A few years ago at Wilfrid Laurier University, I taught the philosophy course “Reasoning and Argumentation.” On the first day of class, while explaining the syllabus to the students, one suddenly gathered her backpack, stood up and while rushing out the door said, something like, “This is not for me.”
As students sat there looking rather astonished, I thought that if I were looking for a great introduction for the class, she was it.
Imagine a professor teaching an introduction course to ethics and abruptly having a student bolting from the classroom uttering the same thing. “Ethics is not for me!” Or in political philosophy: “Politics is not for me!”
Or in environmental ethics or biomedical ethics. “What’s the use of talking about corporate responsibility?” “What’s up with the ethics of physician-assisted suicide?”
Perhaps she was just having a bad day. Or maybe she felt my indelible charm and dazzling acumen would be too distracting. Hard to know. What’s certain is that she missed out.
Unfortunately, it’s an attitude too prevalent in our contemporary, North American, society. “I don’t want to argue!” we regularly hear. “I hate it when people fight!”
The mistake, however, isn’t with arguing. The problem is how the word has slowly, over the years, been redefined by contemporary culture to mean something like bickering and fighting.
This caricature of argument, even worse, has been coupled to popular culture’s tendency to also elevate the superficiality of appearances and to mock intelligence. (In contrast to Sarah Palin, recall the disdain Republicans had for President Obama’s university education, typecast as “elitist.”)
Back to basics. Etymologically “argue” comes from the Latin arguere, meaning, “to demonstrate, prove.” Properly understood, arguing is the task of providing evidence for your belief. If anything, proper argument inoculates us from superstition and hearsay. It’s also a disinfectant for error, ignorance and, most importantly, sloppy thinking.
So what makes a sound argument?
It’s not terribly difficult. Let’s start by understanding an argument is a premise, or set of premises, that lead to a conclusion. In other words, the conclusion is something you are claiming to be the case. Normally, the more premises you provide, the more evidence you’re advancing to support your assertions. Just keep in mind that those premises can’t come out of thin air. In order to soundly support the conclusion, they need to be true, relevant and adequate.
Along the way, as you provide those premises – the evidence that supports your claim – you also need to avoid those nasty little seductions called, “fallacies.” The Latin helps once more. Fallacy comes from the Latin fallere, “to deceive.” Those fallacies I like best – because of how they pepper most attempts at arguments – are ad hominem (“against the man”); non sequitur (“it doesn’t follow”) and circulus in demonstrando (“circular reasoning”).
These are fallacies (or “deceptions”) because they don’t lend any support to the conclusion; instead, they literally try to trick us into thinking they are legitimate to the argument. They distort the conversation. And when people don’t recognize the fallacy, they get upset, and that’s normally when the fighting begins.
Explaining the details of an argument can’t be done in this brief discussion. My point here is actually something quite different, best summed up in what G.K. Chesterton said: “People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.”
Put this in the context of Squamish’s fiery discussion over Woodfibre LNG. Those of us arguing back and forth know the challenges of arguing cogently. Providing the evidence and facts. Avoiding the fallacies. Admittedly, some more, some less.
But there’s another element to the LNG debate that, I think, is quite natural. Things can get heated, even to the point of straining friendships – even family ties. Even to the point of breaking. This is, no doubt, unfortunate.
But when you look at the history of how our society and communities have worked through challenging, and changing public policy, worse has happened.
People have put their lives on the line for change. People have been beaten by police and soldiers for change. People, the world over, have been arrested and incarcerated for standing up for what they believe was right. To defend their convictions, these communities have been ready to sacrifice much more than frayed relations.
In Squamish, we are presently scrutinizing, challenging claims, and arguing with each other about something our provincial government wants for our community. It’s something we need to do. We need to also quickly sharpen those skills at argument and critical thinking. As we get better at it, we might find that those deep divisions start to diminish. That people are truly won over to reasons and facts.
The stakes are high. To do otherwise would be disastrous. The alternative is to allow corporations and politicians to do what they want. And that’s exactly what they are hoping for. So argue away!
