) and says, ‘Only a dupe of fake news [or the mainstream media] would accuse the President of colluding with our enemies.’ When assuring terms are used on both sides to refer to news sources that opponents reject, these assuring terms silence reasons on both sides, because neither can discuss the reliability of unnamed sources. Such assuring terms stop argument, but they stop it too early.
Let’s apply these lessons to the United States travel ban discussed above. Imagine a visa applicant from Somalia or Yemen who says, ‘I assure you that I am not a terrorist.’ An official whose job is to issue visas would have reason to doubt this assurance, since it is exactly what a terrorist would say. But then suppose an observer (perhaps another official or visa applicant) says, ‘She is unquestionably only trying to escape war and terrorism.’ A visa official might trust this observer, but the rules still might require reliable documentation. Even if the observer assures, ‘There is plenty of evidence that this visa applicant is safe’, the official would be well within his rights to ask to see that evidence. Then suppose that the visa applicant produces what looks like an official document. Now the other side can resort to assurances. The official might reply, ‘That document is clearly unreliable. We know that documents like this are for sale on the streets of this country, and terrorists undoubtedly buy them.’ These assurances give some reason for turning down the visa application, even though they do not say why the unreliability is clear or why the official knows about the sales and has no doubts that terrorists buy fake documents. That non-specificity leaves the visa applicant with no way to respond to the official’s scepticism.
The problem is that assurances work only in a context of trust. If you tell me that you are certain, and if I trust you, then I might agree without needing to ask why you are certain. But if I do not trust you, then I will not be swayed by your assurance that you are confident or certain. Polarization often creates such lack of trust, so it undermines many attempts to share reasons, which breeds even more polarization.
EVALUATING
A third way to stop arguments is to use evaluative or normative language. Philosophers have wrangled for centuries about the meanings of evaluative words like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as well as normative words like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. I will not try to describe or contribute to those general debates here. I will only try to show how evaluative language helps to stop arguments in much the same way as assuring.
One venerable tradition suggests that to call something good is to say that it meets the relevant standards.7 An apple is good when it is crunchy and tasty. A car is good when it is roomy and efficient (as well as pretty, responsive, inexpensive and so on). The standards for good apples are very different from the standards for good cars, but each is good when it meets the standards that are relevant to a thing of its own kind. Similarly, to call something bad is to say that it fails to meet the relevant standards. Bad apples are mushy or bland, whereas cramped, slow gas guzzlers are bad cars.
The terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ can apply to almost anything, but other evaluative terms are more specialized. A bargain has a good price. A beautiful painting looks good. A catchy tune has a good melody. A courageous person is good at facing danger. An honest person tells the truth when it is good to do so (but can remain silent when that is better). Such terms are evaluative, because they cannot be explained or defined adequately without referring to what is good and thereby to some relevant standards.
Speakers often use terms for evaluation even when those words are not evaluative in themselves. If I say that my child died, I surely evaluate this death as bad, but all I say explicitly is that this death occurred. I do not openly call it bad, and I can define when a death occurs without implying that the death is bad. Hence, the word ‘death’ is not by itself an evaluative word, even though death is bad. Similarly, to call someone liberal is not in itself an evaluative word, even though conservatives sometimes criticize their opponents by calling them liberal. Liberals are proud to be liberals, so they do not see this word as a negative evaluation. To call someone liberal is, therefore, only to describe that person’s political views and is not to say that the person meets or fails to meet any evaluative or normative standards. Hence, words like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are not intrinsically evaluative.
Let’s apply this point to our previous example of the United States travel ban. Its defenders will say that it is dangerous to issue visas to citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. What does it mean to call this dangerous? It seems to imply that it is too risky. But what makes it too risky instead of just risky? This appears to mean that it exceeds the standards of acceptable risk. The appeal to standards shows why the term ‘dangerous’ suggests a hidden evaluation. The same applies on the other side of this debate. Opponents of the travel ban argue that it is safe to issue visas to some applicants from these six countries. Do they mean that this creates no risk at all? That would obviously be implausible, so it is unlikely to mean this. What they mean instead is probably that issuing these visas meets the standards of acceptable risk. It is not too risky. Understanding these claims in terms of relevant standards therefore clarifies the issue. The disagreement is over how much risk is created by issuing visas and how much risk is acceptable. Locating the debate in this way will not resolve it, of course, but it helps each side appreciate the other.
Now we can see how evaluative language could stop sceptical regresses. Recall that assuring terms claimed there is some reason without specifying any particular reason, thereby avoiding objections to any particular reason. Evaluation works like that. When one side of a debate calls something good, they say that it meets the relevant standards. They do not, however, specify what those standards are. Even when they use a thick term, such as when they call a policy ‘safe’ or ‘dangerous’, they locate a general kind of standard, but still do not indicate precisely what that standard dictates. This vagueness makes it harder for opponents to object, because they do not know which standards to object to. In addition, evaluative language can create alliances among people with very different standards. You and I can agree that a route to our destination is good, even if you call it good because it is short, and I call it good because it has beautiful views. You and I can agree that a fight between us would be bad, even if you call it bad because it is bad for you, and I call it bad because it is bad for me. Thus we can agree on evaluative premises in an argument, even if we accept those premises on very different standards. That agreement can obviate any need to ask for further justification of these premises, so it can provide a shared starting point for arguments.
DISCOUNTING
A fourth and final way to handle objections is to anticipate and defuse them. It might seem odd to raise new objections to your own position. Are you trying to refute yourself? However, if you state an objection and respond to it before your opponents do, then you get to formulate that objection in the way that you want instead of in the way that they would prefer. You also make your opponents reluctant to object to your premises, because their objection will seem redundant after you have already dealt with the issue. And you get to discount this objection – that is, say why you think it does not matter. This strategy can sometimes bring an end to the argument.
These functions are performed by discounting terms. Simple examples abound in everyday life. Contrast these two sentences:
(1) Ramona is smart but boring.
(2) Ramona is boring but smart.
The difference is subtle but crucial: someone who says (1) probably does not want to spend time with Ramona, because she is boring. In contrast, someone who says (2) probably does want to spend time with Ramona, because she is smart. What comes before or after the word ‘but’ makes all the difference.
This asymmetry arises because each of these sentences makes three claims. First, both (1) and (2) imply that Ramona is both smart and boring. In this way, ‘but’ resembles ‘and’, though it adds more. Second, discounting terms like ‘but’ also suggest some conflict or tension between the two claims. I can say that Ramona is strong and tall, but it sounds odd to say that Ramona is strong but tall, since there is no conflict between being strong and being tall. In contrast, there is a conflict or tension between being smart and being boring, because her being smart is a reason to spend time with Ramona, whereas her being boring is a reason not to spend time with Ramona. Third, sentences with discounting terms also indicate which side prevails in the conflict. The word ‘but’ suggests that the claim after ‘but’ is more important than the claim before ‘but’. That is why people who say ‘Ramona is smart but boring’ do not want to spend time with Ramona, because they see her being boring as more important than her being smart. In contrast, people who say ‘Ramona is boring but smart’ do want to spend time with Ramona, because they see her being smart as more important than her being boring. This third claim explains the difference between sentences (1) and (2).
Other discounting terms make the same three claims, but in the opposite direction. Consider a political example. Dilma Rousseff was President of Brazil from 2011 until she was impeached at the end of August 2016. During July 2016, while Rousseff was still in the process of being impeached, a Brazilian might say:
(3) Although Rousseff is the President of our country, she is corrupt.
(4) Although Rousseff is corrupt, she is the President of our country.
These sentences claim that Rousseff is both President and corrupt, and they suggest some tension between those claims. Her being President is a reason to respect Rousseff, but her being corrupt is a reason not to respect Rousseff. In addition, the term ‘although’ usually indicates that what comes immediately after it is less important than the claim in the first clause. That is why someone who says (3) with the right intonation suggests that we do not owe respect to Rousseff, because of her corruption. In contrast, someone who says (4) with the right intonation suggests that we do owe respect to Rousseff, because she is the President of our country. The placement of the claims reveals the speaker’s priorities.
These two patterns recur in other discounting terms, including ‘though’, ‘even though’, ‘even if’, ‘while’, ‘whereas’, ‘however’, ‘yet’, ‘still’, ‘nevertheless’ and ‘nonetheless’. All of these terms imply both of the claims that they connect, suggest a conflict between those claims and rank those claims in importance to the issues at hand.
Arguers often use discounting terms to protect and support their premises. They might say something like, ‘You should let Rousseff speak. Although her critics might object that she is corrupt, she is still President.’ The second sentence responds to the critics’ objection to letting her speak and also adds a premise (‘she is still President’) to support the conclusion that you should let her speak. Raising the objection and responding to it makes critics more reluctant to object to your premises, so it can sometimes stop an argument.
Let’s apply this lesson to our continuing example of the US travel ban. Defenders of the travel ban might say, ‘Sure, most Muslims from those six countries are not terrorists, but we cannot tell which ones are.’ This sentence heads off the objection that the ban mistakenly assumes that most Muslims from those countries are terrorists, since defenders of the ban just explicitly denied that assumption. On the other side, opponents of the travel ban might say, ‘Admittedly, we cannot always trust local documents or be sure who is a terrorist, but extreme vetting will make some cases clear.’ This sentence explains why (and thereby admits that) it is difficult to tell who is a terrorist, so it heads off an imagined objection that opponents of the ban are so naive as to assume that it is easy to tell who is a terrorist. Both cases of discounting here prevent a potential misinterpretation and thereby increase the chances of mutual understanding and productive discussion. By mentioning both the objection and the response, these sentences bring to light reasons on both sides of the issue. The resulting awareness of competing considerations can increase the odds of finding a compromise that satisfies the parties and the reasons given on both sides. This is another way in which discounting objections can improve arguments.
How can words work together?
We have encountered ways to introduce arguments – argument markers – as well as ways to stop arguments – using guarding, assuring, evaluating or discounting terms. Each of these bits of language is fascinating and complex. There is a lot more to learn about them and from them. The best way to learn more is to practise identifying these words in real arguments. That is the goal of close analysis.
As an illustration, we will work slowly and carefully through one extended example. It comes from an advertisement for Equal Exchange fair trade coffee.8 Let’s begin by reading the whole advertisement in order to see its overall structure:
It may be a little early in the morning to bring this up, but if you buy coffee from large corporations, you are inadvertently maintaining the system which keeps small farmers poor while lining the pockets of rich corporations. By choosing Equal Exchange coffee, you can help to make a change. We believe in trading directly with small farming cooperatives at mutually agreed-upon prices with a fixed minimum rate. Then, should the coffee market decline, the farmers are still guaranteed a fair price. So have a cup of Equal Exchange coffee and make a small farmer happy. Of course, your decision to buy Equal Exchange need not be completely altruistic. For we take as much pride in refining the taste of our gourmet coffees as we do in helping the farmers who produce them. For more information about Equal Exchange or to order our line of gourmet, organic and shade-grown coffee directly, call 1 800 406 8289.
To perform a close analysis of this passage, we need to identify its argument markers as well as its guarding, assuring, discounting and evaluating terms. That exercise will reveal its central arguments.
The second word is already worthy of comment. Why do the authors say, ‘It may be a little early in the morning to bring this up’ instead of ‘It is a little early in the morning to bring this up’? Because readers might see this advertisement at any time in the day. If they see it in the evening, then it is not true that it is early in the morning. In order to avoid starting with a falsehood, the authors deploy the guarding term ‘may’. Also, the fifth word, ‘little’, seems to guard against the objection that it is much too early. In any case, this kind of guarding is a bit unusual, because this sentence is not part of the central argument. The main point does not depend on what time of day the article is read.
The next noteworthy word is ‘but’. We saw that ‘but’ is a paradigm discounting term. What does it discount here? That is not completely clear, but one interpretation is plausible. The rest of the sentence begins the argument, as we will see, and that argument is quite serious. It will suggest that buying the wrong kind of coffee harms needy victims. That issue is too heavy for most people to discuss while they are still waking up in the morning. Consequently, many people are likely to object to having this argument brought up while they are drinking their first cup of coffee. The term ‘but’ anticipates this objection and indicates that what follows is more important.
What follows is an if-then sentence, also called a conditional: ‘if you buy coffee from large corporations, you are inadvertently maintaining the system which keeps small farmers poor while lining the pockets of rich corporations’. Notice that the authors do not accuse people of buying coffee from large corporations or of maintaining the system that keeps small farmers poor. After all, some readers might not drink coffee or they might already purchase fair trade coffee from Equal Exchange.
What is this conditional sentence doing? Its point comes from the word ‘poor’. There is nothing wrong with maintaining a system if the system is not bad, but there is something wrong with keeping small farmers poor if it is bad to be poor. Notice that whether someone is poor does not depend only on how much currency or how many possessions they have. A person who makes a million rupees (about US$16,000) a year might be rich in areas where that is sufficient to live well, but still poor in areas where that is not sufficient to live a life that is good enough. Thus to call someone ‘poor’ seems to mean that they do not make or have enough to meet some minimum standards of a good life. In that sense, it is bad to be poor, so ‘poor’ is an evaluative term. (Of course, this does not mean that poor people are bad, but only that their levels of income and wealth are bad.) Now, if it is bad in this way to be poor, then it is bad to keep small farmers poor; and it is also bad to maintain a system with that bad effect, so it is bad to buy coffee from large corporations, if that maintains a bad system, as the sentence claims. We can see how the negative force of the evaluative term ‘poor’ reverberates all the way back to the very beginning of the conditional sentence in the advertisement and implies that it is bad to buy coffee from large corporations.
What about ‘lining the pockets’? Is that phrase also evaluative? It is not clear, partly because it is metaphorical. There is nothing wrong with lined pockets. However, the metaphor suggests lining (or filling) pockets with money and also suggests that the money is being hidden in the linings of pockets. The reason for hiding the money is presumably that it was obtained unfairly. If this is what the metaphor suggests, then ‘lining the pockets of rich corporations’ also violates standards of fairness, so it is bad. This additional point thus reinforces the claim that the system stinks, so you should not maintain it by buying coffee from large corporations.
Why do the authors add the adverb ‘inadvertently’? Perhaps because they do not want to accuse readers of intentionally harming poor people. Such an accusation would be hard to prove and could backfire by angering the audience and making them stop reading. The authors want to show readers how to do better without blaming them individually for the harms of the system. In addition, by calling this harm inadvertent, the authors suggest that people who buy coffee from large corporations do not know what they are doing to poor farmers, so they have something to learn by reading on.
The first conclusion then is that the current system stinks, but the main point of the advertisement is not simply to stop readers from buying coffee from large corporations. After all, they could give up coffee entirely. Instead, the authors want readers to buy their coffee from Equal Exchange. To give a reason for this, the authors need a more positive argument.
The positive argument begins with the next sentence: ‘By choosing Equal Exchange coffee, you can help to make a change.’ This sentence does not actually say that a change is good. Some changes might make the system worse. However, after the first sentence of the advertisement showed why the old system was bad, the authors now seem to assume that making a change is good.
This sentence still does not explicitly say that choosing Equal Exchange coffee will in fact change anything. The reason is that the phrase ‘can help’ contains two guarding terms. To say that people help to make a change is weaker than to say that they do make a change, and to say that people can help to make a change is weaker than to say that they do help to make a change. Weakening this premise twice makes it easier to defend. Opponents cannot object that buying coffee from Equal Exchange is not enough by itself to change the system, because the authors of the advertisement never make that unguarded claim. Yet, despite its weakness, the doubly guarded premise is enough to support the conclusion that readers should buy Equal Exchange coffee if readers want to have some chance of being part of the solution to the problems of poor coffee farmers. That chance will not be enough to satisfy some readers. Still, some possibility of a good change is better than maintaining a bad system, so this doubly guarded claim is enough reason for many readers to drink Equal Exchange coffee.
The next sentence is tricky: ‘We believe in trading directly with small farming cooperatives at mutually agreed-upon prices with a fixed minimum rate.’ The authors tell you what Equal Exchange believes in, but never actually assert that they do what they believe in. The term ‘believe’ here might be seen as a type of guarding, because it weakens the claim in order to avoid the objection that Equal Exchange does not always actually trade directly with small farming cooperatives at mutually agreed-upon prices with a fixed minimum rate. Still, the authors clearly invite readers to assume that Equal Exchange does what they believe in.
This sentence also suggests that what they believe in is good, so it is supposed to be good to trade directly with small farming cooperatives at mutually agreed-upon prices with a fixed minimum rate. However, none of the words in this sentence is explicitly evaluative. To call an action ‘trade’ is not to say whether it is good or bad. To say that trade is ‘direct’ is not to say that it is good or bad either. To say that prices are mutually agreed upon is not to evaluate the agreement as fair or good, since some mutual agreements are unfair and bad. To say that a rate has a fixed minimum is not to say that the minimum is high enough to be fair or good. The authors never explain why any of this is good. Is that a problem for the argument? Not necessarily. It is obvious that the authors see these things as good, and they might be trying to reach only audiences who share those evaluations. Maybe the authors are not addressing anyone who thinks that it is bad for prices to be mutually agreed on. If so, then the argument might reach everyone whom the authors are trying to reach.
In any case, explicit evaluation is introduced in the next sentence: ‘Then, should the coffee market decline, the farmers are still guaranteed a fair price.’ The term ‘fair’ is openly evaluative, because something is fair only if it meets evaluative standards of fairness. What about the term ‘should’ in this sentence? To say that someone should do something is normally to imply that doing it is good. Here, however, the authors are clearly not saying that the coffee market should decline. That would be bad. In this sentence, ‘should the coffee market decline’ instead means ‘if the coffee market declines’.
Another word in this sentence that could be marked is ‘guaranteed’. To say that a fair price is guaranteed is to say that the farmers are assured of, or certain to get, a fair price. Who guarantees that fair price? Presumably it is Equal Exchange, since the local law does not require fixed minimum rates. Thus, if we see the Equal Exchange corporation as the author of its own advertisement, then ‘guaranteed’ functions as an assuring term, because the authors use it to assure readers that farmers will get a fair price. It is equivalent to saying, ‘Farmers will surely get a fair price.’
Now that we understand the rest, let’s return to the first word in this sentence. ‘Then’ is an argument marker indicating that the preceding sentence (‘We belive in trading directly with small farming cooperatives at mutually agreed-upon prices with a fixed minimum rate’) is a reason for the following sentence (‘[If] the coffee market decline[s], the farmers are still guaranteed a fair price’). The trade and pricing practices of Equal Exchange give an explanatory reason why prices will remain stable in the face of inevitable market declines. Because of the evaluative terms in this sentence, this argument also presents a justificatory reason to buy Equal Exchange coffee, because its practices promote something good: stability in fairness.
The next sentence explicitly draws this general conclusion: ‘So have a cup of Equal Exchange coffee and make a small farmer happy.’ The word ‘so’ functions as an argument marker which indicates that what follows is a conclusion. What is strange is only that this conclusion is an imperative: ‘have a cup of Equal Exchange coffee’. Imperatives are not declarative, so they cannot be true or false. That formal feature seems to rule them out as conclusions. However, this conclusion is fine if it is elliptical for ‘You ought to have a cup of Equal Exchange coffee’ or ‘I recommend that you have a cup of Equal Exchange coffee.’ The authors seem to have intended something like these expansions.
The second half of this sentence introduces a new reason: ‘make a small farmer happy’. The authors did not mention happiness before. The term ‘happy’ is evaluative, assuming that to make people happy is to make them feel good. This positive effect of drinking Equal Exchange coffee thus complements the reasons to avoid maintaining the unfair system. Moreover, the authors drop the guarding terms and suggest that having a cup of Equal Exchange coffee will in fact make a small farmer happy. That stronger claim reaches audiences who are satisfied only if they actually do bring about a good effect and not merely if they have a chance of helping to avoid a bad effect, as the earlier argument claimed. Unfortunately, however, it raises the question of whether having a cup of Equal Exchange coffee really will make a small farmer happy. There are reasons to doubt that, but I will not go into them here.
The next sentence illustrates a common combination of assuring and guarding: ‘Of course, your decision to buy Equal Exchange need not be completely altruistic.’ The phrase ‘of course’ assures readers that what follows is true (without openly specifying any evidence that it is true, although that evidence is coming in the following sentence). What readers are assured of is, however, guarded by the complex phrase ‘need not be completely’. To say that an act is not completely altruistic is compatible with the act being partly altruistic, so it weakens the claim that the act is completely altruistic. Then to say that an act need not be completely altruistic further weakens the claim that it is completely altruistic. This doubly guarded claim is so weak that it is compatible with the decision actually not being altruistic at all, as long as it is possible that the decision is partly altruistic. Nobody could object to that, but how could it be strong enough to support any conclusion? Well, it doesn’t have to, because this sentence is not part of the positive argument for drinking Equal Exchange coffee. Instead, it responds to the possible objection that the authors are asking readers to be altruistic. There is no discounting term, but there does not have to be a discounting term in every case where an objection is discounted. Here the function of discounting an objection is supposed to be clear from the context. The point of doubly guarding the claim about altruism is to discount any objection that the authors are requiring complete altruism. Even selfish bastards will have reason to drink Equal Exchange coffee.
Why? The next sentence tells us: ‘For we take as much pride in refining the taste of our gourmet coffees as we do in helping the farmers who produce them.’ Here the word ‘for’ is an argument marker. We can tell its function because we can replace it with another argument marker – ‘because’ – without changing the basic meaning of the sentence. To say ‘For we take as much pride’ is equivalent to saying ‘Because we take as much pride’. Contrast the same word in the next sentence: ‘For more information about Equal Exchange …’. There we cannot substitute another argument marker, since it makes no sense to say ‘Because more information about Equal Exchange …’.
Which argument is marked by the term ‘for’ in the previous sentence? It is simply: ‘We take as much pride in refining the taste of our gourmet coffees as we do in helping the farmers who produce them. Therefore, your decision to buy Equal Exchange need not be completely altruistic.’ The doubly guarded claim is the conclusion, so its weakness makes it easier to support. Of course, refining the taste leaves open the possibility that the taste still needs much more refinement, and taking pride in refining is compatible with that pride being misplaced. Still, the authors are clearly suggesting that their coffees taste very good, and that is a reason to buy them.
Finally, we can combine the two main strands of this argument. One reason to buy Equal Exchange coffee is that doing so can help change a bad system (as well as make a small farmer happy). Another reason to buy Equal Exchange coffee is its refined gourmet taste. The two parts together are supposed to provide a reason for any reader who cares either about helping small farmers or about personally enjoying a refined gourmet taste. The people at Equal Exchange take pride in both considerations, but the argument works for readers who care about either consideration alone, that is, even if they care only about the farmers or only about the taste. The argument thus becomes stronger by broadening the range of reasons that it shows.
As usual, I am not personally endorsing this argument or its conclusion. Whether or not you are convinced to buy Equal Exchange coffee – indeed, whether or not you even like drinking coffee – the point of this exercise in close analysis is not persuasion. Instead, the goal is understanding. I tried to make this argument look as good as possible so that we can assess and learn from the best reasons for its conclusion.
My other goal was to illustrate how complex even a simple argument can be. Our close analysis revealed how much content and strategy can be uncovered by looking closely at only eight sentences and focusing on argument markers plus guarding, assuring, evaluating and discounting terms. The process of going through one example in so much detail should, I hope, provide a model to follow in using this technique on other arguments. Close analysis can be applied equally to many other arguments in many other areas. Try it on your own favourite topics. It is fun. It is even more fun to do it with friends so that you can discuss alternative interpretations.