CRR Week 3:Constructing Arguments and Changing Minds
500 WORDS
Chapter Readings:
- Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings 11e
Part Four: Arguments in Depth: Types of Claims
Chapter 11 “An Introduction to the Types of Claims” p. 212-220
Chapter 12 “Definition and Resemblance Arguments” p. 221-240
Chapter 13 “Causal Arguments” p. 250-265
Chapter 14 “Evaluation and Ethical Arguments” p. 280-294
Chapter 15 “Proposal Arguments” p. 306-323
Description:
This week you will be introduced to the six core argument types while building upon your knowledge of the rhetorical situation and avoiding fallacious reasoning. We are going to take a deep dive into making hybrid arguments. This is going to require you to identify each type of argument claim (e.g. Definition, resemblance, causal, evaluation, ethical, and proposal) and connect this argument to an audience. As you read and work through this week, consider the reflexive relationship between moving an audience and changing your rhetoric.
Instructions:
You will need to post initial responses and peer responses in a timely manner, responding to instructor discussion threads/prompts or posting uniquely generated content.
Initial Post:
Instructor Prompt #1:
When the author’s describe argument as “Hybrid” what do you think they are referring to? What does this look like? And how do you practice it? Now that you are familiar with the six core argument types, what are the expectations when we are trying to reach new audiences? Use examples from Part Four: Arguments in Depth/Types of Claims as evidence to support you answers.
Instructor Prompt #2:
Now that you are familiar with the six core argument types, I want you to think about what they look like in practice through completing the following exercise:
Part A:
- Below are a list of highly politicized arguments that you likely have personal thoughts, ideas, convictions regarding, and have aligned with a particular camp/side.
- For this exercise, your personal ideology or opinion is not important but rather I’m asking you to imagine how an audience would react using a claim type.
- Please select ONE of the following topics and imagine how 1) someone who supports the issue and 2) someone who opposes the issue would argue. I want you to think about the “popular” arguments surrounding these issues and do your best to link them to one of the six claim types. You don’t need to “invent” and argument type or reason pro/con because these arguments are everywhere in the US.
Anti-Vaccination, Building a Wall Between the US & Mexico, Legality of Abortion, Free College Tuition, Limiting Gun Rights, Self Driving Vehicles, Paying College Athletes a Salary, Vegetarianism/Food Sustainability, Bias News Media (Fake News/Post-Truth), Kneeling for the National Anthem (professional sports), Eco-Taxation (penalizing companies who don’t follow emission standards), Banning Cigarettes or E-Cigs (vaping, etc), The Legalization of Marijuana.
Part B: “Frequently in culture, politics, and even interpersonal argument situations, instead of hybridizing an argument, we tend to just make our Rhetoric louder.” Please evaluate this statement (whether or not you agree or disagree with it) and explain how does this statement relate to the exercise you did in Part A?
212
Chapter 11
•
Learning Objectives
In this chapter you will learn to:
11.1 Identify different claim types and their characteristic
patterns of development.
11.2 Use strategies based on claim types to help focus an
argument, generate ideas for it, and structure it
persuasively.
11.3 Be mindful of how different claim types work together
in hybrid arguments.
In Parts One, Two, and Three of this text, we showed how argument entails
both inquiry and persuasion. We explained strategies for creating a compel-
ling structure of reasons and evidence for your arguments (logos), for linking
your arguments to the beliefs and values of your audience (patho s), and for
establishing your credibility and trustfulness (ethos). We also showed you how
to think about arguments rhetorically, how to do a rhetorical analysis of both
verbal and visual texts, and how to use collaborative rhetoric as an alterative
to classical argument.
Now, in Part Four, we examine arguments in depth by explaining five
types of claims. Each type has its own characteristic patterns of development
and support. Because almost all arguments use one or more of these types of
claims as “moves” or building blocks, knowing how to develop each claim type
will advance your skills in argument. The claims we examine in Part Four are
related to an ancient rhetorical concept called stasis, from a Greek term meaning
“stand,” as in “to take a stand on something.” There are many competing
theories of stasis, so no two rhetoricians discuss stasis in exactly the same way.
In Part Four, we present a version of stasis theory based on five types of claims.
Studying these claim types will increase your flexibility and sophistication as
an arguer.
An Introduction to the Types of Claims 213
The Types of Claims and Their
Typical Patterns of Development
11.1 Identify different claim types and their characteristic patterns
of development.
To appreciate what a study of claim types can do, imagine one of those heated
but frustrating arguments in which the question at issue keeps shifting. Everyone
talks at cross-purposes, with each speaker’s point unconnected to the previous
speaker’s. Suppose your heated discussion is about the use of steroids. You might
get such a discussion back on track if you say: “Hold it for a moment. What are we
actually arguing about here? Are we arguing about whether steroids are a health
risk or whether steroids should be banned from sports? These are two different
issues. We can’t debate both at once.” Whether you recognize it or not, you are
applying the concept of claim types to focus the argument.
To understand how claim types work, let’s return to the concept of stasis.
A stasis is an issue or question that focuses a point of disagreement. You and your
audience may agree on the answer to question A and so have nothing to argue
about. Likewise, you may agree on the answer to question B. But on question
C you disagree. Question C constitutes a stasis where you and your audience
diverge. It is the place where disagreement begins, where as an arguer you take a
stand against another view. Thus you and your audience may agree that steroids,
if used carefully under a physician’s supervision, pose few long-term health risks
but still disagree on whether steroids should be banned from sports. This last
issue constitutes a stasis, the point where you and your audience part company.
Rhetoricians have discovered that the kinds of questions that divide people
have classifiable patterns. In this text we identify five broad types of claims each
type originating in a different kind of question. Table 11.1 gives you an over-
view of these five types of claims, each of which is developed in more detail in
Table 11.1 Five Types of Claims about Truth or Value
Claim Type and Generic
Question
Claims about Truth (Reality
or the Way Things Are)
Examples of Issue Questions
Typical Methods for Structuring
an Argument
Definitional arguments: In
what category does this thing
belong? (Chapter 12)
• Is solitary confinement cruel and unusual
pu nishment?
• Create a definit ion that establishes criteria for
the category.
Resemblance arg uments:
To what is this thing similar?
(Chapter 12)
Causal arguments: What are
the causes or consequences
of this phenomenon?
(Chapter 13)
• Is a ski lled video game player an athlete?
• Is req uiring someone to buy medical
insurance like requi ring him or her to buy
car insurance?
• Is addiction to sugar like add ict ion to
tobacco?
• What are the causes of bee colony
collapse disorder?
• What might be t he consequences of raising
the m inimum wage to a living wage?
• Use examples to show how the contested
case meets the criteria.
• Let the analogy or precedent itself create the
desired rhetorical effect. [or]
• Elaborate o n t he relevant similarit ies between
the g iven case and the analogy or precedent.
• Explain t he links in a causal chain going from
cause to effect , or summarize experimental
studies showing cause or consequence.
(Continued)
214 Chapter 11
Claim Type and Generic
Question
Claims About Values
Evaluation and et hical
arguments: What is the
worth or value of this thing?
(Chapter 14)
Proposal arguments : What
action should we take?
(Chapter 15)
Examples of Issue Questions
• Is tal k therapy a good approach for t reating
anxiety?
• Is it ethical to use reprod uctive technology
to make “designer babies”?
• Shou ld medical insurance policies be
requi red to cover contraception?
• Shou ld the federal government enact
a carbon tax?
Typical Methods for Structuring
an Argument
• Establish the criteria for a “good” or “ethical”
member of this class or category.
• Use examples to show how the contested
case meets the criteria.
• Make the problem vivid .
• Explain your solutio n.
• Justify your sol utio n by showing how it is
motivated by principle, by good consequences,
or by resemblance to a previous action that the
audience approves of.
subsequen t ch apters . It also show s you a typical structure for each type of argu-
m ent. Note that the first three claim types concern question s of truth or reality,
w h ereas the last two concern questions of value. You ‘ll appreciate the significance
of this distinction as you p roceed through this chapter.
For Writing and Discussion
Identifying Types of Claims
Working as a class or in small groups, read the fol low ing questions and decide w hich claim type is repre-
sented by each. Sometimes there are several different ways to c lassify a claim, so if you believe that the
question fits two categories, explain your reasoning.
1. Should the U.S. president be authorized to employ w eapon ized drones to kill terrorists?
2. Is taking Adderall to increase concentration on an exam a form of cheating?
3. What w ould be the economic consequences of a carbon tax aimed at reducing carbon em issions?
4. Is burning the U.S. flag an act of free speech?
5. Is the war on drugs rea lly like f ighting an actual war?
6. How effective is acupuncture in reducing morn ing sickness?
7. Is acupuncture quackery or real medicine?
8. Should universities ban the use of calculators during calculus exams?
9. Does the rodeo sport of riding bucking horses or bulls constitute cruelty to an imals?
10. Why are couples w ho live together before marriage more likely to divorce than couples w ho don’t live
together before marriage?
Using Claim Types to Focus
an Argument and Generate Ideas:
An Example
11.2 Use strategies based on claim types to help focus an argument, generate
ideas for it, and structure it persuasively.
Having provided an overview of the types of claims, w e now sh ow you som e of
the benefits of this knowledge. First of all, understanding claim types will h elp
you focus an argument b y asking you to d etermine what’s at stake between you
An Introduction to t he Types of Clai ms 215
and your audience. Where do you and your audience agree and d isagree? What
are the questions at issue? Second, it will help you generate ideas for your argu-
ment by suggesting the kinds of reasons, examples, and evidence you’ll need.
To illustrate, let’s take the recent public controversy about e-cigarettes, which
use a battery-powered heating element to vaporize the liquid in a small cartridge.
The user inhales the vap or (an act often called “vaping”). Cartridges can be pur-
chased containing various amounts of nicotine or no nicotine at all; flavored
liquids (such as apple cinnamon or peach cobbler) are also available. Although
there is debate about whether the vapors from e-cigarettes are harmful, everyone
agrees that the nicotine-laced liquid itself is poisonous if ingested in its liquid
form. In the absence of federal regulations, many states and cities have enacted
their own laws ab out e-cigarettes, often treating them exactly as if they were
real cigarettes banning them from b ars, restaurants, and other public places;
forbidding their sale to m inors; and restricting the ways they can be advertised.
Let’s now take the hypothetical case of a city debating a policy one-cigarettes.
Imagine three different writers. Writer 1 wants to ban e-cigarettes, making
them subject to the same restrictions as real cigarettes. Writer 2 wants to promote
e-cigarettes as a preferred alternative to real cigarettes. Writer 3, a libertarian
opposed to the nanny state, wants no restrictions on e-cigarettes other than
forb idding sale of nicotine cartridges to minors and making sure that the liquid-
containing cartridges are childproof. Let’s consider how familiarity with claim
types can help each writer generate ideas for his or her argument.
Writer 1: Ban £-Cigarettes
Writer 1, who believes that e-cigarettes are harmful, imagines a somewhat live-
and-let-live audience inclined to take no action against e-cigarettes. Her goal is to
portray e-cigarettes negatively in order to persuade this audience that e-cigarettes
should be banned.
• Definition argument: Because regular cigarettes are already banned in
p ublic places, Writer 1 wants to place e-cigarettes in the same category as
real cigarettes. For part of her argument she can use a definitional strategy,
showing that e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes belong in the same category
because both deliver nicotine extracted from tobacco leaves. She can argue
that the differences between regular cigarettes and e-cigarettes, such as one
p roducing smoke and the other vapor, are superficial. What makes them the
same is the delivery of nicotine.
• Resemb l ance argument: Using a resemblance strategy, Writer 1 can also
show how e-cigarettes are designed to look like regular cigarettes and make
smoking look cool again. You can blow “smoke” rings w ith the exhaled
vap or, just as you can w ith real tobacco smoke.
• Causal argument: To increase her negative portrayal of e-cigarettes, Writer
1 can also use a causal strategy. She can argue that e-cigarettes will hook
children and teenagers on real cigarettes. She can show how flavored vapors
such as “bubble gum” or “pancake” seem marketed to children and how the
availability of cartridges that combine flavored vapors with nicotine give Big
Tobacco a new way to create the next generation of nicotine addicts.
• Evaluation argument: Here Writer 1 will have to summarize and rebut
counterviews that e-cigarettes are a good replacement for regular cigarettes.
216 Chapter 11
Supporters will say thee-cigarettes are better than regular cigarettes because
e-cigarettes contain fewer carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) and are thus
safer. Writer 1 will need to argue that the negative aspects of e-cigarettes-
nicotine addiction and the enticement of children toward smoking outweigh
their increased safety. She can also argue that the propellant ingredients in
the cartridges have not yet been proven safe, and she can refer to research
showing that the liquid itself is extremely poisonous if ingested directly.
• Proposal argument: The city council should bane-cigarettes.
This example shows that writers often need to argue issues of reality and
truth in order to make claims about values. In this case, Writer 1’s proposal claim
to bane-cigarettes is based on reasons that are themselves derived from defini-
tion, resemblance, and cause: “E-cigarettes should be banned because they contain
the same tobacco-derived nicotine as real cigarettes (definition), because they are
advertised to make smoking look cool again (resemblance), and because they will
hook kids on smoking (cause).”
Writer 2: Promote £-Cigarettes as a Preferred
Alternative to Real Cigar-ettes
Writer 2 shares with his audience a belief that cigarettes are harmful and that
smoking should be banned. However, he wants to emphasize the benefits of
e-cigarettes to people who already smoke. Like Writer 1, he can use the five claim
types to generate strategies for his argument.
• Definition argument: To portray e-cigarettes more positively, Writer 2 can
make the definitional claim that e-cigarettes are not the same as real cigarettes
and thus belong in a different category. He can argue that the essential trait of
real cigarettes is cancer-causing tar derived from the combustion of tobacco
leaves. It is the danger of the tar and secondhand smoke, not the nicotine, that
gave rise to the anti-smoking movement in the first place. By arguing that the
delivery of nicotine is a superficial rather than essential criterion for defining
cigarettes, Writer 2 can show that e-cigarettes’ absence of tar and secondhand
smoke makes them essentially different from real cigarettes.
• Resemblance argument: Using a resemblance strategy, Writer 2 can show
that although e-cigarettes are essentially different from real cigarettes, the
two have pleasing similarities. Vaping provides the same physical and social
pleasures as does smoking, but without the harm to self and others.
• Causal argument: Writer 2 can also portray e-cigarettes positively through the
causal argument that they can save current smokers’ lives by converting them
from a dangerous way of getting nicotine to a less dangerous way of getting nic-
otine. Without condoning nicotine addiction, Writer 2 can point to the positive
health consequences of getting a nicotine hit without the carcinogens. Writer 2
can also argue that e-cigarettes can help people stop smoking because vapers
can gradually reduce the nicotine content in the cartridges they purchase.
• Evaluation argument: Here Writer 2 can claim that e-cigarettes are better than real
cigarettes by arguing that the health benefits of no smoke and no tar outweigh
the drawbacks of an addiction to nicotine, which in itself causes little health risk.
• Proposal argument: E-cigarettes should be promoted as a safe alternative to
real cigarettes.
An Introduction to the Types of Claims 217
Writer 3: Place No Restrictions on £-Cigarettes
Writer 3 is a libertarian who dislikes nanny-state restrictions on our individual
freedoms. She wants to argue that the only restrictions on e-cigarettes should
be federally mandated childproofing of the cartridges, truth-in-labeling require-
ments about what the cartridges contain, and banning sales of nicotine-containing
cartridges to minors.
• Definition argument: Writer 3, like Writer 2, can argue that e-cigarettes are
in a different category from regular cigarettes. Unlike regular cigarettes,
e-cigarettes present no proven dangers either to self or to others through
secondhand smoke.
• Resemblance argument: To celebrate the libertarian endorsement of
individual freedom, Writer 3 can show the resemblance between taking
a pleasurable hit on an e-cigarette and other pleasures frowned upon by
the nanny state drinking sugary sodas, buying a Big Mac, or owning a
muscle car.
• Causal argument: Whereas Writer 2 argues that e-cigarettes are safer than
regular cigarettes, Writer 3 can argue that nobody has demonstrated any
firsthand or secondhand health hazards for e-cigarettes. She can make the
additional causal argument that government wants to treat e-cigarettes like
regular cigarettes so that they can tax them heavily to produce “sin-tax” rev-
enue. She can also argue that nanny-state regulations lead to the loss of per-
sonal freedoms and the shutting down of free enterprise.
• Evaluation argument: Writer 3 can argue that people should be free to make
their own evaluations of e-cigarettes.
• Proposal argument: The city should place no restrictions on sales of
e-cigarettes to adults.
Hybrid Arguments: How Claim
Types ork Together in Arguments
11.3 Be mindful of how different claim types work together in hybrid
arguments.
As thee-cigarette example shows, hybrid arguments can be built from different
claim types. A writer might develop a proposal argument with a causal subar-
gument in one section, a resemblance subargument in another section, and an
evaluation subargument in still another section. Although the overarching pro-
posal argument follows the typical structure of a proposal, each of the subsections
follows a typical structure for its own claim type.
Some Examples of Hybrid Arguments
The following examples show how these combinations of claim types can
play out in actual arguments. (For more examples of hybrid arguments, see
Chapter 15, Tables 15.1 and 15.2, where we explain how lower-order claims about
reality and truth can support higher-order claims about values.)
218 Chapter 11
Evaluation Argument Addressed to Parents
Shooter video games are bad for kids
because they are socially toxic.
because they have been shown to promote
violence in some males.
because they desensitize users to violence in
the same way that army training games do.
Evaluation claim
Definition claim
Causal claim
Resemblance claim
Values claim
Truth/reality claims
Proposal Argument Addressed to Local Newspaper Readers
Our region should build a light-rail transportation
system
because light rail would get a substantial
number of commuters out of cars.
because light rail has been successful in
other regions.
because light rail is cost effective and
environmentally sound.
For Writing and Discussion
Exploring Different Claim Types and Audiences
Individual task:
Proposal claim Values claim
Causal claim
Resemblance claim Truth/reality claims
Evaluation claim
Choose one of the following issues and role-play one of the suggested authorial purposes. Write out your
exploratory ideas for how you might use several of the claim types (definition, resemblance, cause, evalua-
tion, proposal) to develop your argument. Use our example arguments about e-cigarettes as your models.
Imagine an aud ience skeptical of your chosen position.
1. Carbon footprint: You want (do not want) the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the amount
of carbon dioxide that power plants can em it.
2. Gun restrictions: You want (do not want) the federal government to ban assau lt rifles and high-volume
ammunition cartridges.
3. Diet: You want your classmates to adopt (or not to adopt) the paleo diet.
4. M inimum wage: You want (do not want) your c ity or state to adopt as its minimum wage a living wage
of $15 per hour.
5. Some other issue that you think w ill be reasonably familiar to your classmates.
Group task:
Share with classmates your init ial efforts to use the claim types to help generate ideas. What worked for
you and what didn’t? Where was it useful to think of the category in which something belonged (definition)?
For example, is carbon dioxide a “pollutant,” a “poison,” or a “harmless and natural chemical compound”?
Where was it helpful to th ink about resemb lance? Is a paleo diet like a caveman’s d iet? How about cause
and effect? What will be the consequences of rais ing the m inimum wage? How d id your th inking about
issues of truth or reality help you develop evaluation or proposal c laims?
An Introduction to t he Types of Clai ms 219
An Extended Example of a Hybrid Argument
As the previous examples illustrate, different claim types often serve as build-
ing blocks for larger arguments. We ask you now to consider a more extended
example. Read the following argument from Outside Magazine aimed at enthu-
siasts of outdoor sports such as hiking, camping, mountain climbing, skiing,
biking, and distance running. The magazine’s readers are often health-conscious
consumers of multivitamins and other dietary supplements such as minerals, fish
oils, herbals, botanicals, enzymes, antioxidants, amino acids, and other substances
often ingested as tablets, capsules, p owders, energy drinks, or energy bars. In
this startling article, the writer uses recent scientific studies to make the evalua-
tion claim that these supplements are either “useless” or “worse than useless.”
Notice how this overall evaluation claim is supported by claims from definition,
resemblance, and cause.
Your Daily Multivitamin May Be Hurting You
ALEX HUTCHINSON
In June, at this year’s European College of Sp ort Science conference in Barcelona,
Introduces the
evaluation issue
I–
”Are supplements
good/bad?”
Mari Carmen Gomez-Cabrera, a physiologist at the University of Valencia and one
of the world’s leading experts on antioxidants, was debating the merits of sup ple-
ments with two top researchers. For more than 90 minutes they went back and
forth, parsing the accumulated evidence in front of a packed auditorium. Finally,
Gomez-Cabrera landed on a provocative question that summarized her position.
===:
The debate, she explained, isn’t whether supplements are good or bad for Restates evaluation
athletes. Rather, it’s “are they useless, or are they worse than useless?” t– issue with implied
___, claim: Supplements
The question may come as a shock to the more than half of Americans who take are either useless or
some sort of dietary supplement a vast catch-all term that includes everything worse than useless
f ‘t . d . 1 t h b 1 d’ t t’ f b t rom VI am1ns an mmera s o er a reme 1es o exo 1c per ormance oos ers
like deer-antler s prav and ~lutamine. It’s no surprise that the purported muscle-
building supplements make unproven claims and may come with hazardous
side effects. But in the past few years, Gomez-Cabrera and a growing number of
researchers have come to believe that even respectable mainstream supplements
such as v itamins C and E suffer from the same basic flaw: few aiJIJarent benefits
and increasing evidence of negative effects. For example, in July’s issue of the
Journal of Physiology, researchers discovered that resveratrol, an antioxidant in
red wine, actually limited the positive effects of cardiovascular exercise like an
increased V02 max when taken daily in high concentrations. In July, scientists
at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that men with high levels
of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA in their b lood, often from fish-oil supplements,
had a significantly greater risk of prostate cancer.
According to Pieter Cohen, a professor at Harvard Medical School, there are
really only two types of sp orts supplements: those that are safe but don’t work, and
those that might work but have side effects, especially at higher than normal levels.
“If any supplement, no matter how beneficial, has a pharmaceutical effect, it’s also
got a downside,” he says. “There’s no way to get around that basic principle.”
Further develops
evaluation claim:
Supplements are
bad because they
make unproven
claims and because
they may come
with hazardous side
effects
Uses causal argu-
1– ments to illu strate
bad side effects
Definition claim:
Supplements belong
.._ t o one of two catego-
ries: (1) safe but don’t
work or (2) work but
h ave bad side effects
Develops definition
argument by showing
r– h ow supplements fit
first category of being
safe but useless
Most supplements stay firmly in the first category. Taking a daily multivitamin, s
Cohen emphasizes, won’t harm you, but it usually won’t help either, which is why
major health organizations such as the American Heart Association and the Ameri-
can College of Sports Medicine don’t recommend supplements to healthy people.___,
220 Chapter 11
Causal argument
showing bad side
effects (places
supplements in
second category of
being harmful)
Causal argument
showing still more
bad side effects
Causal argument
from psychology
showing different
bad effect: People
who take supple-
ments feel they are
healthier and thus
actually act in1 ess
healthy ways
Brief resemblance
argument: Taking a
vitamin is NOT like
eating spinach or
going to the gym
Conclusion
–
–
It’s not that vitamins and minerals aren’t important. If you don’t get enough
vitamin C, you can get scurvy; without enough iron, you can become anemic; and
if you live far enough north to see Russia from your backyard, you may need some
extra vitamin D. But all three of these substances have also been linked to negative
effects at high doses. Same goes for prolonged use of other common supplements
such as vitamin E and calcium. In short, unless tests have shown that you’re low
in a particular vitamin or mineral, there’s no evidence to suggest that you should
take a daily supplement.
r–
That rule also applies if you’re an athlete who takes supplements because,
say, you assume your training requires an antioxidant boost to speed recovery.
Gomez-Cabrera and her colleagues at the University of Valencia have shown that
antioxidant supplements suppress the oxidative stress that signals your body to
adapt and get stronger. The result: regular use of something seemingly innocuous
such as vitamin C can actually block gains in endurance-boosting mitochondria.
!:::::=
– The balance between risk and return also works in subtler ways, as Wen-Bin
Chiou, a psychologist at National Sun Yatsen University in Taiwan, has shown
in a series of experiments on a phenomenon called the licensing effect. As part of
a battery of tests, subjects were asked to take a pill; half were told the pill was a
multivitamin, while the other half were told it was a placebo. In truth, they were
all placebos.
In subsequent tests, the subjects who thought they’d taken a vitamin con-
sistently behaved in less healthy ways. When asked to try out a pedometer, they
were more likely to choose a shorter walking route; at lunch, they chose less
healthy food. In follow-up studies, Chiou has also discovered that smokers who
think they’ve been given a vitamin smoke more, and people who are given a
weight-loss supplement are less likely to stick to their diet. The same thing hap-
– pens when you go to the gym or eat a plate of spinach. The difference is that
exercise and vegetables have real benefits, so you’ve still got a chance to come
out ahead. If you take a pill with no benefits, the best you can do is break even.
–
Which brings us back to Gomez-Cabrera in Barcelona. She, of all people, has
enormous respect for the powers of micronutrients such as antioxidants she has
devoted her life to studying them. “But if you eat enough fruits and vegetables,
five servings a day,” she says, “I don’t think you need anything else.” And if
you’re not eating like that, then taking a pill isn’t a solution. In fact, it may be
part of the problem . ..___.
As this editorial demonstrates, awareness of different kinds of claims can
help you increase your flexibility and effectiveness as an arguer. In the following
chapters, we discuss each of the claim types in more detail, showing how they
work and how you can develop skills and strategies for supporting each type
of claim.
Chapter 12
Learning Objectives
In this chapter, you will learn to:
12.1 Explain what is at stake in arguments about definition and
resemblance.
12.2 Explain four types of categorical arguments.
12.3 Explain the criteria-match structure of categorical arguments
based on definition.
12.4 Use criteria-match reasoning to generate ideas for your own
definition argument.
12.5 Write your own definition argument.
Arguments about definition or resemblance concern disputes about what category
something belongs to, either directly by definition or indirectly or metaphorically
through comparison or resemblance. They are among the most common argument
types you will encounter.
Case 1: In What Category Does My Wad of Gum (Wrapped in
Mustard–Stained Tissue) Belong?
Th is cartoon by Rina Piccolo poses a definitional issue. The ethically motivated hero of
this cartoon, trying valiantly to do the right thing, ponders the criteria for each bin. Is her
wad of t issue-wrapped gum “just p lain old garbage”? Or is it perhaps “organic waste”?
(The answer depends on how you define “garbage” versus “organic waste.”) While point-
ing to the challenges of c lassifying waste, the cartoon gently mocks the bureaucratic
mind that invents all these categories and then has to define them. In the wonderful
way that cartoons can work, the cartoon’s categorical choices can even define human
actors. As long as the woman stands pondering, she defines herself as a “concerned
221
222 Chapter 12
en vironmentalist.” But the next person m ight define herself as an en vironmental scoffer
by chucking the w ad of gum into the “no conscience” bin or the “climate change denier/
polluter” bin. This cartoon both mocks environmental ists and honors the definitional dif-
ficulties of defining and sorting different kinds of waste.
Tina’s Groove
i H4T CR~ZY NtOMEN’t Wf.f£111
, …
···YOUR I… IFE COMES lo AN 48RUP’t
Slo? So TH.ql
WR~f’PED IN A CRUMPtEt> TISSUE ‘-‘-~
SME4Ret> Wl7’f.J M’-‘ST4R0 ST411’1S .
LtTTER ORGANIC
WASTE
r I
I l
~ ‘ ‘ ‘-~ I J
Case 2: Is a Frozen Embryo a Person or Property?
An infertile couple concei ved several embryos in a test tube and then froze the ferti lized
embryos for future use. During the couple’s divorce, they disagreed about the disposition
of the embryos. The woman wanted to use the frozen embryos to try to get pregnant, and
the man wanted to destroy them. When the courts were asked to decide what should be
done w ith the embryos, several questions of definition arose: Should the frozen embryos
be categorized as ” persons,” thus becoming analogous to children in custody disputes?
Or should they be divided up as “property,” w ith the man getting half and the woman get-
ting the other half? Or should a new legal category be created for them that regards them
as more than property but less than actual persons? The judge decided that frozen em-
bryos “are not, strictly speaking, either ‘ persons’ or ‘ property,’ but occupy an interim
category that entitles them to special respect because of their potential for human life.”*
hat Is at Stake in an Argument
about Definition and Resemblance?
12.1 Explain what is at stake in arguments about definition and resemblance.
Definition and resemblance arguments occur when ever a community disagrees
about the category a particular p erson, thing, act, or phenomenon should be
placed in or identified with. H ere are some examples:
Issues Involving Categories
Question
Does this specific
phenomenon …
… belong to (or is it
similar to) this category?
Is atmospheric carbon dioxide a pollutant? At mospheric carbon dioxide Pollutant
For purposes of our state’s tax on candy, Cough drop
is a cough drop “candy” or an “over-t he-
counter drug”?
Is women’s obsession w ith thinness today Women’s obsession with
similar in effect to women’s footbinding in t hinness
ancient China?
Candy (or over-the-counter
drug)
Footbinding in ancient China
* See Vincen t F. Stempel, “Procreative Rights in Assisted Reproductive Technology : Why
the Angst?” A lbany Law Review 62 (1 999), 1187.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 223
Much is at stake when we place things into categories because the category
that something belongs to can have real consequences. Naming the category that
something belongs to makes an implicit mini-argument.
Consequences Resulting fron1 Categorical Clain1s
To appreciate the consequences of categorical claims, consider the competing cat-
egories proposed for whales in the international controversy over commercial
whaling. What category does a whale belong to? Some arguers might say that
“whales are sacred animals,” implying that their intelligence, beauty, grace, and
power mean they should never be killed. Others might argue that “whales are
a renewable food resource” like tuna, crabs, cattle, and chickens. This category
implies that we can harvest whales for food the same way we harvest tuna for
tuna fish sandwiches or cows for beef. Still others might argue that “whales are
an endangered species” a category that argues for the preservation of whale
stocks but not necessarily for a ban on controlled hunting of individual whales.
Each of these whaling arguments places whales in a separate, different category
that implicitly urges the reader to adopt that category’s perspective on whaling.
Significant consequences can also result from resemblance claims. Consider
the way that media analysts tried to make sense of the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by comparing them to differ-
ent kinds of previous events. Some commentators said, “The September 11 attacks
are like Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City in 1995” an argument that framed the terrorists as criminals who
must be brought to justice. Others said, “The September 11 attacks are like the 1941
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor” an argument suggesting that the United States
should declare war on some yet-to-be-defined enemy. Still others said, “The Sep-
tember 11 attacks are like an occasionally disastrous earthquake or an epidemic,”
arguing that terrorists will exist as long as the right conditions breed them and
that it is useless to fight them using the strategies of conventional war. Under this
analogy, the “war on terror” is a metaphorical war like the “war on poverty” or the
“war against cancer.” Clearly, each of these resemblance claims had high-stakes
consequences. In 2001, the Pearl Harbor claim prevailed, and the United States went
to war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Many critics of these wars continue
to say that war is an inappropriate strategy for fighting the “disease of terrorism.”
The Rule of Justice: Things in the San1e Category
Should Be Treated the San1e Way
As you can see, the category we place something into either directly through
definition or indirectly through comparison can have significant implications
for people’s actions or beliefs. To ensure fairness, philosophers refer to the rule of
justice, which states that “beings in the same essential category should be treated
in the same way.” For example, the problem of how the courts should treat the
users or sellers of marijuana depends on the category marijuana belongs to. Mari-
juana might be placed in the same category as tobacco and alcohol, in which case
the possession and sale of marijuana would be legal but subject to regulation and
taxes. Or marijuana could be placed in the same category as meth, cocaine, and
heroin; in this case, it would be an illegal drug subject to criminal prosecution.
Some states have placed marijuana in the same category as penicillin and insulin,
making it a legal drug so long as it is obtained from a licensed dispensary with a
224 Chapter 12
doctor’s prescription. Many states are not happy with any of these categories and
are trying to define marijuana in some fourth way.
To take another example, suppose your professor says that absence from
an exam can be excused for emergencies only. How would you define “emer-
gency”? Clearly, if you broke your leg on the morning of an exam, you would be
excused. But is attending your grandmother’s funeral or your best friend’s wed-
ding an “emergency”? How about missing an exam because your car wouldn’t
start? Although your interests might be best served by a broad definition of
emergency, your professor might prefer a narrow definition, which would per-
mit fewer exceptions.
The rule of justice becomes especially hard to apply when we consider con-
tested cases marked by growth or slow change through time. At what point does a
child become an adult? When does a binge drinker become an alcoholic, an Inter-
net poker player a compulsive gambler, or a fetus a human person? Although we
may be able arbitrarily to choose a particular point and declare that” adult” means
someone at least eighteen years old or that “human person” means a fetus at con-
ception, at three months, or at birth, in the everyday world the distinction between
child and adult, between fetus and person, between Friday-night poker playing
and compulsive gambling seems an evolution, not a sudden and definitive step.
Nevertheless, our language requires an abrupt shift between categories. In short,
applying the rule of justice often requires us to adopt a digital approach to reality
(switches are either on or off, either a fetus is a human person or it is not), whereas
our sense of life is more analogical (there are numerous gradations between on and
off; there are countless shades of gray between black and white).
As we can see from the preceding examples, the promise of language to struc-
ture what psychologist William James called “the buzz and confusion of the world”
into an orderly set of categories turns out to be elusive. In most category debates,
an argument, not a quick trip to the dictionary, is required to settle the matter.
For Writing and Discussion
Applying the Rule of Justice
Suppose your land lord decides to institute a “no pets” rule. The rule of justice requ ires that all pets have
to go-not just your neighbor’s barking dog, but also Mrs. Brown’s cat, the kids’ hamster downstairs, and
your own pet tarantula. That is, all these animals have to go, unless you can argue that some of them are not
“pets” for purposes of the landlord’s “no pets” rule.
1. Working in small groups or as a class, define pets by establishing the criteria an animal would have
to meet to be included in the category “pets.” Consider your land lord’s “no pets” ru le as the cultural
context for your definition.
2. Based on your criteria, which of the fol lowing animals is definitely a pet that wou ld have to be removed
from the apartment? Based on your criteria, which animals could you exclude from the “no pets” rule?
How would you make your argument to your landlord?
• a German shepherd
• a small housecat
• a tiny, well-trained lapdog
• a gerbi l in a cage
• a canary
• a tank of tropical fish
• a tarantula
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 225
Types of Categorical Arguments
12.2 Explain four types of categorical arguments
Categorical arguments assert that a disputed phenomenon is (or is not) either a
member of a certain category or is like a certain category. Such arguments can be
divided into four kinds:
1. Simple categorical arguments, in which there is no dispute about the defini-
tion of the category.
2. Definition arguments, in which there is a dispute about the boundaries of
the category and hence its definition.
3. Resemblance arguments by analogy, in which the writer uses metaphor or
other figurative language to link the phenomenon to a certain category.
4. Resemblance arguments by precedent, in which the arguer claims that one
phenomenon or situation is similar to another phenomenon or situation.
Let’s look at each in turn.
Sin1ple Categorical Argun1ents
A categorical argument is “simple” if there is no disagreement about the defini-
tion of the category into which a person, event, or phenomenon is placed. For
example, if you make the claim that “Joe is bossy,” you are placing him in the
category of “bossy people.” In this case, you assume that you and the audi-
ence agree on what “bossy” means. Your dispute is simply whether Joe meets
the criteria for “bossy.” To support your claim, you would provide examples
of his bossiness (his poor listening skills, his shouting at people, his making
decisions without asking the committee). Similarly, if you want to make the
simple categorical claim that “low-carb diets are dangerous,” you would need
to provide evidence of this danger (scientific studies, testimony from doctors,
anecdotes). The dispute in this case is about low-carb diets, not about the defi-
nition of” dangerous.” To rebut a simple categorical claim, you would provide
counterevidence to show that the person, event, or phenomenon does not meet
the criteria for the category.
For Writing and Discussion
Supporting and Rebutting Simple Categorical Claims
Working ind ividually or in small groups, consider how you would support the following simple categorical
claims. What examples or other data wou ld convince readers that the specified case fits within the named
category? Then discuss ways you might rebut each claim.
1. Bottled water is environmentally unfriendly. [That is, bottled water belongs in the category of “environ-
mentally unfriendly substances.”]
2. Macklemore is a pure rapper.
3. Americans today are obsessed w ith their appearance. [That is, Americans belong in the category of
“people obsessed with their appearance.”]
4. Competitive cheerleading is physical ly risky.
5. Dinosaurs were warm-blooded.
226 Chapter 12
Definition Argutnents
Simple categorical arguments morph into definition arguments whenever stake-
holders disagree about the boundaries of a category. In the previous exercise,
suppose that you had said about Macklemore, “Well, that depends on how you
define ‘pure rapper.”‘ The need to define the term “pure rapper” adds a new layer
of complexity to your arguments about Macklemore. You are disputing not only
specifics about Macklemore but also the definition of “pure rapper” itself.
Full-blown definition arguments occur, then, when the disputants don’t agree
on the definition of the category into which a person, event, or phenomenon is
placed. Consider, for example, the environmental controversy over the defini-
tion of wetland. Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act provides for federal
protection of wetlands, but it leaves the task of defining wetland to administrative
agencies and the courts. Currently, about 5 percent of the land surface of the con-
tiguous forty-eight states is potentially affected by the wetlands provision, and
75 percent of this land is privately owned. Efforts to define wetland have created a
battleground between pro-environment and pro-development or property-rights
groups. Farmers, homeowners, and developers often want a narrow definition
of wetlands so that more property is available for commercial or private use.
Environmentalists favor a broad definition in order to protect different habitat
types and maintain the environmental safeguards that wetlands provide (includ-
ing control of water pollution, spawning grounds for aquatic species, and flood-
water containment).
The problem is that defining wetland is tricky. For example, one federal reg-
ulation defines a wetland as any area that has a saturated ground surface for
twenty-one consecutive days during the year. But how would you apply this law
to a pine flatwood ecosystem that was wet for ten days this year but thirty days
last year? And how should the courts react to lawsuits claiming that the regulation
itself is either too broad or too narrow? One can see why the wetlands controversy
provides hefty incomes for lawyers and congressional lobbyists.
As we will explain in more detail later in this chapter, definition arguments
require a criteria-match structure in which the arguer must first define the category
term by specifying the criteria that must be met for something to be placed in that
category. The writer then shows that the disputed person, event, or phenomenon
matches those criteria.
Resemblance Argutnent Using Analogy
Whereas definition arguments claim that a particular phenomenon belongs to a
certain category, resemblance arguments simply compare one thing to another. A
common kind of resemblance argument uses analogies imaginative comparisons
often with subtle persuasive effects. If you don’t like your new boss, you can
say that she’s like a Marine drill sergeant or the cowardly captain of a sinking
ship. Each of these analogies suggests a different category in which to place your
boss, clarifying the nature of your dislike while conveying an emotional charge.
The arguer’s intention is to transfer the audience’s understanding of (or feelings
about) the second thing back to the first. The risk of resemblance arguments is that
the differences between the two things being compared are often so significant
that the argument collapses under close examination.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 227
Sometimes, as in the “My boss is like a Marine drill sergeant” example, argu-
ers use short, undeveloped analogies for quick rhetorical effect. At other times,
arguers develop extended analogies that carry a substantial portion of the argu-
ment. As an example of an extended analogy, consider the following excerpt from
a professor’s argument opposing a proposal to require a writing proficiency exam
for graduation. In the following portion of his argument, the professor compares
development of writing skills to the development of physical fitness.
A writing proficiency exam gives the wrong symbolic messages about writing.
It suggests that writing is simply a skill, rather than an active way of thinking
and learning. It suggests that once a student demonstrates proficiency, then he
or she doesn’t need to do any more writing.
Imagine two universities concerned with the physical fitness of their stu-
dents. One university requires a junior-level physical-fitness exam in which
students must run a mile in less than 10 minutes, a fitness level it considers
minimally competent. Students at this university see the physical-fitness exam
as a one-time hurdle. As many as 70 percent of them can pass the exam with no
practice; another 10-20 percent need a few months’ training; and a few hope-
less couch potatoes must go through exhaustive remediation. After passing the
exam, any student can settle back into a routine of TV and potato chips having
been certified as “physically fit.”
The second university, however, believing in true physical fitness for its
students, is not interested in minimal competency. Consequently, it creates
programs in which its students must take a one-credit physical-fitness course
each term for the entire four years of the undergraduate curriculum. There is
little doubt which university will have the more physically fit students. At the
second university, fitness becomes a way of life, with everyone developing
his or her full potential. Similarly, if we want to improve our students’ writing
abilities, we should require writing in every course throughout the curriculum.
Thus analogies have the power to get an audience’s attention like virtually no
other persuasive strategy. But seldom are they sufficient in themselves to provide
full understanding. At some point, with every analogy, you need to ask your-
self, “How far can I legitimately go with this? At what point are the similarities
between the two things I am comparing going to be overwhelmed by their dis-
similarities?” Analogies are useful attention-getting devices, but they can conceal
and distort as well as clarify.
For Writing and Discussion
Developing Analogies
The following exercise will help you clarify how analogies function in the context of arguments. Working indi-
vidually or in smal l groups, think of two analogies for each of the following topics. One analogy should urge
readers toward a positive view of the topic; the other should urge a negative view. Write each of your analo-
gies in the following one-sentence format:
___ is like : A, B, C .. . (in which the first term is the contested topic being discussed;
the second term is the analogy; and A, B, and C are the points of compari son).
(continued)
228 Chapter 12
Example
• Topic: Cramming for an exam
• Negative analogy: Cramming for an exam is like pumping iron for ten hours straight to prepare for a
weight-lifting contest: exhausting and counterproductive.
• Positive analogy: Cramming for an exam is like carbohydrate loading before a big race: It gives your
brain a full supply of facts and concepts, all fresh in your mind.
• Topics:
1. Checking social media constantly
2. Building a wall to secure U.S. borders
3. Using steroids to increase athletic performance
4. Paying college athletes
5. Eating at fast-food restaurants
Resemblance Arguments Using Precedent
Another kind of resemblance argument uses precedent for its persuasive force. An
argument by precedent tries to show that a current situation is like a past situation
and that therefore a similar action or decision should be taken or reached. You
can refute a precedence argument by showing that the present situation differs
substantially from the past situation.
Precedence arguments are very common. For example, during the debate
about healthcare reform in the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency, support-
ers of a single-payer, “Medicare-for-all” system pointed to Canada as a success-
ful precedent. According to supporters, a single-payer system was successful in
Canada; it would therefore also be successful in the United States. But opponents
also used the Canadian precedent to attack a single-payer system. They pointed
to problems in the Canadian system as a reason to reject a Medicare-for-all system
in the United States.
A good example of an extended precedence argument can be found in an
article entitled “The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Mil-
lions Died. How Similar Is Big Food?”* The authors’ goal is to place “Big Food”
in the same category as “Big Tobacco.” The authors argue that the food-processing
industry is trying to avoid government regulations by employing the same “dirty
tricks” used earlier by Big Tobacco. The authors show how Big Tobacco hired lob-
byists to fight regulation, how it created clever advertising to make cigarette smok-
ing seem cool, and how it sponsored its own research to cast doubt on data linking
nicotine to lung cancer or asthma to secondhand smoke. The researchers argue
that Big Food is now doing the same thing. Through lobbying efforts, coordinated
lawsuits, and public-relations campaigns, Big Food resists labeling ingredients in
food products, casts doubt on scientific evidence about possible carcinogens
(cancer-causing agents) in processed foods, and uses advertising to create a local,
“family farm” image for Big Food. The researchers use this precedence argument
to call for stricter government oversight of Big Food.
*Kelly D. Brownell and Kenneth E. Warner, “The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco
Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big Food?” The Milbank Quarterly 87.1
(2009), 259-294.
For Writing and Discussion
Using Claims of Precedent
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 229
Consider the fol lowing claims of precedent, and evaluate how effective you think each precedent might be in
establishing the claim. How would you develop the argument? How wou ld you cast doubt on it?
1. To increase alumni giving to our university, we should put more fund ing into our footbal l program. When
University X went to postseason bowls for three years in a row, alumni donations to building programs
and academics increased by 30 percent. We can expect the same increases here.
2. Postwar democracy can be created successfully in Afghanistan because it was created successfully
in Germany and Japan following World War II.
3. Euthanasia laws work successfully in the Netherlands. Therefore they will work successfully in the
United States.
Examining Visual Arguments
•
~·
~-
Claim about Category (Definition)
This cartoon, by pol itical cartoonist Randy Bish of the Pittsburgh Tribu ne Review, creates a visual pun that
makes a categorical argument against heroin. How does Bish’s rendering of the letter “r” make a categori-
cal claim? What is that claim? How effective do you find this cartoon in highlighting the seductive danger of
heroin?
230 Chapter 12
The Criteria-Match Structure
of Definition Arguments
12.3 Explain the criteria-match structure of categorical arguments
based on definition.
Of the four types of categorical arguments explained in the previous section, defi-
nition arguments require the fullest range of argumentative skills. For the rest of
this chapter, we’ll explain more fully the argumentative moves required to write
your own definition argument.
Overview of Criteria-Match Structure
Definition arguments usually have a two-part structure: (1) a definition part that
tries to establish the boundaries of the category and (2) a match part that argues
whether a given case meets that definition. To describe this structure, we use the
term criteria-match. Here are two examples:
Definition issue: In a divorce proceeding, is a frozen embryo a “person”
rather than “property”?
Criteria part: What criteria must “a person” meet?
Match part: Does a frozen embryo meet these criteria?
Definition issue: Is this thirty-acre parcel of land near Swan Lake a
“wetland”?
Criteria part: What criteria must a wetland meet?
Match part: Does this parcel of land meet these criteria?
To show how a definition issue can be developed into a claim with supporting
reasons, let’s look more closely at a third example:
Definition issue: For purposes of my feeling good about buying my next
pair of running shoes, is the Hercules Shoe Company a socially responsible
company?
Criteria part: What criteria must a company meet to be deemed “socially
responsible”?
Match part: Does the Hercules Shoe Company meet these criteria?
Let’s suppose you work for a consumer information group that wishes to
encourage patronage of socially responsible companies and the boycott of socially
irresponsible companies. Your group’s first task is to define socially responsible
company. After much discussion and research, your group establishes three criteria
that a company must meet to be considered socially responsible:
Your definition: A company is socially responsible if it (1) avoids polluting the
environment, (2) sells goods or services that contribute to the community’s well-
being, and (3) treats its workers justly.
The criteria section of your argument would explain and illustrate these
criteria.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 231
The match part of the argument would then try to persuade readers that a
specific company does or does not meet the criteria. A typical thesis statement
might be as follows:
Your thesis statement: Although the Hercules Shoe Company is nonpolluting
and provides a socially useful product, it is not a socially responsible company
because it treats workers unjustly.
Toullllin Fralllework for a Definition Argulllent
Here is how the core of the preceding Hercules definition argument could be
displayed in Toulmin terms. Note how the reason and grounds constitute the
match argument while the warrant and backing constitute the criterion argument.
Toulmin Analysis of the Hercules Shoe Company Argument
ENTHYMEME
CLAIM The Hercules Shoe Company is not
a socially responsible company
REASON because it treats workers unjustly.
GROUNDS
Evidence of unjust treatment:
• Evidence that the company manufactures
its shoes in East Asian sweatshops
• Evidence of the inhumane conditions
in these shops
• Evidence of hardships imposed on
displaced American workers
WARRANT
Socially responsible companies treat workers
justly.
BACKING
• Arguments showing that just treatment of
workers is right in principle and also
benefits society
• Arguments that capitalism helps society
as a whole only if workers achieve a
reasonable standard of living, have time
for leisure, and are not exploited
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking reasons and grounds
• Possible countervidence that the shops
maintain humane working conditions
• Possible questioning of statistical data
about hardships on displaced workers
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking warrant and backing
Justice needs to be considered from an
emerging nation’s standpoint:
• The wages paid to workers are low by
American standards but are above
average by East Asian standards.
• Displacement of American workers
is part of the necessary adjustment of
adapting to a global economy and
does not mean that a company is unjust.
As this Toulmin schema illustrates, the warrant and backing constitute the
criteria section of the argument by stating and defending “just treatment of work-
ers” as a criterion for a socially responsible company. The reason and grounds
232 Chapter 12
constitute the match section of the argument by arguing that the Hercules Shoe
Company does not treat its workers justly. How much emphasis you need to place
on justifying each criterion and supporting each match depends on your audi-
ence’s initial beliefs. The conditions of rebuttal help you imagine alternative views
and see places where opposing views need to be acknowledged and rebutted.
For Writing and Discussion
Identifying Criteria and Match Issues
Consider the fo llowing definition claims. Working individually or in small groups, identify the criteria issue
and the match issue for each of the follow ing claims.
Definition issue: A Honda assembled in Oh io is (is not) an American-made car.
Criteria part: What criteria must an “American-made car” meet?
Match part: Does a Honda assembled in Ohio meet these criteria?
Claims:
1. American Sign Language is (is not) a “foreign language” for purposes of a college graduation
requirement.
2. The vio lence in Grand Theft Auto is (is not) constitutionally protected free speech.
3. Bungee jumping from a crane is (is not) a “carnival amusement ride” subject to state safety
inspections.
4. For purposes of a state sales tax on “candy,” a Twinkie is (is not) candy.
5. A skilled video game player is (is not) a true athlete.
Creating -Criteria Using Aristotelian Definition
When creating criteria for a category, you can often follow the pattern of Aristo-
telian definition. The Aristotelian definitional strategy, regularly used in diction-
aries, defines a term by placing it within the next larger class or category and
then showing the specific attributes that distinguish the term from other terms
within the same category. For example, according to a legal dictionary, robbery is
“the felonious taking of property” (next larger category) that differs from other
acts of theft because it seizes property “through violence or intimidation.” Legal
dictionaries often provide specific examples to show the boundaries of the term.
Here is one example:
There is no robbery unless force or fear is used to overcome resistance. Thus, sur-
reptitiously picking a man’s pocket or snatching something from him without
resistance on his part is larceny, but not robbery.
Many states specify degrees of robbery with increasingly heavy penalties. For
example, armed robbery involves the use of a weapon to threaten the victim. In all
cases, robbery is distinguished from the lesser crime of larceny, in which no force
or intimidation is involved.
As you can see, an Aristotelian definition of a term identifies specific attri-
butes or criteria that enable you to distinguish it from other members of the next
larger class. We created an Aristotelian definition in our example about socially
responsible companies. A socially responsible company, we said, is any company
(next larger class) that meets three criteria: (1) it doesn’t pollute the environment;
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 233
(2) it creates goods or services that promote the community’s well-being; and (3)
it treats its workers justly.
In constructing Aristotelian definitions, you may find it useful to employ the
concepts of accidental, necessary, and sufficient criteria.
• An accidental criterion is a usual but not essential feature of a concept. For
example, armed robbers frequently wear masks, but wearing a mask is
an accidental criterion because it has no bearing on the definition of rob-
bery. In our example about socially responsible companies, “makes regular
contributions to charities” might be an accidental criterion; most socially
responsible companies contribute to charities, but some do not. And many
socially irresponsible companies also contribute to charities often as a
public-relations ploy.
• A necessary criterion is an attribute that must be present for something to
belong to the category being defined. To be guilty of robbery rather than
larceny, a thief must have used direct force or intimidation. The use of force
is thus a necessary criterion for robbery. However, for a robbery to occur,
another criterion must also be met: The robber must also take property from
the victim.
• Sufficient criteria are all the criteria that must be present for something to
belong to the category being defined. Together, the use of force plus the taking
of property are sufficient criteria for an act to be classified as robbery.
Consider again our defining criteria for a “socially responsible” company:
(1) the company must avoid polluting the environment; (2) the company must
create goods or services that contribute to the community’s well-being; and (3) the
company must treat its workers justly. In this definition, each criterion is neces-
sary, but none of the criteria alone is sufficient. In other words, to be defined as
socially responsible, a company must meet all three criteria at once, as the word
and signals. It is not enough for a company to be nonpolluting (a necessary but not
sufficient criterion); if that company makes a shoddy product or treats its workers
unjustly, it fails to meet the other necessary criteria and can’t be deemed socially
responsible. Because no one criterion by itself is sufficient, the company must meet
all three criteria together before it can be deemed socially responsible.
In contrast, consider the following definition of sexual harassment as established
by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in its 1980 guidelines:
Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or
physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when (1)
submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or
condition of an individual’s employment, (2) submission to or rejection of such
conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affect-
ing such individual, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreason-
ably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an
intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.*
Here each of these criteria is sufficient. If just one criterion is met, the act
constitutes sexual harassment.
*Quoted in Stephanie Riger, “Gender Dilemmas in Sexual Harassment Policies and Proce-
dures,” American Psychologist 46 (May 1991), 497-505.
234 Chapter 12
For Writing and Discussion
Working with Criteria
Working indiv idually or in small groups, try to determine whether each of the following is a necessary
criterion, a sufficient criterion, an accidental criterion, or no c riterion fo r defin ing the indicated concept. Be
prepared to explain your reasoning and to account for d ifferences in points of view.
Criterion Concept to Be Defined
Presence of gills Fish
Profane and obscene language R-rated movie
Poem Line endings that form a rhyming pattern
Disciplining a child by spanking Child abuse
Vegetarian
Murder
Diet that excludes meat
Killing another human being
Good sex life Happy marriage
Creating-criteria Using an Operational Definition
In some rhetorical situations, particularly those arising in the physical and social
sciences, writers need precise operational definitions that can be measured empiri-
cally and are not subject to problems of context and conflicting values and beliefs.
A social scientist studying the effects of television on aggression in children needs
a precise, measurable definition of aggression. Typically, the scientist might mea-
sure “aggression” by counting the number of blows a child gives to an inflatable
bobo doll over a fifteen-minute period when other play options are available.
In our wetlands example, a federal authority created an operational definition
of wetland: a wetland is a parcel of land that has a saturated ground surface for
twenty-one consecutive days during the year.
Such operational definitions are useful because they are precisely measurable,
but they are also limited because they omit criteria that may be unmeasurable but
important. Thus, we might ask whether it is adequate to define an honors student
as someone with a 3.8 GPA or higher or a successful sex-education program as one
that results in a 25 percent reduction in teenage pregnancies. What important
aspects of an honors student or a successful sex-education program are not con-
sidered in these operational definitions?
Conducting the Match Part of a Definitien
Argument
In conducting a match argument, you need to supply examples and other evidence
showing that your contested case does (does not) meet the criteria you established
in your definition. In essence, you support the match part of your argument in
much the same way you would support a simple categorical claim.
For example, if you were developing the argument that the Hercules Shoe
Company is not socially responsible because it treats its workers unjustly, your
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 235
match section would provide evidence of this injustice. You might supply data
about the percentage of shoes produced in East Asia, about the low wages paid
to these workers, and about the working conditions in these factories. You might
also describe the suffering of displaced American workers when Hercules closed
its American factories and moved operations to Asia, where the labor is non-
union and cheap. The match section should also summarize and respond to
• •
opposing views.
Idea-Generating Strategies
for Creating Your Own
Criteria-Match Argument
12.4 Use criteria-match reasoning to generate ideas for your own definition
argument.
In constructing criteria to define your contested term, you can either research
how others have defined your term or make your own definitions. If you use the
first strategy, you turn to standard or specialized dictionaries, judicial opinions,
or expert testimony to establish a definition based on the authority of others. The
second strategy is to use your own critical thinking to make your own defini-
tion, thereby defining the contested term yourself. This section explains these
approaches in more detail.
Strategy 1:
Research How Others Have Defined the Terin
When you take this approach, you search for authoritative definitions acceptable
to your audience yet favorable to your case. When the state of Washington tried
to initiate a new sales tax on candy, lawyers and legislators wrestled with a defi-
nition. They finally created the following statute, which is available to the public
on a government website:
What Is the Definition of Candy?
“Candy” is a preparation of sugar, honey, or other natural or artificial sweeten-
ers combined with chocolate, fruits, nuts, or other ingredients or flavorings in
the form of bars, drops, or pieces. Candy does not require refrigeration, and
does not include flour as an ingredient.
“Natural or artificial sweeteners” include, but are not limited to, high
fructose corn syrup, dextrose, invert sugar, sucrose, fructose, sucra-
lose, saccharin, aspartame, stevia, fruit juice concentrates, molasses,
evaporated cane juice, and rice syrup.
“Flour” includes any flour made from a grain, such as wheat flour,
rice flour, and corn flour.
Items that require “refrigeration,” either before or after opening, are
not candy. For example, popsicles, ice cream bars, and fruits in sweet-
ened syrups are not candy.
236 Chapter 12
This definition made it easy for state officials to exclude from the “candy
tax” any snack food that contained flour. Thus Twinkies, Fruit Loops cereal, and
chocolate-covered pretzels were exempt from the tax. But considerable debate
occurred over cough drops and halvah (a traditional dessert in India and Medi-
terranean countries). The state decided to exclude cough drops if the package
contained a “drug facts” panel and a list of active ingredients. (Such cough drops
were then classified as “over-the-counter drugs.”) Halvah made with nut-butter
was taxed as candy but not halvah made with flour.
Turning to established definitions is thus a first step for many definition argu-
ments. Common sources of these definitions are specialized dictionaries, such as
Black’s Law Dictionary, which form a standard part of the reference holdings of
any library. Other sources of specialized definitions are state and federal appel-
late court decisions, legislative and administrative statutes, and scholarly articles
examining a given definition conflict. Lawyers use this research strategy exhaus-
tively in preparing court briefs. They begin by looking at the actual text of laws
as passed by legislatures or written by administrative authorities. Then they look
at all the court cases in which the laws have been tested and examine the ways
courts have refined legal definitions and applied them to specific cases. Using
these refined definitions, lawyers then apply them to their own case at hand.
If your research uncovers definitions that seem ambiguous or otherwise
unfavorable to your case, you can sometimes appeal to the “original intentions”
of those who defined the term. For example, if a scientist is dissatisfied with
definitions of wetlands based on consecutive days of saturated ground surface,
she might proceed as follows: “The original intention of Congress in passing the
Clean Water Act was to preserve the environment.” What Congress intended,
she could then claim, was to prevent development of those wetland areas that
provide crucial habitat for wildlife or that inhibit water pollution. She could then
propose an alternative definition based on criteria other than consecutive days
of ground saturation.
Strategy 2:
Create Your Own Extended Definition*
Often, however, you need to create your own definition of the contested term. An
effective strategy is to establish initial criteria for your contested term by thinking
of hypothetical cases that obviously fit the category you are trying to define and
then altering one or more variables until the hypothetical case obviously doesn’t
fit the category. You can then test and refine your criteria by applying them to
borderline cases. For example, suppose you work at a homeless shelter where
you overhear your clients discuss an incident that strikes you as potential”police
brutality.” You wonder whether you should write to your local paper to bring
attention to the incident.
* The defining strategies and collaborative exercises in this section are based on the work
of George Hillocks and his research associates at the University of Chicago. See George
Hillocks Jr., Elizabeth A. Kahn, and Larry R. Johannessen, “Teaching Defining Strategies
as a Mode of Inquiry: Some Effects on Student Writing,” Research in the Teaching of English
17 (October 1983), 275-84. See also Larry R. Johannessen, Elizabeth A. Kahn, and Carolyn
Calhoun Walter, Designing and Sequencing Prewriting Activities (Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1982).
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 237
A Possible Case of Police Brutality
Two police officers confront an inebriated homeless man who is shouting
obscenities on a street corner. The officers tell the man to quiet down and
move on, but he keeps shouting obscenities. When the officers attempt to
put the man into the police car, he resists and takes a wild swing at one of
the officers. As eyewitnesses later testified, this officer shouted obscenities
back at the drunk man, pinned his arms behind his back in order to handcuff
him, and lifted him forcefully by the arms. The man screamed in pain and
was later discovered to have a dislocated shoulder. Is this officer guilty of
police brutality?
To your way of thinking, this officer seems guilty: An inebriated man is too
uncoordinated to be a threat in a fight, and two police officers ought to be able
to arrest him without dislocating his shoulder. But a friend argues that because
the man took a swing at the officer, the police were justified in using force. The
dislocated shoulder was simply an accidental result of using justified force.
To make your case, you need to develop a definition of “police brutality.” You
can begin by creating a hypothetical case that is obviously an instance of police
brutality:
A Clear Case of Police Brutality
A police officer confronts a drunk man shouting obscenities and begins hitting
him in the face with his police baton. [This is an obvious incidence of police brutal-
ity because the officer intentionally tries to hurt the drunk man without justification;
hitting him with the baton is not necessary for making an arrest or getting the man
into the police car.]
You could then vary the hypothetical case until it is clearly not an instance
of police brutality.
Cases That Are Clearly Not Police Brutality
Case 1:
The police officer handcuffs the drunk man, who, in being helped into the
police car, accidentally slips on the curb and dislocates his arm while falling.
[Here the injury occurs accidentally; the police officer does not act intentionally and
is not negligent.]
Case 2:
The police officer confronts an armed robber fleeing from a scene and tack-
les him from behind, wrestling the gun away from him. In this struggle, the
officer pins the robber’s arm behind his back with such force that the robber’s
shoulder is dislocated. [Here aggressive use of force is justified because the robber
was armed, dangerous, and resisting arrest.]
Using these hypothetical cases, you decide that the defining criteria for police
brutality are (1) intention and (2) use of excessive force that is, force beyond what
was required by the immediate situation. After more contemplation, you are
238 Chapter 12
convinced that the officer was guilty of police brutality and have a clearer idea
of how to make your argument. Here is how you might write the “match” part
of your argument:
Match Argument Using Your Definition
If we define police brutality as the intentional use of excessive force, then the
police officer is guilty. His action was intentional because he was purposefully
responding to the homeless man’s drunken swing and was angry enough to
be shouting obscenities back at the drunk (according to eyewitnesses). Second,
he used excessive force in applying the handcuffs. A drunk man taking a wild
swing hardly poses a serious danger to two police officers. Putting handcuffs
on the drunk may have been justified, but lifting the man’s arm violently
enough to dislocate a shoulder indicates excessive force. The officer lifted the
man’s arms violently not because he needed to but because he was angry, and
acting out of anger is no justification for that violence. In fact, we can charge
police officers with police brutality precisely to protect us from being victims
of police anger. It is the job of the court system to punish us, not the police’s
job. Because this officer acted intentionally and applied excessive force out of
anger, he should be charged with police brutality.
The strategy we have demonstrated developing criteria by imagining
hypothetical cases that clearly do and do not belong to the contested category-
gives you a systematic procedure for developing your own definition for your
argument.
For Writing and Discussion
Developing a Definition
Individual task:
1. Suppose you want to define the concept of courage. In each of the following cases, decide whether
the person in question is acting courageously or not. In each instance explain your reasoning.
a. A neighbor rushes into a burning house to rescue a child from certain death and emerges, cough ing
and choking, with the chi ld in his arms. Is the neighbor courageous?
b. A firefighter rushes into a burning house to rescue a child from certain death and emerges with
the chi ld in her arms. The firefighter is wearing protective c lothing and a gas mask. When a newspaper
reporter calls her courageous, she says, “Hey, this is my job.” Is the firefighter courageous?
c. A teenager rushes into a burning house to recover a memento given to him by his girlfriend, the
first love of his life. Is the teenager courageous?
d. A parent rushes into a burn ing house to save a trapped child. The fire marshal tells the parent to
wait because there is no chance that the child can be reached from the first floor. The fire marshal
wants to try cutting a hole in the roof to reach the child. The parent rushes into the house anyway
and is burned to death. Was the parent courageous?
2. Now formulate your own definition of a “courageous act.” Use the follow ing format: “An act would be
considered courageous if it meets the follow ing criteria: [you specify].”
3. Finally, apply your definition to the fol lowing case: An extreme sport enthusiast sets a record for a
hang-glid ing descent from a certain state’s highest cliff. Is th is record-setting descent a courageous
act? Write a paragraph in which you argue that the descent is or is not courageous.
Defi nition and Resemblance Arguments 239
Group task:
Share the results from the individual task on courage. Then make up your own series of controversial cases,
like those given previously for “courage,” for one or more of the following concepts:
a. cruelty to animals
b . child abuse
c . t rue athlete
d . sexual harassment
e . free speech protected by the First Amendment
Finally, using t he strategy of making up hypothetical cases that do and do not belong to each category,
construct a def inition of your chosen concept.
riting Assignment: A Definition
Argument
12.5 Write your own definition argument.
The assignment for this chapter focuses on definition disputes about categories.
Write an essay in which you argue that a borderline or contested case fits (or does
not fit) within a given category. In the opening of your essay, introduce the bor-
derline case you will examine and pose your definition question. In the first part
of your argument, define the boundaries of your category (criteria) by reporting a
definition used by others or by developing your own extended definition. In the
second part of your argument (the match), show how your borderline case meets
(or doesn’t meet) your definition criteria.
Exploring Ideas
Ideally, in writing this argument you will join an ongoing conversation about
a definition issue that interests you. What cultural and social issues that con-
cern you involve disputed definitions? In the public arena, you are likely to find
numerous examples simply by looking through news stories for example, the
disputes about the definition of “torture” in interrogating terrorist suspects or
about “freedom of religion” in debates about religious organizations having to
pay for contraception in employees’ health insurance. Often you can frame your
own definition issues even if they aren’t currently in the news. Is using TiVo to
avoid TV commercials a form of theft? Is flag burning protected free speech?
Is solitary confinement “cruel and unusual punishment”? Is Walmart a socially
responsible company? Are voter ID laws racist?
If you have trouble discovering a local or national issue that interests you, you
can create fascinating definition controversies among your classmates by asking
whether certain borderline cases are “true” or “real” examples of some category:
Are highly skilled video game players (race car drivers, synchronized swimmers,
marbles players) true athletes? Is a gourmet chef (skilled furniture maker, tag-
ger) a true artist? Is a chiropractor (acupuncturist, naturopathic physician) a “real
doctor”? Working as a class or in small groups inside or outside class, create an
240 Chapter 12
argumentative discussion on one or more of these issues. Listen to the various
voices in the controversy, and then write out your own argument.
You can also stimulate definition controversies by brainstorming borderline
cases for such terms as courage (Is mountain climbing an act of courage?), cruelty to
animals (Are rodeos [zoos, catch-and-release trout fishing, use of animals for medi-
cal research] guilty of cruelty to animals?), or war crime (Was the U.S. firebombing
of Tokyo in World War II a war crime?).
As you explore your definition issue, try to determine how others have
defined your category. If no stable definition emerges from your search, create
your own definition by deciding what criteria must be met for a contested case
to fit within your category. Try using the strategy for creating criteria that we
discussed earlier in this chapter with reference to police brutality. Once you have
determined your criteria, freewrite for five or ten minutes, exploring whether
your contested case meets each of the criteria.
Identifying Your Audience and Determining
What’s at Stake
Before drafting your argument, identify your targeted audience and determine
what’s at stake. Consider your responses to the following questions:
• What audience are you targeting? What background do they need to under-
stand your issue? How much do they already care about it?
• Before they read your argument, what stance on your issue do you
imagine them holding? What change do you want to bring about in their
views?
• What will they find new or surprising about your argument?
• What objections might they raise? What counterarguments or alternative
points of view will you need to address?
• Why does your argument matter? Who might be threatened or made uncom-
fortable by your views? What is at stake?
Organizing a Definition Argument
As you compose a first draft of your essay, you may find it helpful to understand
typical structures for definition arguments. There are two basic approaches, as
shown in Figures 12.1 and 12.2. You can either discuss the criteria and the match
separately or interweave the discussion.
Questioning and Critiquing a Definition
Argument
A powerful way to stimulate global revision of a draft is to role-play a skeptical
audience. The following questions will help you strengthen your own argument
or rebut the definition arguments of others. In critiquing a definition argument,
you need to appreciate its criteria-match structure because you can question the
criteria argument, the match argument, or both.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 241
Figure 12.1 Definit ion argument: Organization Plan 1
Introduce the issue and state
your claim.
Present your criteria.
Present your match argument.
Conclude.
Questioning Your Criteria
• Engage reader’s interest in your definition issue
and show why it is controversial or problematic.
• Show what’s at stake.
• Provide background information needed by your
audience.
• State your claim.
• State and develop criterion 1 .
• State and develop criterion 2.
• Continue with the rest of your criteria.
• Anticipate and respond to possible objections to
the criteria.
• Consider restating your claim for clarity.
• Argue that your case meets (does not meet)
criterion 1 .
• Argue that your case meets (does not meet)
criterion 2.
• Continue with the rest of your match argument.
• Anticipate and respond to possible objections
to the match argument.
• Perhaps sum up your argument.
• Help reader return to the #big picture” of what’s at
stake.
• End with something memorable.
• Could a skeptic claim that your criteria are not the right ones? Could he or
she offer different criteria or point out missing criteria?
• Could a skeptic point out possible bad consequences of accepting your
criteria?
• Could a skeptic cite unusual circumstances that weaken your criteria?
• Could a skeptic point out bias or slant in your definition?
Questioning Your Match
• Could a skeptic argue that your examples or data don’t meet the STAR crite-
ria (see Chapter 4) for evidence?
• Could a skeptic point out counterexamples or alternative data that cast doubt
on your argument?
• Could a skeptic reframe the way you have viewed your borderline case?
242 Chapter 12
Figure 12.2 Definition argument: Organization Plan 2
Introduce the issue and state
your claim.
Present series of criterion-match
arguments.
Respond to possible objections
to your argument.
Conclude.
Readings
• Engage reader’s interest in your definition issue
and show why it is problematic or controversial.
• Show what’s at stake.
• Provide background information needed by your
audience.
• State your claim.
• State and develop criterion 1 and argue that your
case meets (does not meet) the criterion.
• State and develop criterion 2 and argue that your
case meets (does not meet) the criterion.
• Continue with the rest of your criterion-match
arguments.
• Anticipate and summarize possible objections.
• Respond to the objections through rebuttal or
•
concession.
• Perhaps sum up your argument.
• Help reader return to the #big picture” of what’s
at stake.
• End with something memorable.
Our first reading, by student writer Arthur Knopf, grew out of his research into
agricultural subsidies and the nutritional content of foods. It was written for the
assignment in Learning Objective 12.5.
Student Essay
——————————
15 Milk a Health Food?
Arthur Knopf
If asked to name a typical health food, most of us would put milk high
on our lists. We’ve all seen the “Got Milk?” ads with their milk-mustached
celebrities or the dairy product campaigns entitled “Milk, It Does a Body
Good” or “Body By Milk.” These ads, featuring well-known athletes or trim
celebrities, argue visually that milk helps you grow fit and strong. But if you
define “health food” based on science rather than on marketing claims, and
if you include in your definition of health food concerns for the planet as
well as for individual bodies, then milk might not fit the category of health
food at all.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 243
My first criterion for a “health food” is that the food should have a
scientifically supported health benefit with minimal risks. Based on the food
pyramid from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), m ilk
at first glance seems to fit this criterion. On the MyPyramid website the
dairy group (milk, yogurt, cheese) is one of the essential components of a
healthy diet (USDA). All elements of the milk group provide calcium, which
is important for healthy bones and the prevention of osteoporosis. Dairy
products also provide important vitamins. But the website entry under the
dairy group specifies in a footnote, “Choose fat-free or low-fat milk, yogurt,
and cheese.” One cup of whole milk, according to the website, contains 70
more calories than a cup of skim milk (147 calories compared to 83). The
extra 70 calories are potentially harmful saturated fats and sugar, linked to
heart disease and obesity. We can say then that “nonfat m ilk” fits my first
criterion for a health food, but that the rest of the milk group may not.
So how do dairy products in general get listed as essential ingredients
on the food pyramid rather than just low-fat milk or yogurt? The answer to
this question brings us to my second criterion for a health food: Potentially
unhealthy aspects of the food should be w idely disclosed, not h idden by
marketing. Because we are bombarded daily by conflicting nutrition claims,
many people turn to the U.S. government for neutral, unbiased information.
But the p lace of dairy products on the USDA food pyramid may be itself a
result of marketing. The USDA’s mandate isn’t directly to promote health,
but rather to promote agriculture and to help farmers flourish economically.
In recommending three servings of dairy products per day, the food pyra-
mid serves the interests of dairy farmers by promoting the whole class of
dairy products, not just skim milk. According to the Environmental Work-
ing Group’s Farm Subsidy Primer, the USDA spent $4.8 billion in dairy sub-
sidies between 1995 and 2009 (“Farm Subsidy Primer”). All these policies
invest public dollars to create a steady consumption of dairy products and
fundamentally depend on the premise that dairy products are good for us.
As we have seen, skim milk may be good for us, but dairy products in
general are more problematic. When the fat in whole milk is removed to
make skim milk, it is not thrown away. It is used to make high-calorie, high-
fat products like cheese and ice cream. Revealing its true ambivalence to
public nutrition, the USDA warns against saturated fats in its food pyramid
site while simultaneously working w ith companies like Domino’s Pizza to
increase the amount of cheese in their products. According to The New York
Times (Moss), the USDA helped Domino’s create a p izza w ith 40 p ercent
more cheese and paid for a $12 m illion ad campaign to promote it. The New
York Times further writes that Americans now consume almost three times as
much cheese as we did in 1970. At a time of a national obesity epidemic, the
promotion of dairy products either directly or indirectly introduces h igh-
calorie, high-saturated-fat foods into our d iet while making many persons
think they are eating healthfully.
Finally, I would like to suggest a third criterion for health food. A true s
health food should be good not only for our bodies but also for the earth.
Milk, as it is currently produced in the United States, clearly does not meet this
criterion. According to environmental writer Jim Motavalli, both ” the front
(continued)
244 Chapter 12
and rear ends of a cow” compete with coal plant smokestacks and vehicle tail-
pipes as “iconic” causes of global warming and environmental degradation.
Drawing on statistical sources from both the United Nations and the USDA,
Motavalli states that livestock in the United States consumes 90 percent of
the soy crop and more than 70 percent of the corn and grain crops foods
that could otherwise be used for people and could be grown in a more envi-
ronmentally friendly way. Not only do cattle consume much of the world’s
grain supply, the need to clear space for grazing contributes to the destruction
of rain forests. The other end of the cow, says Motavalli, is equally destruc-
tive. While chewing their cuds, cows directly emit methane gas (according to
Motavalli, methane has a greenhouse effect 23 times more potent than car-
bon dioxide), and the concentration of their manure in factory farm sludge
ponds produces ammonia, nitrous oxide, and additional methane. According
to Motavalli, cows produce a staggering amount of manure (“five tons of
waste for every U.S. citizen”), producing 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse
gases more than all of the world’s cars, trains, and planes. Motavalli also
cites additional health risks posed by cows, including dangers of disease from
unsafe processing of manure and from antibiotic-resistant bacteria (half of the
world’s antibiotics are given to cattle instead of humans).
In sum, there is no doubt that skim milk, along with low-fat yogurt and
cheese, is a vital source of bone-building calcium and belongs on our list of
health foods. But for most people, “milk” evokes dairy products in general,
all of which we tend to associate with health. What we don’t picture is the
extra sugar and saturated fat in whole milk and cheese nor the environ-
mental dangers of the dairy and livestock industries in general. From the
perspective of the earth, perhaps dairy products should not be considered
a health food at all.
Works Cited
“Farm Subsidy Primer.” Environmental Working Group, farm.ewg.orgl
subsidyprimer.php. Accessed 8 Apr. 2018.
Moss, Michael. “While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales.” The
New York Times, 6 Nov. 2010, www.nytimes.comi2010I11I07 lusl07fat.
html.
Motavalli, Jim. “The Meat of the Matter.” Orlando Weekly, 31 July
2008, www.orlandoweekly.coml orlando I the-meat-of-the-matter I
Content?oid=2273952.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Center for Nutrition Policy and
Promotion. MyPyramid, www.cnpp.usda.gov lmypyramid.
Accessed 8 Apr. 2018.
Critiquing “Is Milk a Health Food?”
1. Identify the following features of Arthur’s essay: (1) his implied definition
of “health food”; (2) his criteria for determining whether a borderline case
is a health food; (3) his match arguments showing whether milk fits each of
the criteria.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 245
2. Do you agree with Arthur’s criterion that a true health food ought to be good
for the planet as well as good for the body?
3. Based on Arthur’s argument, do you think the inclusion of dairy products
in the USDA’s recommendations for a healthy diet is still justified? Visit the
USDA’s nutrition website, www.choosemyplate.gov. Would you suggest
changes to these USDA recommendations? If so, what changes would you
recommend and why?
The second reading, by student Alex Mullen, was also written for the defini-
tion assignment in Learning Objective 12.5. Alex’s argument was stimulated by
class discussions of property ownership in digital environments.
Student Essay
A Pirate But Not a Thief: What Does “Stealing” Mean in a Digital
Environment?
Alex Mullen
I am a pirate. In the eyes of the law, I could face serious punishment in fines,
up to thousands of dollars, or jail time for my crime. Legally, it matters very
little that my crime is one perpetrated by millions of people every year (you
yourself may be guilty of it) or that there are far worse offenders out there.
But before we get out the noose and head for the yardarm, I think I ought to
describe my crime. In my History of Film class we were asked to watch Jean
Renoir’s La Grande Illusion. Now, if you’ve spent any time searching for 1930s
foreign films you will undoubtedly know what a pain it is to find them, and
of the twenty or so films we watched for my class a grand total of three were
available on streaming sites such as Netflix, Hulu, and You Tube. While there
were several copies of this particular film at my university library, all had
been checked out. I planned to make a journey to the fabled Scarecrow Video
(one of the largest rental libraries in the United States), but time was running
low at this point. Finally, I broke down and used a person-to-person torrent
site to download the film illegally. In the end all the trouble was worthwhile,
as La Grande Illusion remains one of the greatest films I have ever seen. After
watching it several times and writing a brief paper, I deleted the film from
my computer. Although I feel that my action was justifiable, many people
think what I did was no better than shoplifting and that I am guilty of theft.
As a film lover and aspiring filmmaker, I am conflicted on the issue of online
piracy. Nevertheless, I contend that what I did wasn’t stealing because I
deprived no one of either property or profit.
Let’s take a step back from online piracy and focus simply on what
stealing is in its most basic form. In my mind, stealing is the unlawful tak-
ing of another’s property or profits without permission. It is the underlying
assumption about what makes stealing wrong that needs to be considered.
In the case of property, stealing is wrong not because the thief has the prop-
erty but because the original owner has been deprived of it. The owner’s
loss causes the wrong, not the thief’s gain. To give an example in very simple
(continued)
246 Chapter 12
terms, if you have a phone case and I make a copy of that case (as is quite
possible with a 3D printer), you still possess the original case, so no harm
has been done to you, the owner. However, suppose that you made your
living by selling these phone cases. If I made exact duplicates with my 3-D
printer and then sold these cases to others, then you could be deprived of
profits that you might otherwise have received. Again, the wrong comes
from the creator’s loss and not the thief’s gain.
Now let’s focus on my particular example of online piracy. While I
concede that piracy has the distinct potential to be stealing, I reject the accu-
sation that all piracy is stealing. Based on the first part of my definition
of stealing, my downloading La Grande Illusion deprived no consumer or
creator of his or her copy of the film. This is why accusations that compare
online piracy to shoplifting are false. In the case of shoplifting, the owner I
creator has one fewer piece of merchandise to make a profit on; with online
piracy, such loss does not occur because the original copy still exists.
However, the second part of my definition, which focuses on prof-
its, still remains to be examined. Perhaps by downloading the film I have
deprived the creators/ owners of profits they would normally receive. Let
me begin by saying that I never intended to purchase La Grande Illusion.
While intention does not often register in legal matters, it does have a bear-
ing on the type and degree of wrongdoing. Film-industry lawyers often
argue that every time a film is pirated, the rightful owner is deprived of
money because the pirate would have otherwise purchased the film. This
claim, however, is fallacious because there is no way to show that these
potential consumers would have purchased the film (I certainly wouldn’t
have). So while we may agree that some of these people would have pur-
chased the film, it would be inaccurate to claim that in all cases piracy
directly deprives creators of profit. I argue that what I did in the case of La
Grande Illusion was more like borrowing than theft. Borrowing a film from
a library (or renting it from a video store) has the same basic effect on the
owner I creator as online piracy. That is, a library or video store purchases
a copy and then loans it or rents it to others. Thus, many persons may not
purchase a copy from the owner I creator because they can use this single
public or commercial copy. Yet we do not consider borrowing or renting
stealing even though it can have the same economic ramification as piracy.
To go a step further, any time I borrow a film from a friend I cause the same
outcome found so reprehensible in online piracy. In my case, instead of
borrowing La Grande Illusion from an institution or business, I borrowed it
from another individual via the Internet.
s There is, of course, the counterargument that I could have rented the
film from Scarecrow and thus stole profit from this film-rental store much
loved by film buffs. While it is true that I did not benefit Scarecrow with my
patronage (a fact that I partially regret because I do try to support Scarecrow
as often as possible), it would be inaccurate to say that I stole from Scarecrow.
I am under no obligation to supply them with profits. When I pay money to a
rental organization, I am not paying for the film; I am paying for the service
of being able to use their copy of the film for 24 hours. Had I purchased the
film directly from the filmmaker, I would do the same harm to Scarecrow.
Thus my not utilizing Scarecrow to obtain La Grande Illusion is not theft.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 247
While I understand why the film industry (and also the music industry)
views downloading from file-sharing torrent sites as piracy, their motives
focus on preserving profits and blur the distinctions among buying, rent-
ing, and borrowing. If I owned a DVD version of a movie and loaned it
to a friend, no one would object. But if I make the same movie available
to a friend via a torrent or file-sharing site, I become a pirate subject to
huge fines. The intention is the same; only the format changes. The problem
stems from the hazy concept of” ownership” in a digital environment where
physical copies are replaced by digital copies. Certainly, we pay to possess
digital copies of films, music, and video games, but is this really the same as
physical ownership? After all, I can lend, rent, or even sell a physical DVD,
but such actions are impossible with digital copies without committing
piracy. Our consumption of media is evolving rapidly, and while undoubt-
edly there will always be those who exploit these changes for personal gain,
I feel we need to realize that our understanding of ownership, stealing, and
illegal use must evolve along with these changes.
Critiquing “A Pirate But Not a Thief: What Does ‘Stealing’ Mean in a
Digital Environment?”
1. Identify the following features of Alex’s essay: (1) his definition of “stealing”;
(2) his examples to illustrate the definition; (3) his match argument showing
whether his downloading of the film fits each of the criteria; and (4) his sum-
mary of and responses to objections and opposing views.
2. Do you agree with Alex’s contention that his downloading the film was an
act of “borrowing” rather than “stealing”?
3. What do you see as the major strengths of Alex’s argument? The major
weaknesses?
4. Do you think that the laws about online piracy should be changed? At what
point does online piracy clearly become stealing?
Our last reading is an op-ed piece from the Los Angeles Times by Mark Oppen-
heimer, a freelance author, journalist, and host of the podcast Unorthodox. The
occasion for this piece was a pending bill in Connecticut to raise the age of legal
marriage to eighteen. Oppenheimer notes the bewildering ways that “adulthood”
is defined in different contexts and points out potential negative consequences of
this definitional problem.
Ho-w Do We Define Adulthood?
MARK OPPENHEIMER
The legislature in my home state of Connecticut is considering a bill that would
raise the age of legal marriage to 18. Right now, like 26 other states, Connecticut
sets no minimum age: 16- and 17-year-olds can marry with parental consent, and
younger children 15, 14, heck, 8 or 9 can marry with parental consent and a
judge’s approval. Between 2000 and 2014, there were 14 marriages in Connecticut
involving 14-year-old girls.
248 Chapter 12
As it happens, Connecticut is part of a trend. Eight states are considering
similar bills, an explosion of interest due to the work of activist Fraidy Reiss,
who entered into an arranged marriage with a fellow ultra-Orthodox Jew when
she was 19, later divorced, and now runs a nonprofit called Unchained at Last.
Setting aside the merits of her movement and I think there are many the
bill raises a larger question: Who counts as an adult? Our federal and state laws
are an inconsistent patchwork of mixed messages. You can drive at 16 in most
places, although not in New Jersey, where you have to be 17, or South Dakota,
where you can get a license with some restrictions at 14 1/2. You can vote for
president at 18, the same age at which you have to register for the draft. But if you
are drafted at 18, you can’t have a beer after a rough day of basic training you
have to wait until you’re 21. Also at 18, you can buy a rifle or a shotgun from a
licensed dealer but not a handgun. For that, you have to wait until you’re 21.
Want to change these laws? You can run for the House of Representatives at
25, the Senate at 30, the presidency at 35. You can be mayor of most cities at a far
younger age, usually 18, which means you could theoretically run a town without
being able to drink in its bars.
s These inconsistencies aren’t our countries’ most pressing problem. But our
culture’s inability to agree on when adulthood begins contributes to some awfully
infantile behavior, or at least our tolerance of it.
When the writer Charles Murray visited Middlebury College recently, stu-
dents who disagreed with his views on race shouted him down, yelled obsceni-
ties, banged on windows, set off fire alarms and, after his talk, grabbed the hair
of the professor who had debated against him. Some liberals said, in the students’
defense, “They are children!” That’s an odd way to think about adults old enough
to vote and enlist in the Army, but perhaps a rational take on man-boys too young
to drink.
We need to figure out who counts as an adult. It makes no sense to expect
people to die for their country but not drink for their pleasure. By the same token,
it’s absurd to say that people who aren’t old enough to vote are old enough to get
married if you can’t vote for town government, you shouldn’t be able to form
your own household. There should be one age of majority when all of these rights
are bestowed at once.
Of course, it’s not easy to determine the right age. Research suggests that our
brains don’t reach cognitive maturity until we are well into our 20s a strong
argument for not letting 18-year-olds buy liquor or, for that matter, letting 18-year-
olds drive cars or buy guns. Conversely, because 16-year-olds (and younger) can
have babies, there’s a good argument for letting them marry the babies’ fathers,
with the hope of creating stable families.
But the fact that any age of maturity we choose will necessarily seem arbitrary
shouldn’t blind us to the common-sense wisdom of having a uniform one.
Eighteen when most people are done with high school seems as good an age
as any.
10 If we raise the marriage age to 18, and lower the drinking age to 18 where
it used to be in most states then we’d have one meaningful age of majority for
marriage, voting, drinking, and military service.
Not to mention signing contracts. “We don’t allow children to enter into sig-
nificant binding contracts before 18,” said Derek Slap, a Democratic legislator
from West Hartford who said he’ll probably vote for the Connecticut marriage bill.
Definition and Resemblance Arguments 249
But what, I asked, about a couple of 17-year-olds who are truly in love?
“Maybe once in a while Romeo and Juliet would have to cool their jets for a year,”
Slap said. “But I am OK with that.”
Critiquing “How Do We Define Adulthood?”
1. Oppenheimer proposes an operational definition of adulthood: age 18. What
reasons does he offer to support his claim?
2. Oppenheimer implies that there are problems with the operational definition
of adulthood as age 18. What are some of these problems?
3. What other criteria besides age could be used to determine adulthood? How
would you define adulthood if you couldn’t specify an age?
4. If you had to vote on a single age for adulthood, would you agree with
Oppenheimer that 18 is the best choice? Why or why not?
5. What is at stake in this argument?
250
Chapter 13
Learning Objectives
In this chapter you will learn to:
13.1 Explain and illustrate kinds of causal arguments.
13.2 Explain how different causal mechanisms function in cause/
consequence arguments.
13.3 Understand key causal terms and avoid inductive fallacies
in causal arguments.
13.4 Write your own cause or consequence argument.
We encounter causal issues all the time. What has caused the declining birth rate
among teens in the United States? Why has kombucha become a popular drink
among millennials? Why has there been a marked decline in the number of teen-
agers getting a driver’s licence? Why are white teenage girls seven times as likely
to smoke as African American teenage girls? Why do couples who live together
before marriage have a higher divorce rate than those who don’t? Why did fidget
spinners become a fad?
In addition to asking causal questions like these, we pose consequence
questions as well: What might be the consequences of installing stricter proof-
of-citizenship requirements for voting? What might be the social and economic
consequences of establishing public preschool programs? What have been the
consequences of the smart phone on the social life of pre-teens and teens?
Often arguments about causes and consequences have important stakes
because they shape our view of reality and influence government policies and
individual decisions. This chapter explains how to wrestle responsibly with
cause/ consequence issues to produce effective causal arguments.
Case 1: What Causes Global Warming?
One of the early clues linking global warming to atmospheric carbon dioxide (C02) came
from side-by-side comparisons of graphs plotting atmospheric carbon d ioxide and global
temperatures over time. These graphs show that increases in g lobal temperature parallel
increases in the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, the graphs
show only a correlation, or association, between increased carbon dioxide and higher aver-
age temperature. To argue that an increase in C02 could cause global warming, scientists
needed to explain the links in a causal chain. They did so by comparing the earth to a
greenhouse. Carbon dioxide, like glass in a greenhouse, lets some of the earth’s heat
radiate into space but also reflects some of the heat back to the earth. The h igher the
concentration of carbon dioxide, the more heat is reflected back to the earth.
(A)
400
390
§ 380 ·—
~ 370 ,_
a:. 360
Vl …… ,_
~ 350
340
C02 in Atmosphere (B)
14.7
14.6
Vl
::I 14.5 ·-Vl -Q)
u 14.4
Vl
Q)
~ 14.3
O’l
~ 14.2
14. 1
Mean Global Temperature
Causal Arguments 251
330~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1 4. 0 +-T–1r-r-r……–~~T'”‘T”‘”‘”T ……. “‘T”‘”‘T”‘”‘”1r-r-T”……–~””T'”T””T”‘”‘T”‘”‘T……-r-1
1980 1985 1 990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Year
SOURCE: Data from Dr. Pieter Tans, NOANESRL
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Year
SOURCE: Data from NASA Goddard Institute for
Space Studies Surface Temperature Analysis
Case 2: What Has Caused the Change in the Rate of Teen
Pregnancies in the United State in the Last Five Years?
Although the United States sti ll has the highest rate of teen pregnancies among developed
countries, stud ies show a decline in teen pregnancies since the early 1990s. What has
caused this decline? Some economists point to the recession of 2007-2009 as a major
cause, c laim ing that as the job market t ightened, teens became afraid of not being able to
get jobs when encumbered with babies. Other sources emphasize the role of parents in
cautioning teens about irresponsible choices concerning sexual behavior and reproduction.
A quite different explanation comes from a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic
Research analyzing the impact of media images on viewers. This study has found a cor-
re lation between the decl ine in teen pregnancies and the watching of the MTV docudrama
16 and Pregnant (wh ich premiered in 2009) and its spinoff Teen Moms. While the Parents
Television Council and other critics argue that these shows sensational ize and glamorize the
lives of the teen moms, researchers, using Nielsen ratings and geograph ic data on viewer-
ship and data from Google Trends and Twitter, found that watch ing these shows “led to
more searches and tweets regard ing b irth control and abortion, and ultimately led to a 5. 7
percent reduction in teen b irths in the eighteen months” after 16 and Pregnant f irst aired.*
This study broadens social thinking on the use of reality TV and social media in promoting
safe sex, as well as its potential value in addressing other social and health causes.
An Overview of Causal Arguments
13.1 Explain and illustrate kinds of causal arguments.
Typically, causal arguments try to show how one event brings about another. When
causal investigation focuses on material objects for example, one billiard ball
striking another the notion of causality appears fairly straightforward. But when
humans become the focus of a causal argument, the nature of causality becomes
more vexing. If we say that something happened to “cause” a person to act in a cer-
tain way, what do we mean? Do we mean that she was “forced” to act in a certain
*Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine. “Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The
Impact of MTV’s 16 and Pregnan t on Teen Childbearing,” NBER Working Paper No. 19795,
National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2014.
252 Chapter 13
way, thereby negating her free will (as in, an undiagnosed brain tumor caused
her to act erratically), or do we mean more simply that she was “motivated” to
act in a certain way (as in, her anger at her parents caused her to act erratically)?
When we argue about causality in human beings, we must guard against confus-
ing these two senses of” cause” or assuming that human behavior can be predicted
or controlled in the same way that nonhuman behavior can. A rock dropped from
a roof will always fall at thirty-two feet per second squared, and a rat zapped with
electricity for turning left in a maze will always stop turning left. But if we raise
interest rates, will consumers save more money? If so, how much money will they
save? This is the sort of question that can be debated endlessly.
Kinds of :Causal Argum_ents
Arguments about causality can take a variety of forms. Three typical kinds are
speculations about possible causes, arguments for an unexpected or surprising
cause, and predictions of consequences.
• Speculations about possible causes. Sometimes arguers speculate about pos-
sible causes of a phenomenon. For example, whenever a shooter opens fire on
innocent bystanders (as in the 2015 mass killing at the Pulse gay nightclub in
Orlando, Florida; the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Con-
necticut; or the nearly fatal wounding of a Republican legislator practicing
for a congressional baseball game in June 2017) social scientists, police inves-
tigators, terrorism specialists, and media commentators begin analyzing the
causes. One of the most thoroughly studied and heavily debated shooting
incidents occurred in 1999 when the nation was shocked by one of the first
incidents of mass school shooting the Columbine High School massacre
in Littleton, Colorado, in which two male students opened fire on their
classmates, killing thirteen people, wounding twenty-three others, and then
shooting themselves. Figure 13.1 illustrates some of the proposed theories
for the Columbine shootings. What was at stake was not only our desire to
understand the sociocultural sources of school violence but also our desire
Figure 13.1 Speculation about possible causes: Columbine High School massacre
Violent movies
and violent TV
Proposed Causes
Music of
Marilyn Manson
Breakdown of
the traditional
family
Alienation from
popular school
cliques
Inadequate Irresponsible
Violent video American
fascination
with guns
Lack of
school
discipline
Internet
nee-Nazi
chat rooms
Effect Columbine High School Shootings
school prescribing of
counselin antidepressants
(one of the
shooters was
on Prozac)
Internet
bomb making
instructions
to institute policies to prevent future school shootings. If a primary cause is
the availability of guns, then we might push for more stringent gun-control
laws. But if the primary cause is the disintegration of the traditional fam-
ily, the shooters’ alienation from high-school cliques, or the dangerous side
effects of antidepressant medications, then we might seek different solutions.
• Arguments for an unexpected or surprising cause. Besides sorting out possible
causes of a phenomenon, sometimes arguers try to persuade readers to see the
plausibility of an unexpected or surprising cause. This was the strategy used
by syndicated columnist John Leo, who wanted readers to consider the role of
violent video games as a contributing cause to the Columbine massacre.* After
suggesting that the Littleton killings were partly choreographed on video-game
models, Leo suggested the causal chain shown in Figure 13.2.
Figure 13.2 Argument for a surprising
cause: Role of violent video games in the
Columbine massacre
Many youngsters are left alone for long periods of
time (because both parents are working).
They play violent video games obsessively.
Their feelings of resentment and powerlessness .upour
into the killing games.”
The video games break down a natural aversion to
killing, analogous to psychological techniques
employed by the military.
Realistic touches in modern video games blur the
.uboundary between fantasy and reality.”
Youngsters begin identifying not with conventional
heroes but with sociopaths who get their kicks from
blowing away ordinary people (“pedestrians, marching
bands, an elderly woman with a walker”).
Having enjoyed random violence in the video games,
vulnerable youngsters act out the same adrenaline
rush in real life.
*John Leo, “Kill-for-Kicks Video Games Desensitizing Our Children,” Seattle Times,27 April
1999, B4.
Causal Arguments 253
254 Chapter 13
• Predictions of consequences. Another frequently encountered kind of causal
argument predicts the consequences of current, planned, or proposed actions
or events. Consequence arguments have high stakes because we often judge
actions on whether their benefits outweigh their costs. As we will see in
Chapter 15, proposal arguments usually require writers to predict the conse-
quences of a proposed action, conduct a cost/benefit analysis, and persuade
readers that no unforeseen negative consequences will result. Just as a phe-
nomenon can have multiple causes, it can also have multiple consequences.
Figure 13.3 shows the consequence arguments considered by environmen-
talists who propose eliminating several dams on the Snake River in order to
save salmon runs.
Toulmin Framework for a Causal Argument
Because causal arguments can involve lengthy or complex causal chains, they
are often harder to summarize in because clauses than are other kinds of argu-
ments. Likewise, they are not as likely to yield quick analysis through the Toulmin
schema. Nevertheless, a causal argument can usually be stated as a claim with
because clauses. Typically, a because clause pinpoints one or two key elements in
the causal chain rather than summarize every link. John Leo’s argument linking
the Columbine massacre to violent video games could be summarized in the fol-
lowing claim with a because clause:
Violent video games may have been a contributing cause to the Littleton mas-
sacre because playing these games can make random, sociopathic violence seem
pleasurable.
Figure 13.3 Predictions of consequences: Eliminating dams on the Snake River
Proposed Elimination of several dams on Snake River
Action above Lewiston, Idaho
Predicted Increased salmon
Consequences runs
Restoration of
ecosystem -increased
sense of natural balance
Increased opportunities for
recreational fishing; tourist
dollars brought to area
Loss of several thousand jobs
associated with operation of
the dams and with river
navigation system (made
possible by dams)
Loss of hydropower
generated by dams
Transference of shipping from
barges (low environmental
impact) to overland trucks
and trains (high
environmental impact)
Causal Arguments 255
Once stated as an enthymeme, the argument can be analyzed using Toulmin’ s
schema. It is easiest to apply Toulmin’s schema to causal arguments if you think
of the grounds as the observable phenomena at any point in the causal chain and
the warrants as the shareable assumptions about causality.
Toulmin Analysis of the Violent Video Games Argument
ENTHYMEME
CLAIM Violent video games may have been a –
shooting
REASON because playing these games can
make random, sociopathic violence seem
pleasurable.
GROUNDS
• Evidence that the killers, like many young
people, played violent video games
• Evidence that the games are violent
• Evidence that the games involve random,
sociopathic violence (not good guys versus bad
guys) such as killing ordinary people-marching
bands, little old ladies, etc.
• Evidence that young people derive pleasure
from these games
WARRANT
If young people derive pleasure from random,
sociopathic killing in video games, they can
transfer this pleasure to real life, thus leading
to the Columbine shooting.
BACKING
• Testimony from psychologists
• Evidence that violent video games desensitize
people to violence
• Analogy to military training in which video
games are used to umake killing a reflex action”
• Evidence that the distinction between fantasy
and reality becomes especially blurred for
unstable young people
Qualifiers
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking the reason and grounds
• Perhaps the killers didn’t play violent video
games.
• Perhaps the video games are no more
violent than traditional kids’ games such as
cops and robbers.
• Perhaps the video games do not feature
sociopathic killing.
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking the warrant and backing
• Perhaps kids are fully capable of
distinguishing fantasy from reality.
• Perhaps the games are just fun with no
transference to real life.
• Perhaps the games are substantially
different from military training games.
256 Chapter 13
For Writing and Discussion
Developing Causal Chains
Individual task:
1. Create a causal chain to show how the item on the left could lead to the item on the right.
a. Invention of the automobile Changes in sexual mores
b. Increased dependence on smartphones New cultural trend toward “bailing ” (abrupt
canceling of social engagements)
c. Growth of social media as a source of news The increasing polarization of politics in the
United States
d. Millennials’ desire for an urban lifestyle Redesign of cities
e. Development of way to prevent rejections in
transplant operations
Liberalization of euthanasia laws
2. For each of your causal chains, compose a claim w ith an attached because clause summarizing one
or two key links in the causal chain -for example, “Millennials’ desire for an urban lifestyle is spurring
the redesign of cities because Millennials’ car- and house-free habits are prompting developers to build
new high-density urban communities that offer easy access to work and pleasure.”
Group task:
Share you r causal claim and because clause links with the other members of your class.
Two Methods for Arguing That One
Event Causes Another
13.2 Explain how different causal mechanisms function
in cause/consequence arguments.
One of the first things you need to do when preparing a causal argument is to note
exactly what sort of causal relationship you are dealing with: a onetime phenom-
enon, a recurring phenomenon, or a puzzling trend. Here are some examples.
Kind of Phenomenon
Onet ime phenomenon
Recurring phenomenon
Puzzl ing trend
Examples
• Volvo’s 2017 decision to stop build ing gasoline-powered cars and
move ent irely to electric or hybrid vehicles
• The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States
• The 2017 coll ision of the USS Fitzgerald (a guided-missile destroyer)
with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel near Yokosuka , Japan
• Failure of teenagers to practice safe sex
• Homelessness
• Recidivism (tendency of former prisoners to ret urn to crime after
release from prison)
• Increase in the number of events cou nted as Olympic sports
• Increase in opioid addiction (prescribed pain ki ller) in rural America
• Declining populations of both bats and honeybees
With recurring phenomena or with trends, one has the luxury of being able
to study multiple cases, often over time. You can interview people, make repeated
observations, or study the conditions in which the puzzling phenomenon occurs.
But w ith a onetime occurrence, one’s approach is more like that of a detective
th an a scientist. Because one can’t repeat the event with different variables, one
must rely only on the immediate evidence at h and, which can quickly disappear.
Having briefly stated these words of caution, let’s turn now to two main ways
th at you can argue that one event causes another.
First Method: Explain the Causal
Mechanism Directly
The most convincing kind of causal argument identifies every link in the causal
ch ain, showing how an initiating cause leads step by step to an observed effect. A
causes B, which causes C, which causes D. In some cases, all you have to do is fi ll
in the missing links. In other cases when your assumptions about how one step
leads to th e next may seem questionable to your audience you have to argue for
th e causal connection with more vigor.
A careful sp elling out of each step in the causal ch ain is th e technique used
by science writer Rob ert S. Devine in the following passage from h is article “The
Trouble with Dams.” Although the benefits of dams are w idely understood (th ey
produce pollution-free electricity while provid ing flood control, irrigation, barge
transp ortation, and recreational boating), the negative effects are less commonly
known and understood. In this article, Devine tries to persuade readers that dams
have serious negative consequences. In th e following p assage, he explains how
dams reduce salmon flows by slowing the migration of smolts (newly hatched,
young salmon) to the sea.
Causal Argument Describing a Causal Ch ain
Such transformations lie at the heart of the ongoing environmental harm done by
dams. Rivers are rivers because they flow, and the nature of their flows defines
much of their character. When dams alter flows, they alter the essence of rivers.
Consider the erstwhile river behind Lower Granite (a dam on Idaho’s Snake
River). Although I was there in the springtime, when I looked at the water it
was moving too slowly to merit the word “flow” and Lower Granite Lake isn’t
even one of the region’s enormous storage reservoirs, which bring currents to a
virtual halt. In the past, spring snowmelt sent powerful currents down the Snake
during April and May. Nowad ays hydropower operators of the Columbia and
Snake systems store the runoff behind the dams and release it during the winter,
when demand and the price for electricity rises. Over the ages, however,
many populations of salmon have ad apted to the spring surge. The smolts used
the strong flows to migrate, d rifting downstream with the current. During the
journey smolts’ bodies undergo physiological changes that require them to reach
salt water quickly. Before dams backed up the Snake, smolts coming down from
Idaho got to the sea in six to twenty days; now it takes from sixty to ninety days,
and few of the young salmon reach salt water in time. The emasculated current
is the single largest reason that the number of wild adult salmon migrating up
the Snake each year has crashed from predevelopment runs of 100,000-200,000
to what was p rojected to be 150-750 this year.*
This tightly constructed passage connects various causal chains to explain the
decline of salmon runs.
*RobertS. Devine, “The Trouble with Dams,” Atlantic (August 1995), 64-75. The example
quotation is from page 70.
Causal Arguments 257
258 Chapter 13
Smelts use the river flow to reach the sea.
Dams restrict th e flow of the river.
A trip that took 6 to 20 days before development
now takes 60 to 90 d ays.
M igrating smelts undergo physiological chan ges that
demand quick access to salt water.
Lengthened migration time kills the smelts.
Describing each link in the causal chain and making each link seem as
plausible as possible is the most persuasive means of convincing readers that a
specific cause leads to a specific effect.
Second Method: Infer Causal Links Using
Inductive Reasoning
If we can’t explain a causal link directly, we often employ a reasoning strategy
called induction. Through induction we infer a general conclusion based on a
limited number of specific cases. For example, if on several occasions you got a
headache after drinking red wine but not after drinking white wine, you would be
likely to conclude inductively that red wine causes you to get headaches, although
you can’t explain directly how it does so. However, because there are almost
always numerous variables involved, inductive reasoning leads to only probable
truths, not certain truths.
THREE WAYS OF THINKING INDUCTIVELY When your brain thinks induc-
tively, it sorts through data looking for patterns of similarity and difference. In
this section we explain three ways of thinking inductively: looking for a common
element, looking for a single difference, and looking for correlations.
1. Look for a common element. One kind of inductive thinking sends you on a
search for a common element that can explain recurrences of the same phe-
nomenon. For example, psychologists attempting to understand the causes of
anorexia have discovered that many anorexics (but not all) come from perfec-
tionist, highly work-oriented homes that emphasize duty and responsibility.
This common element is thus a suspected causal factor leading to anorexia.
2. Look for a single difference. Another approach is to look for a single differ-
ence that may explain the appearance of a new phenomenon. When infant
death rates in the state of Washington shot up in July and August 1986, one
event making these two months different stood out: increased radioactive
fallout over Washington from the April Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in
Ukraine. This single difference led some researchers to suspect radiation as a
possible cause of the increase in infant deaths.
3. Look for correlations. Still another method of induction is correlation, which
means that two events or phenomena tend to occur together but doesn’t
imply that one causes the other. For example, there is a correlation between
nearsightedness and both intelligencesand academic achievement. (That is, in
a given sample of nearsighted people and people with normal eyesight, the
nearsighted group will have a somewhat higher average IQ score as well as
higher academic rankings.) But the direction of causality isn’t clear. It could
be that high intelligence causes people to read more, thus ruining their eyes
(high intelligence causes nearsightedness). Or it could be that nearsighted-
ness causes people to read more, thus raising their academic achievement
level and their IQ scores (nearsightedness causes high intelligence). Or it
could be that some unknown phenomenon, perhaps a gene, is related to
both nearsightedness and intelligence. So keep in mind that correlation is
not causation it simply suggests possible causation.
For Writing and Discussion
Developing Plausible Causal Chains Based on Correlations
Causal Arguments 259
Working individually or in small groups, develop plausible causal chains that may explain the relationship
between the following pairs of phenomena:
a. A person who registers a low stress level on
an electrochemical stress meter
b. A binge drinker at college parties
c. A person who grew up in a house w ith two or
more bathrooms
d. An area with an increased crime rate
e. A member of the National Rifle Association
does daily meditation
has increased risk of becoming a perpetrator or
victim of sexual violence
is likely to have higher SAT scores than a person
who grew up in a one-bathroom home
also has an increased homelessness rate
supports restrictions on immigration
Examining Visual Arguments
A Causal Claim
This billboard is part of a Texas campaign to fight sex trafficking. How do both the text and image in this bill-
board suggest links in a causal chain? Although this ad oversimplifies the complex issue of human trafficking,
and some would say it represents only one view of sex workers, how do the words and the choice of images
combine to make powerful appeals to both logos and pathos?
260 Chapter 13
Key Terms and Inductive Fallacies
in Causal Arguments
13.3 Understand key causal terms and avoid inductive fallacies
in causal arguments.
Because causal arguments are often easier to conduct if writer and reader share
a few specialized terms and concepts, this section explains key terms in causal
reasoning and offers ways to avoid inductive fallacies.
A Glossary of Key Terms
• The problem of oversimplified cause. One of the great temptations is to look
for the cause of something, as if a phenomenon has only one cause rather than
multiple causes. For example, in recent years the number of persons in the United
States sending out Christmas cards has declined substantially. Many commen-
tators attribute the decline to the increasing use of Facebook, which keeps old
friends in touch year-round, eliminating the need for holiday “family letters.” But
there may be other causes also, such as a decline in the number of nuclear fami-
lies, fewer networks of long-term friends, or generational shifts away from older
traditions. When you make a causal argument, be especially careful how you use
words such as all, most, some, the, or in part. For example, to say that all the decline
in Christmas cards is caused by Facebook is to make a universal statement about
Facebook as the cause. An argument will be stronger and more accurate if the
arguer makes a less sweeping statement: Some of the cause for the decline in
Christmas cards can be attributed to Facebook. Arguers sometimes deliberately
mix up these quantifiers to misrepresent and dismiss opposing views.
• Immediate and remote causes. Every causal chain extends backward indefi-
nitely into the past. An immediate cause is the closest in time to the event being
examined. Consider the causes for the release of nuclear contaminants around
the Fukushima nuclear power plant following the 2011 earthquake off the
coast of Japan. The immediate cause was loss of power to the water pumps
that cooled the reactor’s fuel rods, causing the rods to overheat and partially
melt. A slightly less immediate cause (several days earlier) was the earth-
quake-produced tsunami that had swept away the diesel fuel tanks needed to
run the backup generators. These immediate causes can be contrasted with a
remote cause in this case, a late-1960s design decision that used backup diesel
generators to power the water pumps in case of an electrical power loss to the
reactor facility. Still more remote causes were the economic and regulatory
systems in the late 1960s that led to this particular design.
• Precipitating and contributing causes. These terms are similar to immediate
and remote causes but don’t designate a temporal link going into the past.
Rather, they refer to a main cause emerging out of a background of subsidiary
causes. For example, if a husband and wife decide to separate, the precipitating
cause may be a stormy fight over money, after which one of the partners (or
both) says, “I’ve had enough.” In contrast, contributing causes would be all the
background factors that are dooming the marriage: preoccupation with their
careers, disagreement about priorities, in-law problems. Note that contribut-
ing causes and the precipitating cause all coexist at the same time.
• Constraints. Sometimes an effect occurs because some stabilizing factor a
constraint is removed. In other words, the presence of a constraint may keep
a certain effect from occurring. For example, in the marriage we have been
discussing, the presence of children in the home may be a constraint against
divorce. As soon as the children graduate from high school and leave home,
the marriage may well dissolve.
• Necessary and sufficient causes. A necessary cause is one that has to be present
for a given effect to occur. For example, fertility drugs are necessary to cause
the conception of septuplets. Every couple who has septuplets must have
used fertility drugs. In contrast, a sufficient cause is one that always produces
or guarantees a given effect. Smoking more than a pack of cigarettes per day is
sufficient to raise the cost of one’s life insurance policy. This statement means
that if you are a smoker, no matter how healthy you appear to be, life insur-
ance companies will always place you in a higher risk bracket and charge you
a higher premium. In some cases, a single cause can be both necessary and
sufficient. For example, lack of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is both a necessary
and a sufficient cause of scurvy. (Think of those old-time sailors who didn’t
eat fruit for months.) It is a necessary cause because you can’t get scurvy any
other way except through absence of ascorbic acid; it is a sufficient cause
because the absence of ascorbic acid always causes scurvy.
Avoiding Com_m_on Inductive Fallacies
That Can Lead to Wrong Conclusions
Largely because of its power, informal induction can often lead to wrong conclu-
sions. You should be aware of two common fallacies of inductive reasoning that
can tempt you into erroneous assumptions about causality. (Both fallacies are
treated more fully in the Appendix.)
• Post hoc fallacy: The post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy (“after this, therefore
because of this”) mistakes sequence for cause. Just because event A regularly
precedes event B doesn’t mean that event A causes event B. The same rea-
soning that tells us that flipping a switch causes the light to go on can make
us believe that low levels of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster caused a sudden rise in infant death rates in the state of Washington.
The nuclear disaster clearly preceded the rise in death rates. But did it clearly
cause it? Our point is that precedence alone is not proof of causality and that
we are guilty of the post hoc fallacy whenever we are swayed to believe that
one thing causes another just because it comes first.
• Hasty generalization: The hasty generalization fallacy occurs when you make
a generalization based on too few cases or too little consideration of alter-
native explanations: You flip the switch, but the light bulb doesn’t go on.
You conclude too hastily that the light bulb has burned out. (Perhaps the
power has gone off or the switch is broken.) How many trials does it take
before you can make a justified generalization rather than a hasty generaliza-
tion? It is difficult to say for sure.
Both the post hoc fallacy and the hasty generalization fallacy remind us that
induction requires a leap from individual cases to a general principle and that it
is always possible to leap too soon.
Causal Arguments 261
262 Chapter 13
For Writing and Discussion
Brainstorming Causes and Constraints
The terms in the preced ing g lossary can be effective brainstorming tools for thinking of possible causes
of an event. For the following events, try to think of as many causes as possible by brainstorm ing possible
immediate causes, remote causes, precipitating causes, contributing causes, and constraints.
1. Working individual ly, make a list of different kinds of causes/constraints for one of the following:
a. Your decision to attend your present college
b. An important event in your life or your family (a job change, a major move, etc.)
c. A personal opin ion you hold that is not w idely shared
2. Working as a group, make a list of d ifferent kinds of causes/constraints for one of the follow ing:
a. Why women’s fash ion and beauty magazines are the most frequently purchased magazines in
college bookstores
b. Why U.S. students consistently score below Asian and European students in academic achievement
c. Why large supermarket chains are selling more organic food
riting Assignment: A Causal
Argument
13.4 Write your own cause or consequence argument.
Choose an issue about the causes or consequences of a trend, event, or other phe-
nomenon. Write an argument that persuades an audience to accept your expla-
nation of the causes or consequences of your chosen phenomenon. Within your
essay you should examine alternative hypotheses or opposing views and explain
your reasons for rejecting them. You can imagine your issue either as a puzzle or
as a disagreement. If a puzzle, your task will be to create a convincing case for an
audience that doesn’t have an answer to your causal question already in mind. If
a disagreement, your task will be more overtly persuasive because your goal will
be to change your audience’s views.
Exploring Ideas
Arguments about causes and consequences abound in public, professional, and
personal life, so you shouldn’t have difficulty finding a causal issue worth inves-
tigating and arguing.
Responding to his experiences as a junior-high math tutor, student writer
Jesse Goncalves investigated the causes of math anxiety. He argued that math
anxiety is primarily a learned behavior passed onto children from math-anxious
parents and instructors (see the Readings at the end of this chapter). Student
writer Carlos Macias, puzzled by the ease with which college students are issued
credit cards, wrote a researched argument disentangling the factors leading young
people to bury themselves in debt (see the Readings at the end of this chapter).
Other students have focused on causal issues such as these: Why do kids join
gangs? What are the consequences of mandatory drug testing (written by a stu-
dent who has to take amphetamines for narcolepsy)? Why has the age of first
marriage steadily increased since 1970?
If you have trouble finding a causal issue to write about, you can often create
provocative controversies among your classmates through the following strategies:
• Make a list of unusual likes and dislikes. Think about unusual things that
people like or dislike. You could summarize the conventional explanations
that people give for an unusual pleasure or aversion and then argue for a
surprising or unexpected cause. What attracts people to extreme sports? How
do you explain the popularity of the paleo diet or of Game of Thrones or The
Walking Dead?
• Make a list of puzzling events or trends. Another strategy is to make a list of
puzzling phenomena and then try to explain their causes. Start with onetime
events (a curriculum change at your school, the sudden popularity of a new
app ). Then list puzzling recurring events (failure of intelligent teenagers to
practice safe sex). Finally, list some recent trends (growth of naturopathic
medicine, increased interest in tattoos and piercing). Engage classmates in
discussions of one or more of the items on your list. Look for places of dis-
agreement as entry points into the conversation.
• Explore contested or puzzling causes or consequences from your experi-
ence. What causal issues or surprising consequences emerge from your par-
ticipation in a group, club, sports team, internship, or job? Based on your
experience, does having an internship during the academic year lead to a
higher GPA or a lower GPA (or neither)? Based on your interviews with per-
sons who have worked in assisted-living businesses, does animal therapy
decrease depression in elderly residents? Based on your own experiences,
what causes and consequences that others in this community might care
about have you been inspired to explore?
• Brainstorm consequences of a recent or proposed action. Arguments about
consequences are among the most interesting and important of causal disputes.
If you can argue for an unanticipated consequence of a real or proposed action,
whether good or bad, you can contribute importantly to the conversation. What
might be the consequences, for example, of placing “green taxes” on coal-
produced electricity; of legalizing marijuana; of overturning Roe v. Wade (which
legalized abortion); or of requiring national public service for all young adults?
Identifying Your Audience and Determining
What’s at Stake
Before drafting your argument, identify your targeted audience and determine
what’s at stake. Consider your responses to the following questions:
• What audience are you targeting? What background do they need to under-
stand your issue? How much do they already care about it?
• Before they read your argument, what stance on your issue do you imagine
them holding? What change do you want to bring about in their views?
• What will they find new or surprising about your argument?
• What objections might they raise? What counterarguments or alternative
points of view will you need to address?
• Why does your argument matter? Who might be threatened or made uncom-
fortable by your views? What is at stake?
Causal Arguments 263
264 Chapter 13
Organizing a Causal Argument
At the outset, it is useful to know some of the standard ways that a causal argument
can be organized. Later, you may decide on a different organizational pattern, but
the standard ways shown in Figures 13.4, 13.5, and 13.6 will help you get started.
Figure 13.4 Argument explaining links in a causal chain
Introduce the issue and state
your claim.
Explain the links in the chain
going from cause to effect.
Conclude.
• Engage reader’s interest in your causal issue and
show why it is controversial or problematic.
• Show what’s at stake.
• State your claim.
• Explain the links and their connections in order.
• Anticipate and respond to possible objections if
needed.
• Perhaps sum up your argument.
• Return to the .ubig picture” of what’s at stake.
• End with something memorable.
Figure 13.5 Argument proposing multiple causes or consequences
of a phenomenon
Introduce the issue and state
your claim.
Propose relative contributions of
different causes of a phenomenon
or relative importance of different
consequences.
Respond to possible objections to
your argument (if needed).
Conclude.
• Engage reader’s interest in your causal issue and
show why it is problematic or controversial.
• Show what’s at stake.
• State your claim.
• Describe the first possible cause or consequence
and explain your reasoning.
• Continue with the rest of your causes or
consequences.
• Arrange causes or consequences in increasing
order of importance, significance, or surprise.
• Anticipate and summarize possible objections.
• Respond through rebuttal or concession.
• Perhaps sum up your argument.
• Return to the .ubig picture” of what’s at stake.
• End with something memorable.
Figure 13.6 Argument proposing a surprising cause or consequence
Introduce the issue and state
your claim.
• Engage reader’s interest in your causal issue and
show why it is problematic or controversial.
• Show what’s at stake.
• State your claim.
• Describe the first commonly assumed cause or
consequence and show why you don’t think the
explanation is adequate.
Causal Arguments 265
Reject commonly assumed
causes or consequences.
• Continue with the rest of your commonly assumed
causes or consequences.
Argue for your surprising cause or
consequence.
Conclude.
• Describe your surprising cause or consequence.
• Explain your causal reasoning.
• Anticipate and respond to possible objections if
needed.
• Perhaps sum up your argument.
• Return to the #big picture” of what’s at stake.
• End with something memorable.
Figures 13.5 and 13.6 are similar in that they examine numerous possible
causes or consequences. Figure 13.5, however, tries to establish the relative impor-
tance of each cause or consequence, whereas Figure 13.6 aims at rejecting the
causes or consequences normally assumed by the audience and argues for an
unexpected, surprising cause or consequence. Figure 13.6 can also be used when
your purpose is to change your audience’s mind about a cause or consequence.
Questioning and Critiquing a Causal Argument
Knowing how to question and critique a causal argument will help you antici-
pate opposing views in order to strengthen your own. It will also help you rebut
another person’s causal argument. Here are some useful questions to ask:
• When you explain the links in a causal chain, can a skeptic point out weak-
nesses in any of the links?
• If you speculate about the causes of a phenomenon, could a skeptic argue for
different causes or arrange your causes in a different order of importance?
• If you argue for a surprising cause or a surprising consequence of a phenom-
enon, could a skeptic point out alternative explanations that would undercut
your argument?
• If your argument depends on inferences from data, could a skeptic question
the way the data were gathered or interpreted? Could a skeptic claim that
266 Chapter 13
the data aren’t relevant (for example, research done with lab animals might
not apply to humans)?
• If your causal argument depends on a correlation between one phenomenon
and another, could a skeptic argue that the direction of causality should be
reversed or that an unidentified, third phenomenon is the real cause?
Readings
Our first reading, by student writer Jesse Goncalves, was written in response to
the assignment in this chapter. He became interested in the causes of math anxiety
when he worked as a math tutor in a junior high school. Jesse’s argument illus-
trates the format and documentation system for a paper following the guidelines
of the American Psychological Association (APA). For further discussion of the
APA documentation system, see Chapter 18.
Running head: WHAT CAUSES MATH ANXIETY?
What Causes Math Anxiety?
Jess Goncalves
October 18, 2018
Causal Arguments 267
1
268 Chapter 13
WHAT CAUSES MATH ANXIETY? 2
What Causes Math Anxiety?
Why are so many people afraid of math? As an applied mathe-
matics major, I did not realize the extent to which math can become
inaccessible to those who fear it until I began working in a middle-
school math classroom. Math anxiety is defined as “feelings of fear,
apprehension, or dread that many people experience when they
are in situations that require solving math problems” (Casad, Hale,
& Wachs, 2015). After I learned about math anxiety, I quickly came
to recognize the anxiety in many of my students, several of my col-
lege peers, and occasionally myself. Indeed, nearly half of all chil-
dren in the United States develop moderate to severe math anxiety,
a condition that often remains with them for the rest of their lives
(Boaler, 2016). A great deal of research has been conducted on the
causes of math anxiety over the past 50 years, and a wide variety
of factors have been implicated. Contrary to the prevailing view
that math anxiety is directly caused by a combination of genetics,
institutional policies, and cultural forces, I argue that math anxiety
may be best understood as a learned behavior that is passed on to
children from math-anxious parents and teachers, leading to an
intergenerational cycle of math anxiety.
Harkening back to the age-old question of nature versus nur-
ture, many scholars have proposed and researched a connection
between genetics and math anxiety, and some studies indicate that
nature is indeed a strong predictor of a child’s level of anxiety. A
team of psychology researchers headed by Dr. Zhe Wang found
that “[g]enetic factors accounted for roughly 40°/o of the variation
in mathematical anxiety” when they studied 514 pairs of 12-year-
old twins (2014). Dr. Wang and her co-authors argue that many of
the same genetic factors that make people more likely to develop
other anxieties also put them at a higher risk of developing rna th
anxiety. They also note that biological factors such as dyscalculia,
better known as mathematical dyslexia, are linked to poor math
performance (Wang et al., 2014). Citing studies that implicate poor
performance as both a cause and consequence of math anxiety,
Dr. Wang contends that being genetically predisposed to struggle
in math constitutes a predisposition towards math anxiety. Despite
these findings, Dr. Wang does not side strongly with nature in the
debate; her team discovered that “environmental factors indepen-
dent of both general anxiety and math problem solving accounted
for … 53°/o of the total variance” in math anxiety (2014). What,
Causal Arguments 269
WHAT CAUSES MATH ANXIETY?
then, are the factors that assume 53°/o responsibility for the epi-
demic of math anxiety?
Education policy is one environmental influence often cited
3
as a cause of math anxiety. For example, Dr. Jo Boaler, a professor
of mathematics education at Stanford University, condemns the
frequency of timed testing as a major cause of math anxiety. She
argues that “timed testing … transforms children’s brains, lead-
ing to an inevitable path of math anxiety and low math achieve-
ment” (2016). Timed testing is a policy problem due to mandated
standardized testing. Moreover, as Dr. Boaler says, “some of the
wording in the Common Core State Standards may point to an
increased use of timed tests” (2016). Therefore, according to Dr.
Boaler, education policy contributes substantially to the epidemic
of math anxiety. Beyond policy, many cultural influences have also
been accused of inducing rna th anxiety.
Perhaps the most often blamed and highly researched cultural
cause of math anxiety is the unfounded stereotype that males are
better at math than females. As Dr. Bettina Casad, a professor of
psychology at University of Missouri-St. Louis, and her collabora-
tors assert, “[C]ultural biases about the superiority of boys and
men in math permeate our social consciousness” (2015). In a study
of the interplay between these biases and math anxiety, Casad
found that the “endorsement of math-gender stereotypes may be
an antecedent for developing math anxiety for both boys and girls”
(2015). Therefore, males and females alike who believe in men’s
mathematical superiority are at greater risk of developing math
anxiety. Because “girls and women are more negatively impacted
by cultural biases,” a higher number of females suffer from math
anxiety (Casad, Hale, & Wachs, 2015). However, the degree to
which children are exposed to and influenced by math-gender ste-
reotypes is primarily predicated on their parents and teachers.
While genetics, policy, and culture are all contributing causes
of math anxiety, I argue that they do not contribute as significantly
or directly as math-anxious parents and teachers. The instructors
that shape children’s relationships to math are foremost among
the “environmental factors” responsible for math anxiety (Wang et
al., 2014). Teachers also play a major role in determining the influ-
ence of education policies on children, as they are charged with the
implementation of policy in their classrooms. Similarly, the extent
to which math-gender stereotypes impact children depends in
large part on their parents’ and teachers’ endorsement or rejection
270 Chapter 13
WHAT CAUSES MATH ANXIETY? 4
of those stereotypes. Thus, parents and teachers are the most
immediate and significant causes of math anxiety, as they are the
primary vehicles through which policy and culture exert influence.
When they frequently help with homework, math-anxious
parents can instill math anxiety in their children by modeling
negative attitudes towards math and promoting math-gender
stereotypes. Parental homework help is normally correlated with
improvement in students’ performance; however, a team led by
psychology researcher Dr. Erin Maloney found that when par-
ents with math anxiety frequently helped with homework, their
children’s performance and level of math anxiety were negatively
affected (2015). The correlation between parents’ and children’s
math anxiety was present only when parents helped with horne-
work, another indication that the anxiety is transmitted primarily
through socialization rather than genetics. Maloney argues that
math-anxious parents can cause their children to develop math
anxiety because they “tend to believe that math is not useful and
have low math self-efficacy and low motivation to succeed in
math,” so communicating their beliefs is “dernotivating” to their
children (2015). She also suggests that parents who are themselves
afraid of failure in math “may be more likely to express negativ-
ity when their child is struggling, which in turn could cause their
children to also learn to fear failing in mathematics and to avoid
engaging in challenging situations” (Maloney et al., 2015). A
separate study headed by Dr. Bettina Casad and colleagues sup-
ported Maloney’s discovery that math-anxious parents often instill
math anxiety in their children. Their results showed that “parents’
anxiety plays a role in children’s math anxiety, and the variables
interact to predict several math education outcomes including
math self-efficacy, math GPA, math behavioral intentions, math
attitudes, and math devaluing” (2015). Casad also noted that math-
anxious mothers are particularly prone to share their anxiety with
their daughters, which she postulated is a result of these mothers
endorsing math-gender stereotypes. Accordingly, Dr. Elizabeth
Gunderson, a professor of psychology at Temple University, and
her collaborators found that “parents’ gender stereotypes bias their
beliefs about their own child’s math ability, and these beliefs affect
children’s own self-perceptions about math” (2012). So, while the
endorsement of math-gender stereotypes can cause females and
males alike to develop math anxiety, children generally learn to
believe these stereotypes from math-anxious parents who have
Causal Arguments 271
WHAT CAUSES MATH ANXIETY? 5
themselves internalized the beliefs. In this way, through negative
attitudes and biases, math anxiety is passed from one generation
of parents to the next in a never-ending cycle. Unfortunately, chil-
dren who do not receive homework help or who internalize stereo-
types from a math-anxious parent, are still at risk of learning math
anxiety from a teacher who suffers from the condition.
Perhaps even more influential than parents in the perpetu-
ation of math anxiety are the many math-anxious elementary
school teachers. An estimated 60°/o of elementary school teachers
report having moderate to high levels of math anxiety (Bekdernir,
2010), which has been shown to affect instructional practices and
classroom dynamics to the point where students perform worse
and are at an increased risk of developing math anxiety them-
selves. Dr. Mehrnet Bekdernir, an education researcher, speculates
that math-anxious teachers gravitate towards elementary school
to avoid teaching middle- or high-school math, however points
out that elementary school is the time when children are most
prone to developing math anxiety (2010). Dr. Kristin Hadley and
Dr. Jim Dorward, both professors of teacher education, found
that “teachers who were anxious about teaching mathematics
tended to teach in a more traditional manner” (2011), meaning
they adopted a conventional, by-the-book pedagogical style and
declined to try more innovative strategies. This suggests that math-
anxious teachers may be more likely to follow policies that increase
students’ math anxiety by encouraging traditional practices like
frequent timed testing. They also may reject innovative new poli-
cies meant to reduce students’ anxiety, such as accommodating
different learning styles. As a result, the effect of education policy
on children’s math anxiety is mediated by teachers’ levels of math
anxiety. Teachers with math anxiety are also more likely to endorse
and perpetuate math-gender stereotypes, and for their students,
this translates directly to increased math anxiety (Casad, Hale, &
Wachs, 2015). For instance, Dr. Elizabeth Gunderson found that
in classrooms where teachers had high math anxiety, girls often
carne to endorse the stereotype that boys are better at math (2012).
Therefore, through their instructional practices and biases, teachers
with math anxiety put their students, some of whom will become
the next generation of teachers, at an increased risk of developing
math anxiety themselves. Luckily, individual parents and teachers
can work to overcome math anxiety and thereby begin to break
the cycle.
272 Chapter 13
WHAT CAUSES MATH ANXIETY? 6
Because cultural forces and policy decisions work primarily
through math-anxious parents and teachers to cause math anxiety
in children, with genetics playing a subordinate role, addressing
math anxiety in adults could greatly reduce the rate of math anxi-
ety in future generations. Policy changes and cultural shifts are
necessary to end the epidemic, but those transitions need to begin
at the kitchen table and in front of the classroom, where parents
and teachers must confront their own anxieties and math gender
biases. I will certainly apply the lessons of this research to improve
my own practice as a mentor, and perhaps one day as a teacher, to
ensure that I do not perpetuate the cycle of math anxiety.
References
Bekdemir, M. (2010). The pre-service teachers’ mathematics anxi-
ety related to depth of negative experiences in mathematics
classroom while they were students. Educational Studies in Math-
ematics, 75(3), 311-328.
Boaler, J. (2016). Timed tests and the development of math anxiety.
Education Week. Retrieved from http:/ /www.edweek.org/ew I
articles I 2012 I 07 I 03 I 36boaler.h31.html
Casad, B., Hale, P., & Wachs, F. (2015). Parent-child math anxiety
and math-gender stereotypes predict adolescents’ math educa-
tion outcomes. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1597.
Gunderson, E. A., Ramirez, G., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. (2012).
The role of parents and teachers in the development of gender-
related math attitudes. Sex Roles, 66, 153-166.
Hadley, K., & Dorward, J. (2011). The relationship among elemen-
tary teachers’ mathematics anxiety, mathematics instructional
practices, and student mathematics achievement. Journal of
Curriculum and Instruction, 5(2), 27-44.
Maloney, E., Ramirez, G., Gunderson, E., Levine, S., & Beilock,
S. (2015). Intergenerational effects of parents’ math anxiety on
children’s math achievement and anxiety. Psychological Sci-
ence, 26(9), 1480-1488.
Wang, Z., Hart, S. A., Kovas, Y., Lukowski, S., Soden, B., Thomp-
son, L.A., … & Petrill, S. A. (2014). Who is afraid of math? Two
sources of genetic variance for mathematical anxiety. Journal of
Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 55, 1056-1064.
Critiquing “What Causes Math Anxiety?”
1. In his research paper, Jesse’s strategy is to present an unexpected cause of math
anxiety. What unexpected cause or causes does Jesse argue for in this paper?
2. Which common explanations of math anxiety does Jesse summarize and
explain? How effectively does Jesse use research evidence to persuade you
that these causes contribute to math anxiety but aren’t as important as Jesse’s
primary causes?
3. How effectively does Jesse support his claim that math anxious students are
more likely to learn math anxiety from a math-anxious parent than to inherit
math anxiety through the genes? What does he use as evidence? Are you
persuaded by this evidence?
4. For Jesse, the most important cause of math anxiety is math-anxious elemen-
tary teachers. What causal chain does he propose? That is, what is it that math-
anxious teachers say or do that passes on math anxiety to their students? How
does Jesse use research evidence to make his case? Are you persuaded?
5. How would you characterize Jesse’s use of logos ethos, and pathos in this essay?
Our second reading is from a blog by professional freelance writer and nov-
elist Kris Saknussemm. It explores the surprising phenomenon that people have
trouble recognizing themselves in moving pictures of themselves (videos), which
should serve as mirrors. There seems to be no clear causal explanation for this
counterintuitive observation that technological advancement might lead to a
decline in self-recognition.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Are We Really
Here at All? Can We Tell?
KRIS SAKNUSSEMM
Does greater technological sophistication bring us closer to self-awareness or
does it distance us further? How odd, if increased intelligence in one sphere
means a kind of basic blindness in another.
The mirror test was developed in 1970 by psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. The
goal of the test was to measure animals’ capacity for self-recognition by marking
animals with unscented dyes. Can an animal, watching itself move in the mirror,
correlate the “marked” image in the mirror to the physical marking on its body?
To date, these animals have passed the mirror test: orca whales, bottlenose dol-
phins, Asian elephants, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and Eurasian mag-
pies. Humans, of course, can pass the mirror test, right? Well, here’s the irony.
With all our advances regarding image production and our exposure to visual
information, our mental processing of images of ourselves seems to have led to
disconnection and distance. Our perception seems to have failed to keep up or
may have even stepped backward.
Take this example, which fascinated me. The groom was in his 50s, the bride
in her 40s. The reception venue was an ordinary family home. I found the ram-
bunctious grandchildren and the older folks swapping stories in the WD-40
garage a refreshing change to the high-priced, high-fashion wedding events
I’d recently attended. The working-class house hummed with festivity … and
Causal Arguments 273
27 4 Chapter 13
then … the brother of the bride, who’d been videoing the activities, p lugged his
camera into the living-room TV.
Then the children stopped playing and gathered around. Within three
minutes, all the Nerfball hustle and bustle had ceased and everyone was engaged
w ith the images on the screen. You may say that the people in attendance were in
some way “hypnotized” by images of themselves. This is the Era of the Selfie, after
all. You might imagine the people laughing at each other, or in some egotistical/
self-esteem competition, checking out how much camera time they received rela-
tive to others. But what if something much more peculiar happened?
s What I directly observed was people having trouble identifying themselves
in the video. There was what the novelist Franz Kafka called a “strange uncer-
tainty.” I experienced this myself, despite the fact I was wearing a distinctive shirt.
It got me doing research about technology, the human brain, and the culturally
constructed sense of self.
In 1971, a Harvard University team of psychologists investigated auditory
stimulation and response. The recording industry was at peak production. Radio
had survived the onslaught of TV and remained the overall most pervasive form
of information and entertainment delivery. Terms such as “noise pollution” were
gaining currency. As a #1 song of the day said, “The air was full of sound.”
Despite the level of auditory stimulation, test subjects demonstrated impres-
sive capacity for subtle perceptions and distinctions. It appeared that the “more
noise, the greater the ability to distinguish signal.” We were getting smarter about
sound. Good news. The famous “cocktail party effect” first identified by Colin
Cherry in 1953 (whereby people have the selective-attention capability of hearing
their name spoken in a crowded room) was in full evidence in Harvard’s study. But
by radical and paradoxical contrast, test subjects showed a remarkable confusion
when listening to recordings of their own voices. It wasn’t just that they didn’t like
the sound of their voices. They had perceptual trouble actually recognizing them.
Now, the deeper, related problem of visual recognition is supported by other
studies. One of the largest treatment facilities in the United States, specializing
in substance-abuse problems, introduced video into its rehabilitation program.
The idea was to let people with alcohol issues openly indulge in drinking and
then to videotape them. According to the program director, “We were working
on the premise that when people were presented with hard evidence of how
alcohol affected their behavior, they might reevaluate on a very personal level.”
The treatment center anticipated some shamed resistance. Instead, a significant
percentage of participating patients did not express the expected degree of denial
regarding their behavior their issue was if it was really them in the video at all.
This phenomenon of “nonrecognition” or severely delayed acceptance of recogni-
tion has been further demonstrated by one of America’s most prominent security
companies. When presented with CCTV images of themselves, people literally
do not see themselves at first, not pushing their loaded carts toward the checkout
stand nor talking with a friend by an apartment elevator. No cause for denial in
these cases just lack of connection in a very fundamental way.
Perhaps we just want to see a different self? But there’s something more at
work than privately curated, idealized notions of ourselves, as younger or thinner.
10 Actually, as technology has introduced greater degrees of stimulation/
information into our perceptual lives, humans may have become more adept
at processing detail and sorting through information with the important
exception of depictions of ourselves. In blunt terms, the more “mirrors,” the less
self-recognition. If more exposure leads us to less effective and accurate cognitive
processing, do we need to rethink the interaction between apparent technological
advance and actual human perception? If the more we see of ourselves the less
we immediately recognize, there’s a problem maybe many.
Critiquing “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Are We Really Here at All?
Can We Tell?”
1. Saknussemm points out a surprising consequence of our technological
advances. The more we become sophisticated in producing and observing
moving images of ourselves, the less we recognize ourselves in the videos.
Have you ever had the experience of not quite recognizing yourself in a
video? (“Hey, that doesn’t look like me or sound like me.”) How relevant
and effective are the examples Saknussemm cites of this causal phenomenon?
2. How does does Saknussemm explain the cause of this phenomenon? What
causal explanations does he consider but discount? What explanations do
you propose?
3. Written as a blog, this piece has a speculative informal style that often includes
abrupt and surprising transitions. How effective is this piece at arousing your
own curiosity about our failure to recognize ourselves in videos? How would
the piece be different if it were written in the genre of an academic research
paper?
Our final reading has been chosen for its historical interest. Written by student
Carlos Macias in 2008, it first appeared in the 8th edition of Writing Arguments. It
examines the phenomenon of credit card debt among college students, showing
how the lack of federal regulation on credit card companies led to exploitive prac-
tices that often mired students in unexpected debt. In 2009, Congress approved
the Credit Card Act (signed into law by President Obama), which made many
of these exploitive practices illegal. Students younger than 21 must now have a
co-signer to receive a credit card a requirement that has led to more extensive
use of debit cards and a significant reduction in student credit card debt. Carlos’s
argument shows what it was like for college students before federal regulations
reduced the aggressive practices of credit card companies.
Student Essay
“The Credit Card Company Made Me Do It!” The Credit Card
Industry’s Role in Causing Student Debt
Carlos Macias
One day on spring break this year, I strolled into a Gap store. I found
several items that I decided to buy. As I was checking out, the cute female
clerk around my age, with perfect hair and makeup, asked if I wanted to
open a GapCard to save 10 percent on all purchases I made at Gap, Banana
(continued)
Causal Arguments 275
276 Chapter 13
Republic, and Old Navy that day. She said I would also earn points toward
Gap gift certificates in the future. Since I shop at the Gap often enough, I
decided to take her up on her offer. I filled out the form she handed me,
and within seconds I a jobless, indebted-from-student-loans, full-time
college student with no substantial assets or income whatsoever was
offered a card with a $1000 credit line. Surprised by the speed at which I
was approved and the amount that I was approved for, I decided to proceed
to both Banana Republic and Old Navy that day to see if there was anything
else I might be interested in getting (there was). By the end of the day, I had
rung up nearly $200 in purchases.
I know my $200 shopping spree on credit is nothing compared to some
of the horror stories I have heard from friends. One of my friends, a college
sophomore, is carrying $2000 on a couple of different cards, a situation
that is not unusual at all. The problem is that most students don’t have the
income to pay off their balances, so they become hooked into paying high
interest rates and fees that enrich banks while exploiting students who have
not yet learned how to exercise control on their spending habits.
Who is to blame for this situation? Many people might blame the stu-
dents themselves, citing the importance of individual responsibility and
proclaiming that no one forces students to use credit cards. But I put most of
the blame directly on the credit card companies. Credit cards are enormously
profitable; according to a New York Times article, the industry made $30 bil-
lion in pretax profits in 2003 alone (McGeehan). Hooking college students
on credit cards is essential for this profit, not only because companies make
a lot of money off the students themselves, but because hooking students on
cards creates a habit that lasts a lifetime. Credit card companies’ predatory
lending practices such as using exploitive advertising, using credit scoring
to determine creditworthiness, disguising the real cost of credit, and taking
advantage of U.S. government deregulation are causing many unwitting
college students to accumulate high levels of credit card debt.
First of all, credit card companies bombard students with highly sophis-
ticated advertising. College students, typically, are in an odd “in-between”
stage where they are not necessarily teens anymore, provided for by their
parents, but neither are they fully adults, able to provide entirely for them-
selves. Many students feel the pressures from family, peers, and themselves
to assume adult roles in terms of their dress and jobs, not relying on Mom or
Dad for help. Card companies know about these pressures. Moreover, col-
lege students are easy to target because they are concentrated on campuses
and generally consume the same media. I probably get several mailings a
month offering me a preapproved credit card. These advertisements are
filled with happy campus scenes featuring students wearing just the right
clothes, carrying their books in just the right backpack, playing music on
their iPods, or opening their laptop computers. They also appeal to stu-
dents’ desire to feel like responsible adults by emphasizing little emergen-
cies that college students can relate to, such as car breakdowns on a road
trip. These advertisements illustrate a point made by a team of researchers
in an article entitled “Credit Cards as Lifestyle Facilitators”: The authors
explain how credit card companies want consumers to view credit cards
as “lifestyle facilitators” that enable “lifestyle building” and “lifestyle
signaling” (Bernthal et al.). Credit cards make it easy for students to live
the lifestyle pictured in the credit card ads.
Causal Arguments 277
Another contributing cause of high credit card debt for college students s
is the method that credit card companies use to grant credit through credit
scoring that does not consider income. It was credit scoring that allowed
me to get that quadruple-digit credit line at The Gap while already living
in the red. The application I filled out never asked my income. Instead, the
personal information I listed was used to pull up my credit score, which is
based on records of outstanding debts and payment history. Credit scoring
allows banks to grant credit cards based on a person’s record of responsibil-
ity in paying bills rather than on income. According to finance guru Suze
Orman, “Your FICO [credit] score is a great tool to size up how good you
will be handling a new loan or credit card” (21). Admittedly, credit scoring
has made the lending process as a whole much fairer, giving individuals
such as minorities and women the chance to qualify for credit even if they
have minimal incomes. But when credit card companies use credit scoring
to determine college students’ creditworthiness, many students are unpre-
pared to handle a credit line that greatly exceeds their ability to pay based
on income. In fact, the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advo-
cacy organization in North Carolina, lobbied Congress in September 2003
to require credit card companies to secure proof of adequate income for
college-age customers before approving credit card applications (“Credit
& Prepaid Cards”). If Congress passed such legislation, credit card compa-
nies would not be able to as easily take advantage of college students who
have not yet learned how to exercise control on their spending habits. They
would have to offer students credit lines commensurate with their incomes.
No wonder these companies vehemently opposed this legislation.
Yet another contributing cause of high levels of credit card debt is the
high cost of having this debt, which credit card companies are especially tal-
ented at disguising. As credit card debt increases, card companies compound
unpaid interest, adding it to the balance that must be repaid. If this balance is
not repaid, they charge interest on unpaid interest. They add exorbitant fees
for small slip-ups like making a late payment or exceeding the credit limit.
While these costs are listed on statements when first added to the balance,
they quickly vanish into the “New Balance” number on all subsequent state-
ments, as if these fees were simply past purchases that have yet to be repaid.
As the balance continues to grow, banks spike interest rates even higher. In
his 2004 article “Soaring Interest Compounds Credit Card Pain for Millions,”
Patrick McGeehan describes a “new era of consumer credit, in which thou-
sands of Americans are paying millions of dollars each month in fees that
they did not expect … lenders are doubling or tripling interest rates with
little warning or explanation.” These rate hikes are usually tucked into the
pages of fine print that come with credit cards, which many consumers are
unable to fully read, let alone understand. Usually, a credit card company
will offer a very low “teaser rate” that expires after several months. While
this industry practice is commonly understood by consumers, many do not
understand that credit card companies usually reserve the right to raise the
rate at any time for almost any reason, causing debt levels to rise further.
(continued)
278 Chapter 13
Admittedly, while individual consumers must be held accountable for
any debt they accumulate and should understand compound and variable
interest and fees, students’ ignorance is welcomed by the credit card indus-
try. To completely explain how the credit card industry has caused college
students to amass high amounts of credit card debt, it is first necessary to
explain how this vicious monster was let loose during banking deregulation
over the past 30 years. In 1978, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates by
ruling that the federal government could not set a cap on interest rates that
banks charged for credit cards; that decision was to be left to the states. With
Uncle Sam no longer protecting consumers, Delaware and South Dakota
passed laws that removed caps on interest rates, in order to woo credit card
comp anies to conduct nationwide business there (McGeehan). Since then,
the credit card industry has become one of the most profitable industries
ever. Credit card companies were given another sweet deal from the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1996, when the Court deregulated fees. Since then, the
average late fee has risen from $10 or less, to $39 (McGeehan). While a lot of
fees and finance charges are avoidable if the student pays the balance in full,
on time, every month, for college students who carry balances for whatever
reason, these charges are tacked on, further adding to the principal on which
they pay a high rate of compounded interest. Moreover, the U.S. govern-
ment has refused to step in to regulate the practice of universal default,
where a credit card company can raise the rate it charges if a consumer is late
on an unrelated bill, like a utility payment. Even for someone who pays his
or her bills in full, on time, 99 p ercent of the time, one bill-paying slip-up can
cause an avalanche of fees and frustration, thanks to the credit card industry.
Credit card companies exploit college students’ lack of financial savvy
and security. It is no secret that most full-time college students are not inde-
pendently wealthy; many have limited means. So why are these companies so
willing to issue cards to poor college students? Profits, of course! If they made
credit cards less available to struggling consumers such as college students,
consumers would have a more difficult time racking up huge balances, plain
and simple. It’s funny that Citibank, one of the largest, most profitable credit
card companies in the world, proudly exclaims “Live richly” in its advertise-
ments. At the rate that it and other card companies collect interest and fees
from their customers, a more appropriate slogan would be “Live poorly.”
Works Cited
Bernthal, Matthew, et al. “Credit Cards as Lifestyle Facilitators.” Journal of
Consumer Research, vol. 32, no. 1, 2005, pp. 130-45.
“Credit & Prepaid Cards: Our Policy Positions.” Center for Responsible
Lending, www.responsiblelending.org/ issues I credit-prepaid-cards I
credit-prepaid-cards-policy. Accessed 18 June 2005.
McGeehan, Patrick. “Soaring Interest Comp ounds Credit Card Pain for
Millions.” The New York Times, 21 Nov. 2004, www.nytimes.com/
2004 I 11 I 21 /business I soaring-interest-compounds-credit -card-pain-
for-millions.html.
Orman, Suze. The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke. Riverhead,
2005.
Critiquing “The Credit Card Company Made Me Do It!”
1. How effective is Carlos’s argument that the predatory practices of banks and
credit card companies are the primary cause of credit card debt among college
students? (See our introduction to Carlos’s paper, which was written in 2008
before the signing of the federal Credit Card Act.)
2. The problems illustrated in Carlos’s paper had received national attention
for many years, but no legislation was passed until the 2009 Credit Card Act.
This act has apparently been successful. According to ConsolidatedCredit.
org, 46 percent of college students had a credit card in their name in 2005.
By 2015, only 23 percent had credit cards. By 2015, only one in ten purchases
by college students used credit cards. Instead, 42 percent of purchases used
debit cards while 40 percent used cash. From the perspective of a college
student, what are the advantages and disadvantages of a credit card versus
a debit card?
3. Given the problems with credit card debt highlighted by Carlos, do you think
federal regulations were necessary to protect college students? Or should the
government stay out of the regulatory business and let individuals look out
for themselves?
Causal Arguments 279
280
Chapter 14
Learning Objectives
In this chapter you will learn to:
14.1 Explain and illustrate the difference between categorical and
ethical evaluation arguments.
14.2 Conduct a categorical evaluation argument using a
criteria-match strategy.
14.3 Conduct an ethical evaluation argument using principles
or consequences.
14.4 Be mindful of common problems encountered in evaluation
arguments.
14.5 Write your own categorical or ethical evaluation argument.
In our roles as citizens and professionals, we are continually expected to make
evaluations and to persuade others to accept them. In this chapter, you will
learn to conduct two kinds of evaluation arguments: categorical and ethical.
Both have clarifying power to help us make difficult choices about good or bad,
right or wrong.
Case 1: How Should We Evaluate the Film District 9?
In the fi lm District 9 (2009), d irected by South African Neill Blomkam p and produced by
Peter Jackson, a spacesh ip has stalled out over Johannesbu rg, South Africa, where it
has hovered for several decades. Its starving alien passengers, derogatorily called “The
Prawns” for their appearance, have been placed in what has become a crowded, milita-
rized prison ghetto called District 9. As t he fil m begins, South Africans have grown dis-
gusted with and intolerantly fearful of the growing alien population, while corporate powers
seek t hese aliens’ technolog ically advanced bio-weapons. As this poster suggests- based
on its “No Humans Allowed” sign, its ominous “You are not welcome here” slogan, and
its barbed w ire perimeter-the fi lm includes graphic echoes of the racism of apartheid
and disturbing depictions of xenophobia, abusive corporate powers, and m istreatment of
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 281
refugees (the aliens). Nominated for numerous awards, District 9 sparked heated evalua-
tion arguments about whether it is a good film or a flawed fi lm. Part of the debate focuses
on what evaluative criteria to use-a decision that depends on the category into which
the film should be placed. Should it be evaluated as a science-fiction film, as a corporate
espionage thriller, or as a commentary on global social justice? Some critics, for example,
have argued that District 9 is not a great science-fiction film, but they have argued that it
is a deeply provocative and moving commentary on social justice.
PETER JACKSON
PRESENTS
A FILM BY NEILL BLOMKAMP
Case 2: What Is a “Good Organ” for a Transplant?
How Can an Ill Person Ethically Find an Organ Donor?
In the United States, some 117,000 sick people are waiting for an organ transplant. Some
of these people have been waiting as long as six years, and some w ill die before they
can find a donor. The problem of organ shortages raises two kinds of evaluation issues.
First, doctors are reevaluating the criteria by which they judge a “good” organ-that is, a
good lung, kidney, or liver suitable for transplanting. Formerly, people who were elderly or
282 Chapter 14
obese or who had engaged in risky behaviors or experienced heart fai lure or other medical
conditions were not considered sources of good organs. Now doctors are reconsidering
these sources as well as exploring the use of organs from pigs. Second, the shortage of
organs for donation has raised numerous ethical issues: Is it ethical for people to bypass
the national waiting list for organs by advertising on billboards and websites in search of
a volunteer donor? Is it morally right for people to sell their organs? Is it right for patients
and families to buy organs or in any way remunerate living organ donors? Some states are
passing laws that allow some financ ial compensation to living organ donors.
An Overview of Categorical and
Ethical Evaluation Arguments
14.1 Explain and illustrate the difference between categorical and ethical
evaluation arguments.
In this chapter we explain strategies for conducting two different kinds of evalu-
ation arguments. First, we examine categorical evaluations of the kind “Is this
thing a good member of its class?”* (For example: Is Ramon a good leader?) In
such an evaluation, the writer determines the extent to which a given something
possesses the qualities or standards of its category or class. What are the traits
of good leaders? Does Ramon possess these traits? Second, we examine ethical
arguments of the kind “Is this action right (wrong)?” (For example: Was it right
or wrong to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II?)
In these arguments, the writer evaluates a given act from the perspective of some
system of morality or ethics.
To see the difference between the two kinds of evaluations, consider the case
of terrorists. From a nonethical standpoint, you could make a categorical evalu-
ation by saying that certain people are “good terrorists” in that they fully realize
the purpose of the class “terrorist”: They cause great anguish and damage with
a minimum of resources, and they bring much attention to their cause. In other
words, they are good at what they do terrorism. However, if we want to con-
demn terrorism on ethical grounds, we have to construct an ethical argument
that terrorism is wrong. The ethical question is not whether a person fulfills the
purposes of the class “terrorist,” but rather whether it is wrong for such a class
to exist. In the rest of this chapter, we explain categorical evaluations and ethical
evaluations in more detail.
Constructing a Categorical
Evaluation Argument
14.2 Conduct a categorical evaluation argument using a criteria-match strategy.
A categorical evaluation uses a criteria-match structure similar to the structure we
examined in definition arguments (see Chapter 12).
*In addition to the term good, a number of other ev aluative terms involve the same kind of
thinking: effective,successful , workable, excellen t, valuable, and so forth.
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 283
Criteria-Match Structure of Categorical
Evaluations
A typical claim-with-reasons frame for an evaluation argument has the following
criteria-match structure:
This thing/phenomenon is/is not a good member of its class because it meets
(fails to meet) criteria A, B, and C.
Claim: This thing/phenomenon is (is not) a good member of its class.
Criteria: The criteria for being a good member of this class are A, B, and C.
Match: The thing/phenomenon meets (fails to meet) criteria A, B, and C.
The main conceptual difference between an evaluation argument and a defini-
tion argument is the nature of the contested category. In a definition argument,
one argues whether a particular thing belongs within a certain category. (Is this
TOULMIN ANALYSIS OF THE FRACKING ARGUMENT SUPPORTING ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY
ENTHYMEME
CLAIM Fracking is a good method for
extracting natural gas from shale formations
REASON because it is environmentally safe.
GROUNDS
• Descriptions of safety measures employed
by industry
• Descriptions of local, state, and federal
regulations aimed at insuring safety
• Summaries of peer-reviewed studies and
government studies showing the safety of
fracking
• Refutation of anecdotal scare stories told by
environmentalists
WARRANT
Environmental safety is an important criterion
for evaluating a method of drilling for natural gas
BACKING
Arguments that safety must be a prime
consideration of any business plan. One major
accident could undermine public support of
fracking. [Backing tries to counter the arguments
of environmentalists that business interests put
profit ahead of safety.]
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking the reason and grounds
Arguments that fracking is not environmentally
safe
• Studies pointing to possible dangers such as
contamination of aquifers, earthquakes,
flaring of methane, and so forth
• Arguments that local, state, and federal
regulations are too loose and unenforced
• Statistics about environmental costs in doing
the fracking (huge amounts of required water,
recovering contaminated water, use of carbon
fuels to run the machinery, and so forth)
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking the warrant and backing
• Environmentalists will endorse the warrant,
but may say that even if fracking is safe, it
undermines the urgency of finding alternative
energy sources.
• Business interests might want to loosen an
insistence on absolute safety by
acknowledging that some accidents are
inevitable.
284 Chapter 14
swampy area a wetland?) In an evaluation argument, we know what category
something belongs to. For example, we know that this 2014 Nissan Leaf is a used
car. For an evaluation argument, the question is whether this 2014 Nissan Leaf
a good used car. Or, to place the question within a rhetorical context: Is this 2014
Nissan Leaf a good used car for me to buy for commuting back and forth to campus?
To illustrate the criteria-match structure of an evaluation argument, let’s ask
whether hydraulic fracturing (commonly called fracking) is a good means for
extracting natural gas from shale formations. Supporters of £racking might say
“yes,” because £racking meets three major criteria:
• It is technologically efficient at extracting huge supplies of otherwise
untappable natural gas.
• It is cost-effective.
• It is environmentally safe.
Opponents might make two counterarguments: First, they might claim that £rack-
ing is not environmentally safe. (Safety is a crucial criterion. Opponents argue
that £racking doesn’t meet this criterion.) Second, they might argue that £rack-
ing, by producing lots of relatively cheap natural gas, removes the urgency from
efforts to convert the country to sources of renewable energy, such as the sun
and the wind. Thus, £racking might be cost-effective (criterion 2) in the short run
but disastrous in the long run. The following figure provides a Toulmin analysis
of how proponents of £racking might develop their third reason: “Fracking is
environmentally safe.”
Developing Your Criteria
To help you develop your criteria, we suggest a three-step thinking process:
1. Place the thing you are evaluating in the smallest relevant category so that
you don’t compare apples to oranges.
2. Develop criteria for your evaluation based on the purpose or function of this
category.
3. Determine the relative weight of your criteria.
Let’s look at each of these steps in turn.
STEP 1: PLACE THE THING YOU ARE EVALUATING IN THE SMALLEST
RELEVANT CATEGORY Placing your contested thing in the smallest relevant
category is a crucial first step. Suppose, for example, that you want one of your
professors to write you a letter of recommendation for a summer job. The professor
will need to know what kind of summer job you are applying for. Are you apply-
ing to become a camp counselor, a law-office intern, a retail sales clerk, or a tour
guide at a wild animal park? Each of these jobs has different criteria for excellence.
To take a different example, suppose that you want to evaluate e-mail as a
medium of correspondence. To create a stable context for your evaluation, you
need to place e-mail in its smallest relevant category. You may choose to evalu-
ate e-mail as a medium for business communication (by contrasting e-mail with
direct personal contact, phone conversations, or postal mail), as a medium for
staying in touch with high-school friends (in contrast, say, to text messaging,
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 285
Facebook or Instagram), or as a medium for carrying on a long-distance romance
(in contrast, say, to old-fashioned love letters). Again, criteria will vary across
these different categories.
By p lacing your contested thing in the smallest relevant class, you avoid the
apples-and-oranges problem. That is, to give a fair evaluation of a perfectly good
apple, you need to judge it under the class “apple” and not under the next larger
class, “fruit,” or a neighboring class such as “orange.” To be even more precise,
you may wish to evaluate your apple in the class “eating apple” as opposed to
“pie apple” because the latter class is supposed to be tarter and the former class
juicier and sweeter.
STEP 2: DEVELOP CRITERIA FOR YOUR EVALUATION BASED ON THE
PURPOSE OR FUNCTIONS OF THIS CATEGORY Suppose that the summer job
you are applying for is tour guide at a wild animal park. The functions of a tour
guide are to drive the tour buses, make people feel welcome, give them interest-
ing information about the wild animals in the park, and make their visit pleasant.
Criteria for a good tour guide would thus include reliability and responsibility, a
friendly demeanor, good speaking skills, and knowledge of the kinds of animals
in the wild animal park. In our e-mail example, suppose that you want to evalu-
ate e-mail as a medium for business communication. The purpose of this class of
communication is to provide a quick and reliable means of communication that
increases efficiency, minimizes misunderstandings, and protects the confidential-
ity of internal communications. Based on these purposes, you might establish the
following criteria:
A good medium for business communication:
• Is easy to use, quick, and reliable
• Increases employee efficiency
• Prevents misunderstandings
• Maintains confidentiality where needed
STEP 3: DETERMINE THE RELATIVE WEIGHT OF YOUR CRITERIA In some
evaluations, all the criteria are equally important. However, sometimes a phenom-
enon to be evaluated is strong in one criterion but weak in another. This situation
forces the evaluator to decide which criterion takes precedence. For example, the
supervisor interviewing candidates for tour guide at the wild animal park may
find one candidate who is very knowledgeable about the wildlife but doesn’t have
good speaking skills. The supervisor would need to decide which of these two
criteria gets more weight.
Making Your Match Argument
Once you’ve established and weighed your criteria, you’ll need to use examples
and other evidence to show that the thing being evaluated meets or does not meet
the criteria. For example, your professor could argue that you would be a good
wildlife park tour guide because you have strong interpersonal skills (based on
your work on a college orientation committee), that you have good speaking skills
(based on a speech you gave in the professor’s class), and that you have quite a bit
of knowledge about animals and ecology (based on your major in environmental
science).
286 Chapter 14
In our e-mail example, you might establish the following working thesis:
Despite its being easy to learn, quick, and reliable, e-mail is often not an effec-
tive medium for business communication because it reduces worker efficiency,
leads to frequent misunderstandings, and often lacks confidentiality.
You could develop your last three points as follows:
• E-mail reduces worker efficiency. Although much important work can be
done efficiently on e-mail, workers have to spend inordinate time sepa-
rating important e-mail from noise (workplace announcements, annoying
“reply all” strings, forwarded jokes, and so forth). You can use personal
Examining Visual Arguments
An Evaluation Claim
For many people, the polar bear has become the iconic image of the environmental repercussions of global
warming. Th is photograph of a “polar bear” march ing in a smal l-town parade creates a visual argument
against c limate change. Th is parade entry was sponsored by the Backbone Campaign, an environmental
group that specializes in “artfu l activism,” using visually arresting and often humorous costumes, papier
mache puppets, and other forms of art to advocate for progressive environmenta l pol icy. How effective is
this visual argument as a smal l-town parade entry? Imagine that you are on a comm ittee brainstorming for
an “artful entry” into the small-town parade. What argument would you make in favor of a polar bear theme?
How effective is this two-person polar bear costume?
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 287
anecdotes and research data to show how employees must sort through
volumes of e-mail daily to sort out what messages need immediate atten-
tion. Managing e-mail eats into worker time (one research article says that
the average worker devotes ten minutes of every working hour to reading
and responding to e-mail).
• E-mail leads to misunderstandings. Because an e-mail message is often com-
posed rapidly without revision, e-mail can cause people to state ideas impre-
cisely, to write something they would never say face to face, or to convey an
unintended tone. You could give a personal example of a high-consequence
misunderstanding caused by e-mail.
• E-mail often lacks confidentiality. You could provide anecdotal or research evi-
dence of cases in which a person clicked on the “reply to all” button rather
than the “reply” button, sending a message intended for one person to a
w hole group of people. Also, people sometimes forward e-mails without the
sender’s permission. Finally, e-mail messages are archived forever, so mes-
sages that you thought were deleted may show up years later in a lawsuit.
As these examples illustrate, the key to a successful match argument is to use suf-
ficient examples and other evidence to show how your contested phenomenon
meets or does not meet each of your criteria.
For Writing and Discussion
Developing Criteria and Match Arguments
The following small-group exercise can be accomplished in one or two class hours. It gives you a good
model of the process you can go through in order to write your own categorical evaluation.
1. Choose a specific controversial person, thing, or event to evaluate. To help you think of ideas , try
brainstorming controversial members of the fol lowing categories: people (athletes, political leaders,
musicians); technology (new car features, phone apps); media (a social network, a TV program, a radio
station); government and world affairs (an economic policy, a Supreme Court decision); the arts (a fi lm ,
a book); your college or university (food service, an administrative policy); the world of work (a job, a
company operation, a dress pol icy); or any other categories of you r choice.
2. Place you r controversial person or thing within the smallest relevant class, thus provid ing a rhetorical
context for your argument and showing what is at stake. Do you want to evaluate Harvey’s Hamburger
Haven in the broad category of restaurants, in the narrow category of hamburger joints, or in a different
narrow category such as late-night study places?
3. Make a list of the purpose or function of that class, and then list the criteria that a good member of
that class would need to have in order to accomplish its purpose or function. (What is the purpose
or function of a hamburger joint versus a late-night study place? What criteria for excellence can you
derive from these purposes or funct ions?)
4. If necessary, rank you r criteria from most to least important. (For a late-night study place, what is most
important: good ambience, Wi-Fi availability, good coffee, or conven ient location?)
5. Provide examples and other evidence to show how you r contested something matches or does not
match each of your criteria. (As a late-night study place, Carol’s Coffee Closet beats out Harvey’s
Hamburger Haven. Although Harvey’s Hamburger Haven has the most convenient location, Carol’s
Coffee Closet has Wi-Fi, an ambience conducive to studying, and excellent coffee.)
288 Chapter 14
Constructing an Ethical
Evaluation Argument
14.3 Conduct an ethical evaluation argument using principles or consequences.
A second kind of evaluation argument focuses on moral or ethical issues, which
can often merge or overlap with categorical evaluations. For example, many
apparently straightforward categorical evaluations can turn out to have an ethi-
cal dimension. Consider again the criteria for buying a car. Most people would
base their evaluations on cost, safety, comfort, and so forth. But some people
may feel morally obligated to buy the most fuel-efficient car, to buy an Ameri-
can car, or not to buy a car from a manufacturer whose labor policies they find
morally repugnant. Depending on how large a role ethical considerations play
in the evaluation, we may choose to call this an ethical argument based on moral
considerations rather than a categorical evaluation based on the purposes of a
class or category.
When we are faced with an ethical issue, we must move from arguments of
good or bad to arguments of right or wrong. The terms right and wrong are clearly
different from the terms good and bad when the latter terms mean, simply, “effec-
tive” (meets purposes of class, as in “This is a good laptop”) or “ineffective” (fails
to meet purposes of class, as in “This is a bad cookbook”). But right and wrong
often also differ from what seems to be a moral use of the terms good and bad.
We may say, for example, that sunshine is good because it brings pleasure and
that cancer is bad because it brings pain and death, but that is not quite the same
thing as saying that sunshine is “right” and cancer is “wrong.” It is the problem
of “right” and “wrong” that ethical arguments confront.
There are many schools of ethical thought too many to cover in this brief
overview so we’ll limit ourselves to two major systems: arguments from conse-
quences and arguments from principles.
Consequences as the Base of Ethics
Perhaps the best-known example of evaluating acts according to their ethical
consequences is utilitarianism, a down-to-earth philosophy that grew out of
nineteenth-century British philosophers’ concern to demystify ethics and make
it work in the practical world. Jeremy Bentham, the originator of utilitarianism,
developed the goal of the greatest good for the greatest number, or “greatest hap-
piness,” by which he meant the most pleasure for the least pain. John Stuart Mill,
another British philosopher, built on Bentham’s utilitarianism by using predicted
consequences to determine the morality of a proposed action.
Mill’s consequentialist approach allows you to readily assess a wide range of
acts. You can apply the principle of utility which says that an action is morally
right if it produces a greater net value (benefits minus costs) than any available
alternative action to virtually any situation, and it will help you reach a deci-
sion. Obviously, however, it’s not always easy to make the calculations called for
by this approach because, like any prediction of the future, an estimate of conse-
quences is conjectural. In particular, it’s often very hard to assess the long-term
consequences of any action. Too often, utilitarianism seduces us into a short-term
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 289
analysis of a moral problem simply because long-term consequences are difficult
to predict.
Principles as the Base of Ethics
Any ethical system based on principles will ultimately rest on moral tenets that we
are duty bound to uphold, no matter what the consequences. (See our discussion
of “sacred values” in Chapters 1 and 2.) Sometimes the moral tenets come from
religious faith for example, the Ten Commandments. At other times, however,
the princip les are derived from philosophical reasoning, as in the case of Ger-
man philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant held that no one should ever use another
person as a means to his own ends and that everyone should always act as if his
acts are the basis of universal law. In other words, Kant held that we are duty
bound to respect other people’s sanctity and to act in the same way that we would
want all other people to act. The great advantage of such a system is its clarity
and precision. We are never overwhelmed by a multiplicity of contradictory and
difficult-to-quantify consequences; we simply make sure we are following (or not
violating) the princip les of our ethical system and proceed accordingly.
Exam.ple Ethical Argum.ents Exam.ining
Capital Punishm.ent
To show you how to conduct an ethical argument, let’s now apply these two
strategies to the example of capital punishment. In general, you can conduct an
ethical evaluation by using the frame for either a principles-based argument or a
consequences-based argument or a combination of both.
• Principles-Based Frame: An act is right (wrong) because it follows (violates)
principles A, B, and C.
• Consequences-Based Frame: An act is right (wrong) because it will lead to con-
sequences A, B, and C, which are good (bad).
A principles-based argument looks at capital punishment through the lens
of one or more guiding principles. Kant’s principle that we are duty bound not to
violate the sanctity of other human lives could lead to arguments opposing capital
punishment. One might argue as follows:
Principles-based argument opposing capital punishment: The death penalty is wrong
because it violates the principle of the sanctity of human life.
You could support this principle either by summarizing Kant’s argument that
one should not violate the selfhood of another person or by pointing to certain
religious systems such as Judeo-Christian ethics, where one is told “Vengeance is
mine, says the Lord” and “Thou shalt not kill.” To develop this argument further,
you might examine two exceptions in which principles-based ethicists may allow
killing self-defense and war and show how capital punishment does not fall
into either category.
Princip les-based arguments can also be developed to support capital
punishment. You may be surprised to learn that Kant himself despite his
arguments for the sanctity of life supported capital punishment. To make such
290 Chapter 14
an argument, Kant evoked a different principle about the suitability of the pun-
ishment to the crime:
There is no sameness of kind between death and remaining alive even under
the most miserable conditions, and consequently there is no equality between the
crime and the retribution unless the criminal is judicially condemned and put
to death.
Stated as an enthymeme, Kant’s argument is as follows:
Principles-based argument supporting capital punishment: Capital punishment is
right because it follows the principle that punishments should be proportionate
to the crime.
In developing this argument, Kant’s burden would be to show why the principle
of proportionate retribution outweighs the principle of the supreme worth of the
individual. Our point is that a principles-based argument can be made both for
and against capital punishment. The arguer’s duty is to make clear what prin-
ciple is being evoked and then to show why this principle is more important than
opposing principles.
Unlike a principles-based argument, which appeals to certain guiding max-
ims or rules, a consequences-based argument looks at the consequences of a deci-
sion and measures the positive benefits against the negative costs. Here is the
frame that an arguer might use to oppose capital punishment on the basis of
negative consequences:
Consequences-based argument opposing capital punishment: Capital punishment is
wrong because it leads to the following negative consequences:
• The possibility of executing an innocent person
• The possibility that a murderer who may repent and be redeemed is
denied that chance
• The excessive legal and political costs of trials and appeals
• The unfair distribution of executions so that one’s chances of being put
to death are much greater if one is a minority or is poor
To develop this argument, the reader would need to provide facts, statistics, and
other evidence to support each of the stated reasons.
A different arguer might use a consequences-based approach to support
capital punishment:
Consequences-based argument supporting capital punishment: Capital punishment
is right because it leads to the following positive consequences:
• It may deter violent crime and decrease the murder rate.
• It saves the cost of lifelong imprisonment.
• It stops criminals who are menaces to society from committing more
murders.
• It helps grieving families reach closure and sends a message to victims’
families that society recognizes their pain.
It should be evident, then, that adopting an ethical system doesn’t lead to auto-
matic answers to one’s ethical dilemmas. A system offers a way of proceeding a
way of conducting an argument but it doesn’t relieve you of personal respon-
sibility for thinking through your values and taking a stand. When you face an
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 291
ethical dilemma, we encourage you to consider both the relevant principles and
the possible consequences the dilemma entails. In many arguments, you can use
both principles-based and consequences-based reasoning as long as irreconcilable
contradictions don’t present themselves.
For Writing and Discussion
Developing an Ethical Argument
Individual task:
Develop a frame for an ethical argument (based on princip les, consequences, or both) for or against any two
of the following actions. Use the previous examples on capital punishment as a model.
1. Eating meat
2. Using publ ic transportation instead of own ing a car
3. Legalizing assisted suicide for the term inally ill
4. Sell ing human organs
5. Allowing concealed weapons on college campuses
Group task:
Share your arguments with classmates.
Common Problems in Making
Evaluation Arguments
14.4 Be mindful of common problems encountered in evaluation arguments.
When conducting evaluation arguments (whether categorical or ethical), writers
can bump up against recurring problems that are unique to evaluation. In some
cases, these problems complicate the establishment of criteria; in other cases,
they complicate the match argument. Let’s look briefly at some of these common
problems.
• The problem of standards what is commonplace versus what is ideal: In various
forms, we experience the dilemma of the commonplace versus the ideal all
the time. Is it fair to get a ticket for going seventy miles per hour on a sixty-
five-mile-per-hour freeway when most of the drivers go seventy miles per
hour or faster? (Does what is commonplace going seventy override what
is ideal obeying the law?) Is it better for high schools to pass out free con-
traceptives to students because students are having sex anyway (what’s com-
monplace), or is it better not to pass them out in order to support abstinence
(what’s ideal)?
• The problem of mitigating circumstances: This problem occurs when an arguer
claims that unusual circumstances should alter our usual standards of judg-
ment. Ordinarily, it is fair for a teacher to reduce a grade if you turn in a paper
late. But what if you were up all night taking care of a crying baby? Does that
count as a mitigating circumstance to waive the ordinary criterion? When you
292 Chapter 14
argue for mitigating circumstances, you will likely assume an especially heavy
burden of proof. People assume the rightness of usual standards of judgment
unless there are compelling arguments for abnormal circumstances.
• The problem of choosing between two goods or two bads: Often an evaluation issue
forces us between a rock and a hard place. Should we cut pay or eliminate
jobs? Put our parents in a nursing home or let them stay at home, where
they have become a danger to themselves? In such cases, one has to weigh
conflicting criteria, knowing that the choices are too much alike either both
bad or both good.
• The problem of seductive empirical measures: The need to make high-stakes eval-
uations has led many people to seek quantifiable criteria that can be weighed
mathematically. Thus we use grade point averages to select scholarship win-
ners, student evaluation scores to decide merit pay for teachers, and judges’
combined scores to evaluate figure skaters. In some cases, empirical measures
can be quite acceptable, but they are often dangerous because they discount
important nonquantifiable traits. The problem with empirical measures is
that they seduce us into believing that complex judgments can be made math-
ematically, thus rescuing us from the messiness of alternative points of view
and conflicting criteria.
• The problem of cost: A final problem in evaluation arguments is cost. Some-
thing may be the best possible member of its class, but if it costs too much,
we have to go for second or third best. We can avoid this problem somewhat
by placing items into different classes on the basis of cost. For example, a
Mercedes will exceed a Kia on almost any criterion of quality, but if we can’t
afford more than a Kia, the comparison is pointless. It is better to compare
a Mercedes to a Lexus and a Kia to an equivalent Ford. Whether costs are
expressed in dollars, personal discomfort, moral repugnance, or some other
terms, our final evaluation of an item must take cost into account.
riting Assignment:
An Evaluation or Ethical Argument
14.5 Write your own categorical or ethical evaluation argument.
Write an argument in which you try to change your readers’ minds about the
value, worth, or ethics of something. Choose a phenomenon to be evaluated
that is controversial so that your readers are likely at first to disagree with your
evaluation or at least to be surprised by it. Somewhere in your essay you should
summarize alternative views and either refute them or concede to them (see
Chapter 6).
Exploring Ideas
Evaluation issues are all around us. Think of disagreements about the value
of a person, thing, action, or phenomenon within the various communities to
which you belong your dorm, home, or apartment community; your school
community, including clubs or organizations; your academic community, in-
cluding classes you are currently taking; your work community; and your city,
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 293
state, national, and world communities. Once you have settled on a controver-
sial thing to be evaluated, place it in its smallest relevant category, determine the
purposes of that category, and develop your criteria. If you are making an ethi-
cal evaluation, consider your argument from the perspective of both principles
and consequences.
Identifying Your Audience and Determining
What’s at Stake
Before drafting your argument, identify your targeted audience and determine
what’s at stake. Consider your responses to the following questions:
• What audience are you targeting? What background do they need to under-
stand your issue? How much do they already care about it?
• Before they read your evaluation argument, what stance on your issue do
you imagine them holding? What change do you want to bring about in
their view?
• What will they find new or surprising about your argument?
• What objections might they raise? What counterarguments or alternative
points of view will you need to address?
• Why does your evaluation matter? Who might be threatened or made uncom-
fortable by your views? What is at stake?
Organizing an Evaluation Argument
As you write a draft, you may find useful the prototypical structures for evalua-
tion arguments shown in Figures 14.1 and 14.2. Of course, you can always alter
these plans if another structure better fits your material.
Questioning and Criti~uing a Categorical
Evaluation Argument
Here is a list of questions you can use to critique a categorical evaluation argument:
• Will a skeptic accept my criteria? Many evaluative arguments are weak because
the writers have simply assumed that readers will accept their criteria. When-
ever your audience’s acceptance of your criteria is in doubt, you will need to
argue for your criteria explicitly.
• Will a skeptic accept my general weighting of criteria? Another vulnerable spot
in an evaluation argument is the relative weight of the criteria. How much
anyone weights a given criterion is usually a function of his or her own inter-
ests relative to your contested something. You should always ask whether
some particular group might have good reasons for weighting the criteria
differently.
• Will a skeptic accept my criteria but reject my match argument? The other major
way of testing an evaluation argument is to anticipate how readers may object
to your stated reasons and grounds. Will readers challenge you by showing
that you have cherry-picked your examples and evidence? Will they provide
counterexamples and counterevidence?
294 Chapter 14
Figure 14.1 Organization p lan 1: Criteria and match in separate sections
Introduce the issue and
state your claim.
Present your criteria.
Present your match argument.
Conclude.
• Engage reader’s interest in your evaluation issue
and show why it is controversial or problematic.
• Showwhat’satstake.
• Provide background information needed by your
audience.
• State your claim.
• State and develop criterion 1.
• State and develop criterion 2.
• Continue with the rest of your criteria.
• Anticipate and respond to possible objections to
the criteria.
• Consider restating your claim for clarity.
• Argue that your case meets (does not meet)
criterion 1.
• Argue that your case meets (does not meet)
criterion 2.
• Continue with the rest of your match argument.
• Anticipate and respond to possible objections to
the match argument.
• Perhaps sum up your argument.
• Help reader return to the ~~big picture” of what’s
at stake.
• End with something memorable.
Critiquing an Ethical Argument
Ethical arguments can be critiqued through appeals to consequences or prin-
ciples. If an argument appeals primarily to principles, it can be vulnerable to
a simple cost analysis. What are the costs of adhering to this principle? There
will undoubtedly be some, or else there would be no real argument. If the ar-
gument is based strictly on consequences, we should ask whether it violates
any rules or principles, particularly such commandments as the Golden Rule-
“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” which most mem-
bers of our audience adhere to. By failing to mention these alternative ways
of thinking about ethical issues, we undercut not only our argument but our
credibility as well.
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 295
Figure 14.2 Organization plan 2: Criteria and match interwoven
Introduce the issue and state
your claim.
Present series of criterion-match
arguments.
Respond to possible objections
to your argument.
Conclude.
Readings
• Engage reader’s interest in your evaluation issue
and show why it is controversial or problematic.
• Show what’s at stake.
• Provide background information needed by your
audience.
• State your claim.
• State and develop criterion 1 and argue that your
case meets (does not meet) the criterion.
• State and develop criterion 2 and argue that your
case meets (does not meet) the criterion.
• Continue with the rest of your criterion-match
arguments.
• Anticipate and summarize possible objections.
• Respond to the objections through rebuttal or
•
concession.
• Perhaps sum up your argument.
• Help reader return to the #big picture” of what’s
at stake.
• End with something memorable.
Our first reading, by student writer Lorena Mendoza-Flores, critiques her former
high school for the way it marginalizes Hispanic students. Lorena, a physics major
in college, has changed the name of her high school and chosen not to reveal her
home state.
Student Essay
Silenced and Invisible:
Problems of Hispanic Students at Valley High School
Lorena Mendoza- Flores
Every year, thousands of Mexican families come to the United States in
order to escape economic hardships in Mexico and hope for better schools for
their children. While many American schools try to accommodate immigrant
(continued)
296 Chapter 14
non-native speakers, many immigrant families, according to case-study
interviews, have increasingly negative perceptions of these attempts (Roess-
ingh). There are action plans to bridge the gap between disadvantaged and
advantaged students, yet Hispanic ESL (English as a Second Language)
youth continue to perform considerably below that of other students (Good
et al.). These problems pose the question: What is wrong with the way our
schools treat Hispanic immigrants? Perhaps we could gain some understand-
ing if we looked at a specific school my own Valley High School in an agri-
cultural region of [name of state]. Valley High School is a perfect example of
a school with a growing Hispanic population, well-intentioned teachers, and
hopes for Latino students’ success that simply fall through. The failures at
my school include inadequate ESL training for teachers, inadequate counsel-
ing for immigrant students, poor multicultural training for all teachers, and
failure to value Hispanic identity and provide support for families.
Despite the fact that the Valley School District has 52 percent Hispanic
students, a large percentage of whom have Spanish as their first language
and parents who speak only Spanish, the staff at Valley High School is
overwhelmingly white, with only one Hispanic teacher and only three
or four teachers who speak Spanish. Even with a large number of ESL
students, Valley High School has not hired teachers who are adequately
trained in ESL. There is only one ESL teacher, who is responsible for all
the ESL students. These students are assigned to regular classes and then
go to the ESL classrooms for what is supposed to be extra support. When
I’ve gone into the ESL classroom, I’ve found students surfing random sites
online and the teacher, also the yearbook ad visor, working on pages for the
annual. Because I was senior editor of the yearbook, he was very open to
talking to me about his students, always complaining that they didn’t work
hard enough even though I could see they weren’t being given meaning-
ful work. I was frustrated because it was obvious that the ESL classroom
did not engage either the students or the teacher. The students’ language
progress remained stagnant, while the expectations of standardized testing
became increasingly more demanding, dooming ESL students to failure.
Another problem is inadequate counseling for Hispanic students and
inadequate methods of assessing their progress so they can be placed in the
right classes. When immigrant students need help, teachers often recruit
other students to address their needs. As a student mentor, I was called
upon a few times to speak with students about their performance in class.
In one particular situation, the math teacher called me in to talk to a student
who had decided to drop out. The teacher was visibly concerned for the
student’s welfare but didn’t have any means for understanding or address-
ing the student’s issues. The student told me that he did not feel like he
belonged at school. The lack of adequate counseling sent the message that
immigrant students were not worth fighting for to stay in our school.
Additionally, when students enter the school, their skills in other
coursework are not taken into consideration. All ESL students are placed
in the basic math and English courses, and while they might move down,
sometimes as far as being placed in special education classes, they’re never
moved up. A student’s aptitude in math or science may never get recognized
in the four years that he or she is in high school because the ESL students
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 297
move as a single group and take just about all coursework together. Their
status as ESL students becomes the sole determinant of their identity as a
student within the school system, and they are not given the same consid-
erations and levels of attention required to grow and develop academically.
Personally, I have fallen victim to our school’s overlooking of student prog-
ress. When I entered the Valley School District in 8th grade, I had already
taken several years of algebra and tested far above other students in my
grade. At my previous school in another district, I had surpassed the school’s
highest level of math. In fact, my 5th-7th grade math instructor had to find
advanced online material for me so that I could keep progressing. Entering
the Valley School District, however, I regressed two years. Even though I
communicated to both my math teacher and the counselor that I was being
placed too low and that the nearby high school had several higher-level
courses, I was kept in the same class. The next year, I was shocked to see
that two 8th grade white students were in my 9th grade geometry class; the
system had catered to them while it had denied to me an acknowledgement
of the same earned achievement. I felt d ismissed because I was Hispanic.
A third problem is that outside of the ESL classroom, in the regular s
classroom settings, teachers are often untrained in how to create safe mul-
ticultural dialogue. One time in sociology my teacher asked the class why
the Hispanic students were performing so much worse than white students.
I tried to explain that our supp ort was inadequate. I stated that since most
Hispanic students came from immigrant backgrounds, our parents weren’t
able to help us maneuver through the school system. In doing our home-
work, we had no one to turn to, and if the instructions were unclear, we did
not have access to a resource such as an English-speaking parent, something
that many white students and faculty never even thought about when con-
sidering this gap in performance. When I started talking about these things,
white students around the room started becoming upset. They argued that
they were hard workers and didn’t have their parents do their homework
for them. Obviously, my point was not to dismiss their efforts but to empha-
size that these are two different worlds we’re living in. Coming from an
immigrant background, I and my fellow Hispanic students undoubtedly had
more obstacles to overcome every step of the way. What was most troubling
about this situation was that at no point did my sociology teacher step up
and defend the validity of my arguments. Teachers need to know how to
facilitate these multicultural clashes by helping make injustices more visible
rather than marginalizing someone for bringing up uncomfortable issues.
Finally, Valley H igh School does little to honor cultural identity or reach
out to immigrant families. My senior year I was president of the Interna-
tional Club (the only club at our school that had lots of immigrant student
participation). Without my consent, or that of the members, my advisor
began a transition to convert the International Club into the InterAct club
affiliated with the community’s Rotaract Club (part of Rotary). While this
new connection w ith the Rotary would provide more funding, the only club
that was primarily made up of Hispanic members was now being taken over
by one sponsored by an all-white organization. In this transition, our advi-
sor had pre-elected leaders (also all white) to move it forward. By the time
(continued)
298 Chapter 14
I graduated, the transition was well underway. In fact, on Cinco de Mayo,
International Club’s major event every year, our club members realized that
our advisor d idn’t think this event was worth our time. As the only Mexican
teacher, this advisor did not even advocate for the desires of our community.
Ultimately, she turned her back on the members, and the following year
InterAct became a primarily white club, just like every other club at school.
The loss of a club supporting Hispanic students is matched by failure to
create a welcoming environment for Hispanic parents and families. When
immigrant parents come to the school, they have to wait around until they
can find a translator if they want to speak to a teacher or administrator. Usu-
ally this interpreter is another student, creating awkward moments for par-
ents who don’t want to discuss their children’s problems in front of another
student. The school occasionally does try to reach out to Hispanic parents by
holding Hispanic Nights where all the events are held in Spanish. However,
all the other school events are held only in English. Considering that the
school population is more than half Hispanic, the absence of any interpret-
ers makes it clear the school thinks of itself as white. In addition, there are
no translators at larger school events such as academic award nights or
sporting banquets. As a result, immigrant parents and families feel isolated
from the school and unwelcomed.
Debate remains over the exact or best procedures for helping immigrant
ESL students successfully integrate into schools, but what is not debated
is that these students deserve equal opportunities to learn and grow. Just
as any other students, immigrant students should meet the demanding
academic standards needed for higher education, but first they must have
adequate support. It is essential that schools support educational reforms
that address the problem areas apparent at Valley High School. Particularly,
schools need to hire qualified ESL instructors, provide adequate counseling
for immigrant students, enable teachers to develop multicultural sensitivity
and skills at handling ethnic conflict, and provide outreach to immigrant
families while valuing their culture.
Works Cited
Good, Mary Ellen, et al. “Latino English Language Learners: Bridging
Achievement and Cultural Gaps Between Schools and Families.”
Journal of Latinos & Education, vol. 9, no. 4,2010, pp. 321-39.
Roessingh, Hetty. “The Teacher Is the Key: Building Trust in ESL High
School Programs.” Canadian Modern Language Review, vol. 62, no. 4,
2006, pp. 563-90.
Critiquing “Silenced and Invisible: Problems of Hispanic Students
at Valley High School”
1. What criteria does Lorena Mendoza-Flores use to evaluate her high school ‘s
treatment of Hispanic students?
2. For evidence, Lorena uses primarily personal experiences, anecdotes, and
observations. How effective do you find this evidence in developing the
match part of her argument?
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 299
3. If Lorena were to identify the real name of her former high school and send
the argument directly to the principal and to the city newspaper, how do you
think it would be received?
4. How effectively does Lorena make appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos?
In our next reading, student writer Hadley Reeder, a major in environmental
studies with a specialization in policy, politics, and justice, writes about her sec-
ondary interest, feminist issues and gender equality. From the vantage point of
her college experience, she evaluates the inadequacy of her high school’s dress
code, particularly its unfairness toward female students.
Student Essay
A Defective and Detrimental Dress Code
Hadley Reeder
Most educational discussions of dress codes say that they are intended
to create a positive and peaceful learning environment. A secondary pur-
pose often mentioned is that dress codes level the social playing field for
students. But to what extent are these purposes achieved? I suggest that
a key dimension of dress code policies lies in their implementation and
enforcement. While a quality learning environment and dress equality are
important, they cannot be achieved without specifications for enforcement
of the policy. From the expansive dress freedom of a university campus,
I now see even more clearly the failure of my high school’s dress-code
policy. A good dress code in a public high school would state its require-
ments (acceptable and unacceptable items of clothing and accessories and
styles) clearly, and most importantly it would outline an enforcement policy
that would promote social justice. While my high school’s dress code does
clearly define what is and is not acceptable to wear at school and school
events, it fails to explain how it will be enforced among its student body to
avoid arbitrariness and gender discrimination and thus is socially unjust.
I don’t think anyone would dispute that a high-school dress code
should be clear in its specifications of what is or is not appropriate and
allowed. The G H High School Dress Code meets this criterion by iden-
tifying what is required of students. The policy states:
DRESS CODE On ALL days and at ALL school events: Do not wear
clothing or accessories that present a health or safety hazard, damage
school property, promote/ display substances or actions illegal for high-
school age students, promote/ display weapons or violence, degrade
others, have topics/images that are offensive, are inappropriate for the
workplace, or disrupt the educational process in any way. Clothes must
cover the midriff, cleavage, and undergarments. As students are stand-
ing, shorts and skirts need to go beyond the tips of the hands when
arms are fully extended at their sides. No strapless tops. Faces need to
be uncovered and visible. No bandanas. No clothing or accessories that
are associated with gang affiliation.
(continued)
300 Chapter 14
This code explicitly covers what can and cannot be worn in terms
that apply across all genders and backgrounds of the high-school popu-
lation. At the same time, it states when and where the dress code is to be
followed. So far, so good.
However, neither the dress code nor the Student Handbook identifies
the dress-code enforcers, the disciplinary action required, and how the dress
code will be implemented to promote social justice. Are all faculty equally
responsible for reporting violations of the code? Students can assume
that GHHS staff has the power to enforce the dress code, but enforcement
responsibility is not spelled out as it should be. For example, what hap-
pens when a student attends school wearing “an article of clothing that
degrades others?” A male student in my senior English class wore aT-shirt
featuring a half-naked woman multiple days throughout the school year
without discipline. How is this T-shirt not “degrading to others” in the
classroom? This instance clearly is an example of a violation of the GHHS
Dress Code that went unenforced. In contrast, my Spanish teacher called me
out into the hall in front of everyone to tell me my clothing was “inappropri-
ate.” I was wearing a white tank top that was apparently “too revealing,”
showing my bra straps and bralette. On the spot, she gave me the option to
change my clothes (which I didn’t have) or do detention, but neither option
is listed in the dress code. I’m not sure which was more degrading digging
through the Lost and Found to find something semi-clean to wear or trying
to return to class without everyone knowing what had happened. Interest-
ingly enough, I had made it through the halls and three of my classes, and
nobody had commented on my tank top. On another occasion, the female
vice principal approached my friend, who was wearing a short dress, and
said, “I like your dress, but I am unsure of the message you are sending
to your peers.” The vice principal did not ask her to change or enforce
real consequences. Later I noticed the cheerleaders’ skirts didn’t follow the
“going beyond the tips of the hands” rule. They are representatives of our
school, so why didn’t the rules apply to them? These examples illustrate
the confusion over when the dress code policy is enforced and by whom. I
think most educators and students would agree that a dress code is ineffec-
tive when a disparity in staff enforcement and favoring or discriminating
against either gender occurs.
The social injustice of the arbitrariness and discriminatory effects of
the GHHS Dress Code manifest most blatantly in the way that females are
punished more frequently and harshly than their male peers. Simply put,
the enforcing of the dress code against females interferes with their learn-
ing, forcing them to miss class. I suggest, though, that the social injustice
touches deeper issues when it works on females’ identity and self-esteem,
playing into the bigger and even more important conversation about gender
discrimination in our society. As Anna Kessel, athletic reporter and writer
for The Guardian and The Observer, has noted, the female body has become
a “public space” where people can critique, judge, and sexualize all they
want (33). Because the female body is constantly” on display” in our culture,
girls are held responsible for covering up and hiding their bodies to keep
others from looking at them. My high school’s dress code and I would
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 301
speculate, many other dress codes directly fuels this societal perspective.
I see the effect this message has on young girls with my Girls on the Run
group, which I coach two days a week at Stevens Middle School. In this
afterschool program, these third-grade through fifth-grade girls are much
more conscious of their bodies than I was at their age. Some of the older girls
do not like to wear shorts or tank tops when they run because they do not
want to show that much skin. These young girls already have a fear of their
own bodies, and this fear will be reinforced in their education at schools
with dress codes similar to the dress code at GHHS. Dress codes like these
are forcing females to conform to while male behaviors like sexual prowess,
commenting on females’ appearance, and pushing the rules are accepted or
go unnoticed. Why is it that males often are not asked to comply with dress
codes? Why do the rules not apply to them as often?
Students do need some limitations as to what they can and cannot s
wear to school. A school dress code helps them learn what is expected in
professional work environments. Dress codes are an important part of the
school environment and should diminish distractions and promote educa-
tional success. But is the code at GHHS accomplishing this goal? Without
fair enforcement by school staff members to all students, I argue, this
dress code fails in its goal. The room for arbitrary enforcement and dis-
criminatory punishment, which falls heavily on females, sends the wrong
message to our student body and will have long-term negative effects, as
did the teacher who questioned my morality. Her words reminded me
of the message society sends to women every day, that their bodies are a
public space for judgment. Is this a message GHHS really wants to send
our youth?
Work Cited
Kessel, Anna. Eat Sweat Play. Pan Macmillan, 2016.
Critiquing “A Detrimental and Defective Dress Code”
1. What criteria does Hadley Reeder use to evaluate her high school’s dress
code? What other criteria might be used?
2. Hadley hoped that the administrators of her former high school might read
her argument. How persuasive do you think her criteria would be for this
audience?
3. This argument relies mostly on evidence from personal experience. How does
this evidence support Hadley’s criteria? How might it be disputed? If she
were to argue for an institutional change in the dress code, what other kinds
of evidence could she enlist?
4. How persuasive do you find Hadley’s causal reasoning that discrimination
in dress codes has deeper personal and social repercussions for girls than it
does for boys?
Our final readings represent two different ethical arguments emerging
from recent research on therapeutic cloning at the Oregon Health and Sciences
302 Chapter 14
University. The first article, by Judith Daar and Erez Aloni, appeared as an op-ed
piece in the Los Angeles Times. Judith Daar, a professor of both law and medicine,
is a member of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Rep rod uc-
tive Medicine. Her co-author Erez Aloni is a professor at Whittier Law School.
The second article appeared a year earlier in National Review. It was written by
Catholic writer Samuel Aquila, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Denver,
Colorado.
Three Genetic Parents-
For One Healthy Baby
JUDITH DAAR AND EREZ ALONI
Since January, a new California law allows for a child to have more than two legal
parents. But children are still limited to two genetic parents. That could change
soon, if the Food and Drug Administration approves human clinical trials for a
technique known as mitochondrial replacement, which would enable a child to
inherit DNA from three parents.
News of the pending application has caused a kind of panic not seen since
Dolly the sheep was cloned, raising the possibility of a single genetic parent. But
far from being the end of the human race as we know it, the technique might be
a way to prevent hundreds of mitochondrial-linked diseases, which affect about
one in 5,000 people.
The idea of multi-person reproductive collaborations is not new. Over the
last several decades we have acclimated to various forms of assisted reproduc-
tive technologies. Indeed, in the U.S. about 75,000 infants are born each year to
parents who enlist the aid of egg donors, sperm donors, or gestational carriers.
These methods, however, still involve the “traditional” merger of DNA from one
male and one female.
Mitochondrial replacement would alter this two-genetic-parent model by
introducing a third set of DNA into the procreative process. The technique would
enable women who carry harmful mutations in their mitochondria to have a child
without those harmful mutations. As with all human reproduction, the child
would carry a combination of genes from one male and one female. However,
in this technique, the nucleus of the mother’s egg would be injected into a “third
parent’s” nucleus-free egg containing healthy mitochondrial DNA. As a result, the
child would inherit the characteristics of the original male and female but have
healthy mitochondria from a third person.
s Experiments employing the technique conducted on monkeys resulted in
healthy offspring that did not carry the harmful mutation. Now, a team at Oregon
Health and Sciences University is seeking approval from the FDA to begin human
clinical trials.
It seems likely that, if it is proved safe and effective, mitochondrial replace-
ment will eventually join the panoply of techniques facilitating the birth of healthy
children through assisted conception. But it should be no surprise that the new
technology is causing a furor.
The introduction of assisted reproductive technologies has followed a pre-
dictable pattern: initial panic followed by widespread condemnation, followed by
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 303
gradual acceptance as a technique becomes more widespread. In the 1950s, when
reports of pregnancies using donor sperm first appeared in medical journals,
lawmakers declared the process “mechanical adultery” and sought its criminal-
ization. Early reports of success with in vitro fertilization in the 1970s provoked
editorials that decried the process as totally immoral. In the 1990s, the introduc-
tion of pre-implantation diagnosis of genetic diseases provoked allegations of a
war on disabled individuals.
Today, detractors remain, but the methods have been embraced as the stan-
dard of care in reproductive medicine. Once a technique proves safe and effective,
its ability to assist in the birth of healthy children generally paves the way for
public approval.
For some, the introduction of a third genetic parent is alarming because the
novel genetic configuration could be embedded in the child’s DNA in perpetuity,
with unknown implications for future generations. But the panic also rests in part
on simple discomfort with upending the notion of genetic parenthood involving
just two people.
A similar anxiety seized the public this year after California authorized judges 10
to recognize more than two people as a child’s lawful parents. The law grew out
of a horrendous situation in which the court’s inability to recognize a third par-
ent diverted a young child into foster care. Though it’s hardly on par with the
scientific breakthrough represented by mitochondrial replacement, the so-called
three-parent law stirred deep fears about the durability of traditional family life
in the modern era.
But the fears about three-parent possibilities both genetic and legal are
likely to subside as people realize that they are aimed at one goal: the well-being
of children. The California law orders judges to recognize three parents when
not doing so “would otherwise be detrimental to the child.” And mitochondrial
replacement will be employed to avoid transmission of a heritable disease. If the
“power of three” has the ability to improve a child’s well-being, isn’t that some-
thing worth embracing?
The “Therapeutic Cloning” of
Human Embryos
SAMUEL AQUILA
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is the sort of timeless morality tale
students read as an antidote, or at least an objection, to the hedonism that seems
to follow naturally from youthful ideas about immortality.
The story is familiar to many: Dorian Gray is a narcissist who wishes that a
portrait of him his copy in paint would age in his place. His wish comes true,
and though his life is corrupted by a pursuit of pleasure, only his painted visage
bears the effects. Dorian himself is visibly unscathed, though the novel’s fatal
climax exposes a soul rendered ugly by a life of egoistic debauchery.
The Picture of Dorian Gray took on a particular prescience yesterday. Scientists
at Oregon Health and Science University reported a successful incidence of clon-
ing, one that relied on the same method that researchers used 17 years ago to clone
(continued)
304 Chapter 14
Dolly the sheep. This week, the cloned embryos were not sheep; they were human
beings. The work is heralded as the success of “therapeutic cloning.”
We w ill hear a lot about therapeutic cloning in the news this week. Researchers
distinguish between “therapeutic cloning,” which creates embryos in order to harvest
their stem cells, and “rep roductive cloning,” which has the intention of a live birth.
The Oregon researchers insist that theirs was not an act of “reproductive cloning.”
s But the distinction is spurious. Both types of cloning are reproductive. Both
bring a new human being into existence. In fact, so-called therapeutic cloning
is the more heinous because the process is intended to create life, exploit it, and
then destroy it.
Consider what the cloning breakthrough means. Scientists have discovered
how to create perfect human copies, to be used for the sole purpose of growing tis-
sue in the effort to combat d isease, and then these copies will be destroyed. From
a scientific perspective, this breakthrough could solve, among other problems,
that of tissue rejection or a delay that renders organ transplant unfeasible. From
the standpoint of materialism, there has been no greater advance in regenera-
tive medicine. Through therapeutic cloning, a p erson’s health can be enhanced
immeasurably and only the copy, the embryo, will suffer the effects.
The problem is th at the embryo is not merely a copy. The embryo is not an
extension of the patient who donated the DNA, a cell bank to be utilized without
consequence. The embryo, though genetically identical, is a new manifestation of
human life, endowed by its very being with dignity. The embryo is a human being.
The humanity of the cloned embryo will be aggressively denied in the weeks
to come. Though human life demonstrably begins at the embryonic stage of devel-
opment, the created embryo will be presented as a collection of tissue, a biological
tabula rasa from which organs can be grown. Scientists will seek more funding,
and the Dickey Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for the creation of
cloned embryos, w ill be attacked.
In 1968, Pope Paul VI warned in Humanae Vitae that the sexual revolution,
beginning with a cultural acceptance of the contraceptive mentality, would lead to a
wholesale denial of human d ignity and the family. Now we are cloning embryos to
destroy them. It w ill be only a matter of time before therapeutic cloning will cede to
reproductive cloning. If we don’t seriously contemplate the ethical consequences of
therapeutic cloning now, eventually cloned human beings will be born in America.
10 The “progress” of therapeutic cloning w ill not be victimless. But the victims
w ill be hidden from sight, tucked away in the dark like Dorian’s decaying portrait.
The first class of victims, and the ones most pressing on our consciences, will
be the embryos: brought into existence to be used, and then killed. If nurtured, as
in a womb, these embryos would grow into fetuses, and then infants, and then
children. They are, no matter their size, human beings. But because they are small
and have no voice and offer such tremendous possibility, they will be ignored.
The embryos will be a class of human beings created only to be exploited
and d iscarded.
The second class of victims will be the rest of us. We will be the ones remain-
ing healthy and making progress and defeating disease all by means of killing.
We w ill be the ones who appear beautiful, while our souls embrace the most har-
rowing kind of social utilitarianism and darkness. If we ignore the problem, as we
have done with contraception and abortion, we will only sink into a more violent
depravity, like the one that befell vain Dorian Gray. We will be the ones whose
p ortrait grows ever uglier, and who grow ever closer to madness.
Evaluation and Ethical Arguments 305
Critiquing “Three Genetic Parents-For One Healthy Baby” and “The
‘Therapeutic Cloning’ of Human Embryos”
1. In “Three Genetic Parents for One Healthy Baby,” Daar and Aloni note that
news coming from cloning research at Oregon Health and Science Univer-
sity “has caused a kind of panic not seen since Dolly the sheep was cloned.”
An example of this panic is the earlier National Review article by Archbishop
Aquila. Summarize Aquila’s objection to both therapeutic and reproductive
cloning. What rhetorical strategies do Daar and Aloni use to counter the
objections of those like Archbishop Aquila?
2. Identify in both articles examples of arguments from consequence and argu-
ments from principle used either to support the authors’ claims or to sum-
marize opposing claims.
3. Aquila acknowledges the health benefits of therapeutic cloning, particularly
its potential for curing or preventing certain diseases. He recognizes also
that many people will consider therapeutic cloning a moral good because it
produces good consequences. To make his case for the moral evil of cloning,
he creates an analogy argument based on Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of
Dorian Gray. Explain how this analogy functions. What does Aquila compare
to what?
306
Chapter 15
Learning Objectives
In this chapter you will learn to:
15.1 Explain the special features and concerns of proposal
arguments.
15.2 Use a problem-solution-justification structure to develop
proposal arguments.
15.3 Use heuristic strategies to develop supporting reasons
for your proposal argument.
15.4 Use words and images to create an advocacy poster
or advertisement.
15.5 Write your own proposal argument.
Proposal arguments are essential for the workings of a free and open society.
A proposal argument motivates its audience to recognize a problem and then
proposes a solution to the problem. When effective, proposal arguments call an
audience to action. Whether you are writing a grant proposal to seek funding for a
research project, a practical proposal for remedying a problem at your workplace,
or a policy proposal to address a national issue, proposal arguments are among
the most important kinds of writing you will ever be called upon to produce.
Case 1: Should the Supreme Court Overturn Roe v. Wade?
Among the most heated debates in the United States is whether the due process and pri-
vacy protections of the Fourteenth Amendment can be extended to a woman’s right to an
abortion. The right-to- life movement has intensified its efforts to restrict access to abor-
tions at the state level and to overturn Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court. Mean-
while, pro-choice advocates such as Planned Parenthood have vigorous ly defended a
woman’s right to an abortion. Both sides make effective use of visual arguments. Right-
to-life groups frequent ly use posters showing ultrasound images of unborn babies (often
not using the word “fetus”). The poster in Figure 15.1, sponsored by Planned Parent-
hood, features a starkly black question mark that on second look is seen to be made
from a coat hanger. It makes an implied proposal c laim (“Abortion should remain legal”)
and supports it with a consequence argument: If abortions are outlawed, women will
have abortions anyway-using coat hangers instead of med ically safe procedures. The
Figure 15.1 Planned Parenthood poster
When
your right
to an abortion
is taken away,
what are you
going to
do
Reproductive rights are under attack. The Pro-Choice Public Education Project. It’s pro-choice or no choice.
1 {688) 253-CHOICE or www.protect.choice.org
Proposal Arguments 307
image of the coat hanger (reminiscent of horror stories about abortions prior to Roe v.
Wade) appeals simultaneously to logos and pathos.
Case 2: ·How Should the United States Reduce the Carbon
Footprint of Automobiles?
The concern for climate change-combined w ith the high price of gasoline-has increased
the popularity of small, energy-efficient cars. Much debated among policy makers is the
role that federal or state governments should play in further promoting a green transporta-
tion system. Some argue that the government should stay out of free markets, letting buyers
decide for themselves what kinds of cars they want to buy. Others argue that free mar-
kets do not currently make gasoline consumers pay for the “externalities” (societal costs)
of gasoline consumption- particularly the cost to the environment of emitting more carbon
into the atmosphere. Concerned citizens have proposed dozens of ideas for reducing the
carbon footprint of cars and trucks. Among the proposals are the following: placing a “green
tax” on gasoline; requiring auto manufacturers to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleets;
giving tax credits for buying a fuel-efficient car, particularly an electric car; increasing incen-
tives for carpooling or taking public transportation; increasing the cost of parking; charging
different gas prices at the pump (with higher prices for less fuel-efficient cars); retrofitting
cars to burn natural gas; and rebuilding cities so that housing is closer to worksites.
308 Chapter 15
The Special Features and Concerns
of Proposal Arguments
15.1 Explain the special features and concerns of proposal arguments.
Although proposal arguments are the last type of argument we examine, they
are among the most common arguments that you will encounter or be called
on to write. The essence of proposal arguments is a call for action. In reading a
proposal, the audience is enjoined to make a decision and then to act on it to
do something. Proposal arguments are sometimes called should or ought argu-
ments because those helping verbs express the obligation to act. They typically
have a three-part structure: (1) description of a problem, (2) proposed solution,
and (3) justification for the proposed solution. In the justification section of your
proposal argument, you develop because clauses of the kinds you have practiced
throughout this text.
Practical Proposals Versus Policy Proposals
For instructional purposes, we distinguish between two kinds of proposal argu-
ments practical proposals, which propose an action to solve some kind of local or
immediate problem, and policy proposals, which propose a broad plan of action to
solve major social, economic, or political problems affecting the common good.
A student’s proposal to build bike paths on campus would be an example of a
practical proposal. In contrast, an argument that the United States should abolish
the income tax would be a policy proposal.
The primary difference is the narrowness versus breadth of the concern. Prac-
tical proposals are narrow, local, and concrete; they focus on the nuts and bolts of
getting something done in the here and now. They are often concerned with the
exact size of a piece of steel, the precise duties of a new person to be hired, or a
close estimate of the cost of paint or computers to be purchased. Policy propos-
als, in contrast, are concerned with the broad outline and shape of a course of
action, often on a regional, national, or even international issue. What govern-
ment should do about overcrowding of prisons would be a problem addressed
by policy proposals. How to improve the security alarm system for the county jail
would be addressed by a practical proposal.
Learning to write both kinds of proposals is valuable. Researching and writ-
ing a policy proposal is an excellent way to practice the responsibilities of citizen-
ship, which require the ability to understand complex issues and to weigh positive
and negative consequences of policy choices. In your professional life, writing
practical proposals may well be among your most important duties on the job.
Effective proposal writing is the lifeblood of many companies and constitutes one
of the most powerful ways you can identify and help solve problems.
Toulmin Framework for a Proposal Argument
The Toulmin schema is particularly useful for proposal arguments because it
helps you support your proposal with reasons linked to your audience’s beliefs,
assumptions, and values. Suppose that your university is debating whether to
Proposal Arguments 309
banish fraternities and sororities. Suppose further that you are in favor of ban-
ishing the Greek system. One of your arguments is that eliminating the Greek
system will improve your university’s academic reputation. The following chart
shows how you might use the Toulmin schema to make this line of reasoning as
persuasive as possible.
Toulmin Analysis of the Greek System Argument
ENTHYMEME
CLAIM Our university should eliminate the
Greek system
REASON because doing so will improve our
university’s academic reputation.
GROUNDS
Evidence that eliminating the Greek system will
improve our academic reputation:
• Excessive party atmosphere of some Greek
houses emphasizes social life rather than
studying-we are known as a party school.
• Last year the average GPA of students in
fraternities and sororities was lower than the
GPA of non-Greek students.
• New p ledges have so many house duties and
initiation rites that their studies suffer.
• Many new students think about rush more
than about the academic life.
WARRANT
It is good for our university to achieve a better
academic reputation.
BACKING
• The school would attract more serious
students, leading to increased prestige.
• Campus would be more academically focused
and attract better faculty.
• Losing the “party-school” reputation would put
us in better light for taxpayers and legislators.
• Students would graduate with more skills and
knowledge.
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking the reason and grounds
• Many of the best students are Greeks. Last
year’s highest-GPA award went to a sorority
woman, and several other Greeks won
prestigious graduate school scholarships.
• Statistics on grades are misleading. Many
houses had a much higher average GPA than
the university average. Total GPA was
brought down by a few rowdy houses.
• Many other high-prestige universities have
Greek systems.
• There are ways to tone down the party
atmosphere on campus without abolishing
the Greek system.
• Greeks contribute significantly to the
community through service projects.
CONDITIONS OF REBUTTAL
Attacking the warrant and backing
• No one will argue that it is not good to
have a strong academic reputation.
• However, skeptics may say that
eliminating sororities and fraternities won’t
improve the university’s academic reputation
but will hurt its social life and its wide range
of living options.
Special Concerns for P-roposal Argum_ents
In their call for action, proposal arguments entail certain emphases and audience
concerns that you don’t generally face with other kinds of arguments. Let’s look
briefly at some of these special concerns.
310 Chapter15
• The need for presence. To persuade people to act on your proposal, particularly
if the personal or financial cost of acting is high, you must give your argument
presence as well as intellectual force. By presence we mean an argument’s abil-
ity to grip your readers’ hearts and imaginations as well as their intellects.
You can give presence to an argument through appeals to pathos, such as
effective use of details, provocative statistics, dialogue, illustrative narratives,
and compelling examples that show the reader the seriousness of the problem
you are addressing or the consequences of not acting on your proposal.
• The need to overcome people’s natural conservatism. Another difficulty with pro-
posals is the innate conservatism of all human beings, whatever their political
persuasion, as suggested by the popular adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The difficulty of proving that something needs fixing is compounded by the
fact that frequently the status quo appears to be working. So, when writing a
proposal, sometimes you can’t argue that what we have is bad, but only that
what we could have would be better. Often, then, a proposal argument will
be based not on present evils but on the evils of lost potential. And getting an
audience to accept lost potential may be difficult indeed, given the inherently
abstract nature of potentiality.
• The difficulty of predicting future consequences. Most proposal makers will
be forced to predict consequences of their proposed action. As the “law of
unintended consequences” suggests, few major decisions lead neatly to their
anticipated results without surprises along the way. So when we claim that
our proposal will lead to good consequences, we can expect our audience to
be skeptical.
• The problem of evaluating consequences. A final problem for proposal writers is
the difficulty of evaluating consequences. In government and industry, man-
agers often use a cost-benefit analysis to reduce all consequences to a single-
scale comparison, usually money. Although this scale may work well in some
circumstances, it can lead to grotesquely inappropriate conclusions in other
situations. Just how does one balance the environmental benefits of a green tax
on gasoline against the suffering of drivers who can’t afford to get to work?
Also, a benefit for one group often entails a cost for others. For example, a
higher minimum wage will benefit low-wage workers at a cost to consumers,
who must pay higher prices, or to other low-wage workers who get laid off.
These, then, are some of the general difficulties facing someone who sets out to
write a proposal argument. Although these difficulties may seem daunting, the
rest of this chapter offers strategies to help you overcome them and produce a
successful proposal.
Developing a Proposal Argument
15.2 Use a problem-solution-justification structure to develop
proposal arguments.
Writers of proposal arguments must focus on three main phases or stages of the
argument: showing that a problem exists, explaining the proposed solution, and
offering a justification.
Proposal Arguments 311
Examining Visual Arguments
( . ~
(
A P~Uposal Claim
Th is photo of a dead baby albatross on a Pacific island near an albatross nesting ground resembles the
photos taken by environmental photographer Chris Jordan in his well-known 2009 exhibit entitled Midway:
Message from the Gyre. The purpose of that exhibit was to draw attention to the effects of the increasing
amount of ocean garbage on albatrosses, wh ich mistake the garbage for food. How could this photo be
used to generate concern and activism regarding t his environmental problem? The colorful, plastic-filled car-
cass of the baby albatross creates a complex appeal to pathos in the way that it illustrates the problem. What
verbal text wou ld you use to interpret the photo’s message and call people to action?
Convincing Your Readers That a Proble111 Exists
There is one argumentative strategy generic to all proposal arguments: calling
your reader’s attention to a problem. In some situations, your intended audience
may already be aware of the p roblem and may h ave even asked for solutions. In
such cases, you do not need to develop the problem extensively or motivate your
audience to solve it. But in most situations, awakening your readers to the exis-
tence of a problem a problem they may not have recognized before is your first
important challenge. You must give your problem presence through anecdotes,
telling statistics, or other means that show readers how the problem affects people
or otherwise has important stakes. Your goal is to gain your readers’ intellectual
assent to the depth, range, and p otential seriousness of the problem and thereby
motivate them to want to solve it.
Typically, the arguer develops the problem in one of two places: either (1) in
the introduction prior to the presentation of the arguer’s proposed solution or (2)
in the body of the paper as the first main reason justifying the p roposed solution.
312 Chapter 15
In the second instance the writer’s first because clause has the following structure:
“We should do this action because it addresses a serious problem.”
Here is how one student writer gave presence to a proposal, addressed to
the chair of the mathematics department at her school, calling for redesign of the
first-year calculus curriculum in order to slow its pace. She wants the chair to see
the problem from her perspective.
Example Passage Giving Presence to a Problem
I want to become a high-school math teacher. For me, the problem with intro-
ductory calculus is not its difficulty but its pace. My own experience in the Calculus
134 and 135 sequence last year showed me that it was not the learning of calculus
that was difficult for me. I was able to catch on to the new concepts. My problem
was that it went too fast. Just as I was assimilating new concepts and feeling the
need to reinforce them, the class was on to a new topic before I had full mastery
of the old concept. … Part of the reason for the fast pace is that calculus is a feeder
course for computer science and engineering. If prospective engineering students
can’t learn calculus rapidly, they drop out of the program. The high dropout rate
benefits the Engineering School because it uses the math course to weed out an
overabundance of engineering majors. Thus the pace of the calculus course is
geared to the needs of the engineering curriculum, not to the needs of someone
like me, who wants to be a high-school mathematics teacher and who believes that
my own difficulties with math combined with my love for it might make me
an excellent math teacher.
By describing the fast pace of the math curriculum from the perspective of a future
math teacher rather than an engineering student, this writer brings visibility to
a problem. What before didn’t look like a problem (it is good to weed out weak
engineering majors) suddenly became a problem (it is bad to weed out future
math teachers). Establishing herself as a serious student genuinely interested in
learning calculus, she gave presence to the problem by calling attention to it in
anew way.
Explaining the Proposed Solution:
Showing the Specifics of Your Proposal
Having decided that there is a problem to be solved, you should lay out your
thesis, which is a proposal for solving the problem. Your goal now is to stress the
feasibility of your solution, including costs. The art of proposal making is the art
of the possible. Certainly, not all proposals require elaborate descriptions of the
implementation process. For example, if you are proposing that a local PTA chap-
ter buy new tumbling mats for the junior-high gym classes, the procedures for
buying the mats will probably be irrelevant. But in many arguments, the specifics
of your proposal the actual step-by-step methods of implementing it may be
instrumental in winning your audience’s support.
You will also need to show how your proposal will solve the problem either
partially or wholly. Sometimes you may first need to convince your reader that
the problem is solvable and not something intractably rooted in “the way things
are,” such as earthquakes or jealousy. In other words, expect that some members
Proposal Arguments 3 13
of your audience will be skeptical about the ability of any proposal to solve the
problem you are addressing. You may need, therefore, to “listen” to this point of
view in your refutation section and to argue that your problem is at least p artially
solvable.
To persuade your audience that your proposal can work, you can follow
any one of several approaches. A typical approach is to use a causal argument
to show that your solution is feasible. Another approach is to use a resemblance
argument to show how similar proposals have been successful elsewhere. Or, if
sim ilar things have failed in the past, you try to show how the present situation
is different.
Offering a Justification_: Convincing Your
Readers That the Benefits of Your Proposal
Outweigh the Costs
The justification phase of a proposal argument will need extensive development
in some arguments and minimal develop ment in others, again dep ending on your
particular problem and the rhetorical context of your proposal. If your audience
already acknowledges the seriousness of the problem you are addressing and has
simply been waiting for the right solution to come along, then your argument will
be successful, provided you can convince your audience that your solution will
work and that it won’t cost too much. Such arguments depend on the clarity of
your proposal and the feasibility of its implementation.
But what if the costs are high? What if your readers don’t think the prob-
lem is serious? What if they don’t appreciate the benefits of solving the problem
or the bad consequences of not solving it? In such cases you have to develop
persuasive reasons for enacting your proposal. You may also have to determine
who has the power to act on your proposal and apply arguments directly to
that person’s or agency’s immediate interests. You need to know to whom or to
what your power source is beholden or responsive. You must also know what
values your power source holds that can be appealed to. In short, you’re looking
for the best p ressure points.
Using Heuristic Strategies to
Develop Supporting Reasons for
Your Proposal
15.3 Use heuristic strategies to develop supporting reasons for your
proposal argument.
To help you find supporting reasons for your proposal the pressure points
that will move your audience we offer two heuristic strategies. (A heuristic
is an exploratory problem-solving technique or invention aid that helps you
generate ideas.) We call these heuristics the claim types strategy and the stock
issues strategy.
314 Chapter15
The Claim Types Strategy
In Chapter 11 we explained how evaluation and proposal claims often use claims
about category, cause, or resemblance for their supporting reasons. This fact leads
to a powerful idea-generating strategy based on arguments from category (partic-
ularly from a category of actions that adhere to a certain principle), on arguments
from consequences, or on arguments from resemblance. Table 15.1 illustrates this
claim types strategy.
Before we give you some simple strategies for using this approach, let’s illus-
trate it with another example.
Example
The United States should levy a “carbon tax” on carbon-based fuels
• because such a tax accords with the free-market principle that the
price of a good should reflect the full cost of production (category I
principle).
• because such a tax will accelerate the transition to cleaner fuels and
thus help reduce global warming (cause/ consequence).
• because this approach is similar to the market-based tax on sulfur
emissions that helped solve the problem of acid rain (resemblance).
Note how each of these supporting reasons appeals to the value system of dif-
ferent kinds of voters. The writer argues that a carbon tax belongs to the category
of things that use free market principles (particularly valued by conservative,
pro-business voters); that it will lead to the good consequence of reducing global
warming (valued particularly by environmentalists and others worried about cli-
mate change); and that it is similar to something that has already proved success-
ful (the market-based approach to fighting acid rain, which has been applauded
by both liberals and conservatives). The claim types strategy for generating ideas
is easy to apply in practice. Table 15.2 shows you how.
Table 15.1 Explanation of Claim Types Strategy for Supporting a Proposal Claim
Argument from
principle o r
category
Argument from
consequences
Argument from
resemblance
We should do this action
• because doing so adheres
to this good principle [or]
• because this action belongs
to this good category
• because this action
w ill lead to these good
conseq uences
• because this action has
been done successfully
elsewhere [or]
• because this action is like
this ot her good action
We should support genetically modified foods
• because doing so values scient ific reason
over emot ion [or]
• because genetically modified foods are
safe [belong to the category of safe things]
• because biotech crops can reduce world
hunger
• because biotech crops can improve t he
environment by reducing use of pest icides
• because genetic modification is like nat u-
ral crossbreeding that has been acceler-
ated [or]
• because genetic modification of food is
like scientific advancements in medicine
Proposal Arguments 315
Table 15.2 Suggestions for Applying the Claim Types Strategy to Your Proposal
A rgument from
principle or
category
A rgument from
consequences
A rgument from
resemblance
Show how your proposed
action follows a principle valued
by your audience or belongs
to a category valued by your
audience.
Show how your proposed
action wil l lead to consequences
val ued by your audience.
Show how your proposed
action has been done success-
fully elsewhere or is like another
action valued by your audience.
The Stock Issues Strategy
Think of how you r proposed action ad heres
to an audience-valued rule or principle or
belongs to an audience-valued category
(for example, “doing t his action is kind, just,
constitutional , appropriately restrained, safe ,
efficient, and so forth”).
Brainstorm consequences of your proposal
and identify those that the audience w ill
agree are good.
Fi nd analogies that compare your proposed
action to something the audience already
values or find previous places or times that
your proposed action (or something similar to
it) has been done successfully.
Another effective heuristic for a proposal argument is to ask yourself a series of
questions based on the stock issues strategy. For example, suppose you wanted
to develop the following argument: “To solve the problem of students who won’t
take risks with their writing, the faculty should adopt a pass/fail method of grad-
ing in all writing courses.” The stock issues strategy invites the writer to consider
“stock” ways (that is, common, usual, frequently repeated ways) that such argu-
ments can be conducted.
Stock issue 1: Is there really a problem here that needs to be solved? Is it really true
that a large number of student writers won’t take risks in their writing? Is this
problem more serious than other writing problems, such as undeveloped ideas,
lack of organization, and poor sentence structure? This stock issue invites the
writer to convince her audience that a true problem exists. Conversely, an
opponent of the proposal may argue that a true problem does not exist.
Stock issue 2: Will the proposed solution really solve this problem? Is it true that a
pass I fail grading system will cause students to take more risks with their writ-
ing? Will more interesting, surprising, and creative essays result from pass/
fail grading? Or will students simply put less effort into their writing? This
stock issue prompts a supporter to demonstrate that the proposal will solve the
problem; it also prompts the opponent to show that the proposal won’t work.
Stock issue 3: Can the problem be solved more simply, without disturbing the status
quo? An opponent of the proposal may agree that a problem exists and that
the proposed solution might solve it. However, the opponent may say, “Are
there not less radical ways to solve this problem? If we want more creative and
risk-taking student essays, can’t we just change our grading criteria so that we
reward risky papers and penalize conventional ones?” This stock issue prompts
supporters to show that only the proposed solution will solve the problem and
that no minor tinkering with the status quo will be adequate. Conversely, oppo-
nents will argue that the problem can be solved without acting on the proposal.
316 Chapter 15
For Writing and Discussion
Generating Ideas Using the Claim Types Strategy
Individual task:
Use the strateg ies of principle/category, consequence, and resemblance to create because clauses that
support each of the fo llowing claims. Try to have at least one because clause for each of the claim types,
but generate as many reasons as possible. Don’t worry about whether any individual reason exactly fits the
category. The purpose is to stimulate thinking, not fi ll in the slots.
Example
Congress should not pass gun-control laws (proposal claim)
• because the Second Amendment guarantees the right to own guns (principle or category).
• because owning a gun allows citizens to protect themselves, their homes, and their loved ones
from intruders (consequence).
• because laws to ban guns wi ll be as ineffective as laws to ban alcohol during Prohibition
(resemblance).
Claims:
1. For graduation, col leges shou ld require one course with an integrated community service component.
2. Restaurants should be required to post calorie counts and other ingredient information for all menu
items.
3. Division-1 college athletes shou ld receive salaries.
4. Alcohol should not be al lowed on campus.
5. Parents should be heavily taxed for having more than two chi ldren.
Group task:
Share your efforts with classmates. Then, working in small groups or as a class, repeat the exercise, taking
the opposite position on each issue.
Stock issue 4: Is the proposed solution really practical? Does it stand a chance of
actually being enacted? Here an opponent to the proposal may agree that the
proposal would work but contends that it involves pie-in-the-sky idealism.
Nobody will vote to change the existing system so radically; therefore, it is a
waste of our time to debate it. Following this prompt, supporters would have
to argue that pass/fail grading is workable and that enough faculty members
are in favor of it that the proposal is worth debating. Opponents may argue
that the faculty is so traditional that pass I fail has no chance of being accepted,
despite its merits.
Stock issue 5: What will be the unforeseen positive and negative consequences of the
proposal? Suppose we do adopt a pass/fail system. What positive or negative
consequences may occur that are different from our initial predictions? Using
this prompt, an opponent may argue that pass/fail grading will reduce the
effort put forth by students and that the long-range effect will be writing of
even lower quality than we have now. Supporters would try to find positive
consequences perhaps a new love of writing for its own sake rather than for
the sake of a grade.
Proposal Arguments 317
For Writing and Discussion
Brainstorming Ideas for a Proposal
The follow ing collaborative exercise takes you through the process of creating a proposal argument.
1. In small groups, identify and list several major problems facing students in your col lege or university.
2. Decide among yourselves which are the most important of these problems and rank them in order of
importance.
3. Take your group’s number-one problem and explore answers to the following questions. Group record-
ers shou ld be prepared to present their group’s answers to the class.
a. Why is the problem a problem?
b. For whom is the problem a problem?
c. How w ill these people suffer if the problem is not solved? (G ive specific examples.)
d. Who has the power to solve the problem?
e. Why hasn’t the problem been solved up to this point?
f. How can the problem be solved? (That is, create a proposal.)
g. What are the probable benefits of acting on your proposal?
h. What costs are associated w ith your proposal?
i. Who w ill bear those costs?
j. Why should this proposal be enacted?
k. Why is it better than alternative proposals?
4. As a group, draft an outline for a proposal argument in which you
a. describe the problem and its significance.
b. propose your solution to the problem.
c. justify your proposal by showing how the benefits of adopting that proposal outweigh the costs.
5. Recorders for each group should write their group’s outline on the board and be prepared to explain
it to the class.
Proposal Arguments as Advocacy
Posters or Advertisements
15.4 Use words and images to create an advocacy poster or advertisement.
A frequently encountered kind of proposal argument is the one-page newspaper
or magazine advertisement often purchased by advocacy groups to promote a
cause. Such arguments also appear as web pages or as posters or fliers. These
condensed advocacy arguments are marked by their bold, abbreviated, tightly
planned format. The creators of these arguments know they must work fast to
capture our attention, give presence to a problem, advocate a solution, and enlist
our support. Advocacy advertisements frequently use photographs, images, or
icons that appeal to a reader’s emotions and imagination. In addition to images,
they often use different type sizes and styles. Large-type text in these documents
frequently takes the form of slogans or condensed thesis statements written in an
arresting style.
To outline and justify their solutions, creators of advocacy ads often put main
supporting reasons in bulleted lists and sometimes enclose carefully selected
facts and quotations in boxed sidebars. To add an authoritative ethos, the argu-
ments often include fine-print footnotes and bibliographies. (For more detailed
318 Chapter15
discussion of how advocacy posters and advertisements use images and arrange
text for rhetorical effect, see Chapter 9 on visual argument.)
Another prominent feature of these condensed, highly visual arguments is
their appeal to the audience through a direct call for a course of action: for exam-
ple, go to an advocacy website to find more information on how to support the
cause; send an e-mail to a decision maker or political representative; vote for or
against the proposition or the candidate; or donate money to a cause.
Figure 15.2 shows an example of a student-produced advocacy poster. Here,
environmental studies student Janie Bube urges residents of her city to build
rain gardens to help solve the problem of excess stormwater. At the top of this
poster, Janie gives the problem presence by using a flood photo she took during
her internship fieldwork. She then offers her proposed solution, made visually
appealing by another of her own photos a neighborhood rain garden. She offers
three reasons to justify the creation of rain gardens, asserting why and how rain
gardens work. The final lines of the poster send readers to a website for more
information. The rhetorical effect of the text, image, and layout is to attract read-
ers’ attention, remind them of the problem, and push them toward adopting her
proposed solution.
riting Assignment:
A Proposal Argument
15.5 Write your own proposal argument.
Option 1: A Practical Proposal Addressing a Local Problem Write a practical
proposal offering a solution to a local problem. Your proposal should have three
main sections: (1) description of the problem, (2) proposed solution, and (3) justi-
fication. Proposals are usually accompanied by a letter of transmittal a one-page
business letter that introduces the proposal to its intended audience and provides
some needed background about the writer. Document design is important in prac-
tical proposals, which are aimed at busy people who have to make many decisions
under time constraints. An effective design helps establish the writer’s ethos as a
quality-oriented professional and helps make the reading of the proposal as easy
as possible. For a student example of a practical proposal, see Megan Johnson’s
argument at the end of this chapter.
Option 2: A Policy Proposal as a Guest Editorial Write a two- to three-page
policy proposal suitable for publication as a feature editorial in a college or city
newspaper, on an appropriate website, or in a publication associated with a par-
ticular group, such as a church newsletter or employee bulletin. The voice and
style of your argument should be aimed at readers of your chosen publication or
website. Your editorial should have the following features:
1. The identification of a problem (Persuade your audience that this is a genuine
problem that needs solving; give it presence.)
2. A proposal for action that will help alleviate the problem
3. A justification of your solution (the reasons why your audience should accept
your proposal and act on it)
Proposal Arguments 319
Option 3: A Researched Argument Proposing Public Policy Write an eight- to
twelve-page proposal argument as a formal research paper, using researched
data for development and support. In business and professional life, this kind
of research proposal is often called a white paper, which recommends a course of
action internally within an organization or externally to a client or stakeholder. An
example of a researched policy proposal is student writer Ivan Snook’s “Flirting
with Disaster: An Argument against Integrating Women into the Combat Arms”
at the end of this chapter.
Option 4: Multimedia Project: A One-Page Advocacy Poster or Advertise-
ment Using the strategies of visual argument discussed in Chapter 9 and earlier
in this chapter, create a one-page advocacy advertisement urging action on a pub-
lic issue. Your advertisement should be designed for publication in a newspaper
or website or for distribution as a poster or flier. For an example of a student-
produced advocacy poster, see Janie Bube’s poster in Figure 15.2.
Figure 15.2 Student advocacy poster
Is Stormwater Turning Your Street Into a Lake?
Installing green stormwater infrastructure technologies like rain
gardens will address this problem.
Install a rain garden to:
• Slow, retain, and absorb runoff
• Replicate the functioning of a forest in cleaning pollutants from the water
• Add natural beauty
For further information contact Rain Wise through Seattle Public Utilities at
rainwise@seattle .gov
320 Chapter 15
Option 5: Multimedia Project: A Proposal Speech with Visual Aids Deliver a
proposal argument as a prepared but extemporaneous speech of approximately
five to eight minutes, supported with visual aids created on presentation software
such as PowerPoint or Prezi. Your speech should present a problem, propose a
solution, and justify the solution with reasons and evidence. Use visual aids to
give presence to the problem and to enhance appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos.
Good aids use visual strategies to create encapsulated visual arguments; they are
not simply bullet point outlines of your speech. Sandy Wainscott’s speech outline
and selected Power Point slides (at the end of this chapter) illustrate this genre.
Exploring Ideas
Because should or ought issues are among the most common sources of arguments,
you may already have ideas for proposal issues. To think of ideas for practical
proposals, try making an idea map of local problems you would like to see solved.
For initial spokes, try trigger words such as the following:
• Problems at my university (dorms, parking, registration system, financial aid,
campus appearance, clubs, curriculum, intramural program, athletic teams)
• Problems in my city or town (dangerous intersections, ugly areas, inadequate
lighting, parks, police policy, public transportation, schools)
• Problems at my p lace of work (office design, flow of customer traffic, mer-
chandise display, company policies)
• Problems related to my future career, hobbies, recreational time, life as a con-
sumer, life as a homeowner
If you can offer a solution to the problem you identify, you may make a valuable
contribution to some phase of public life.
To find a topic for policy proposals, stay in touch with the news, which will
keep you aware of current debates on regional and national issues. Also, visit the
websites of your congressional representatives to see what issues they are cur-
rently investigating and debating. You might think of your policy proposal as a
white paper for one of your legislators.
Once you have decided on a proposal issue, we recommend you explore it
by trying one or more of the following activities:
• Explore ideas by using the claim types strategy.
• Explore ideas by using the stock issues strategy.
• Explore ideas using the eleven questions (3a-3k) in the For Writing and
Discussion exercise, “Brainstorming Ideas for a Proposal.”
Identifying Your Audience and Determining
What’s at Stake
Before drafting your argument, identify your targeted audience and determine
what’s at stake. Consider your responses to the following questions:
• What audience are you targeting? What background do they need to under-
stand your problem? How much do they already care about it? How could
you motivate them to care?
• After they read your argument, what stance do you imagine them holding?
What change do you want to bring about in their view or their behavior?
Proposal Arguments 321
• What will they find uncomfortable or threatening about your proposal? Par-
ticularly, what costs will they incur by acting on your proposal?
• What objections might they raise? What counterarguments or alternative
solutions will you need to address?
• Why does your proposal matter? What is at stake?
Organizing a Proposal Argument
When you write your draft, you may find it helpful to have at hand an orga-
nization plan for a proposal argument. The plan in Figure 15.3 shows a typical
structure for a proposal argument. In some cases, you may want to summarize
and rebut opposing views before you present the justification for your own
proposal.
Figure 15.3 Organization plan for a proposal argument
Introduce and develop the
problem.
Present your proposed solution
to the problem.
Justify your proposed solution
through a series of supporting
reasons.
Respond to objections or to
alternative proposals.
Conclude.
• Engage readers’ interest in your problem.
• Provide background, including previous attempts
to solve the problem.
• Give the problem #presence” by showing who is
affected and what is at stake.
• Argue that the problem is solvable (optional).
• First, state your proposal concisely to serve as
your thesis statement or claim.
• Then, explain the specifics of your proposal.
• Restate your claim and forecast your supporting
reasons.
• Present and develop reason I.
• Present and develop reason 2.
• Present and develop additional reasons.
• Anticipate and summarize possible objections or
alternative ways to solve the problem.
• Respond appropriately through rebuttal or
•
concession.
• Sum up your argument and help readers return to
the #big picture” of what’s at stake.
• Call readers to action.
• End with something memorable.
322 Chapter 15
Designing a One-Page Advocacy Poster
or Advertisem.ent
As an alternative to a traditional written argument, your instructor may ask you
to create a one-page advocacy advertisement. The first stage of your invention
process should be the same as that for a longer proposal argument. Choose a con-
troversial public issue that needs immediate attention or a neglected issue about
which you want to arouse public passion. As with a longer proposal argument,
consider your audience in order to identify the values and beliefs on which you
will base your appeal.
When you construct your argument, the limited space available demands effi-
ciency in your choice of words and in your use of document design. Your goal is to
have a memorable impact on your reader in order to promote the action you advo-
cate. The following questions may help you design and revise your advocacy ad:
1. How could photos or other graphic elements establish and give presence to
the problem?
2. How can type size, type style, and layout be used to present the core of your
proposal, including the justifying reasons, in the most powerful way for the
intended audience?
3. Can any part of this argument be presented as a memorable slogan or catch-
phrase? What key phrases could highlight the parts or the main points of
this argument?
4. How can document design clarify the course of action and the direct demand
on the audience this argument is proposing?
5. How can use of color enhance the overall impact of your advocacy argument?
(Note: One-page advertisements are expensive to reproduce in color, but you
might make effective use of color if your advocacy ad were to appear as a
poster or web page.)
Designing Power Point Slides or Other Visual
Aids for a Speech
In designing visual aids, your goal is to increase the persuasive effect of your
speech rather than to demonstrate your technical wizardry. A common mistake
with Power Point presentations is to get enamored with the program’s bells and
whistles. If you find yourself thinking about special effects (animations, fade-outs,
flashing letters) rather than about “at a glance” visual appeals to logos or pathos,
you may be on the wrong track. Another common mistake is to use slides simply
to project a bullet-point outline of your speech. Our best advice in designing slides
is thus to “think visual argument.”
In terms of visual argument, effective presentation slides can usually be
placed in three design categories:
• Slides using images (photographs, drawings) to enhance pathos or to create a
snapshot that visually clarifies a concept (logo s)
• Slides using graphs or other visual displays of numbers to make numeric
arguments
• Slides using bulleted (all-text) subpoints for evidence
Proposal Arguments 323
All the strategies for visual arguments discussed in Chapter 9 and in this
chapter under the heading “Proposal Arguments as Advocacy Posters or Adver-
tisements” apply equally to presentation slides.
In most cases, the title of the slide should put into words the slide’s take-away
point. That is, the title should provide a verbal summary of the slide’s visual argu-
ment. Most rhetoricians suggest that the title of a slide be a short sentence that
makes a point rather than just a topic phrase.
Topic as Title (Weak)
Coal and the Environment
The Effect of Money on Happiness
Point as Title (Strong)
Burning Coal Produces Dangerous Greenhouse Gases
More Money Doesn’t Mean More Happiness
Student writer Sandy Wainscott follows these principles in her speech and
accompanying Power Point slides, shown in the reading at the end of this chapter.
Questioning and Critiquing a Proposal Argument
As we’ve suggested, proposal arguments need to overcome people’s innate con-
servatism, the difficulty of anticipating all the consequences of a proposal, and
so forth. What questions, then, can we ask about proposal arguments to help us
anticipate these problems?
• Will a skeptic deny that my problem is really a problem? Be prepared for skeptics
who aren’t bothered by your problem, who see your problem as limited to a
small group of people, or who think you are exaggerating.
• Will a skeptic doubt the effectiveness of my solution? A skeptic might agree that
your problem is indeed important and worth solving but might not be con-
vinced that your solution will work. For these skeptics, you’ll need to provide
evidence that your solution is feasible and workable. Also be prepared for
skeptics who focus on the potential negative or unintended consequences of
your proposed solution.
• Will a skeptic think my proposal costs too much? The most commonly asked question
of any proposal is simply, “Do the benefits of enacting the proposal outweigh the
costs?” Be wary of the (understandable) tendency to underestimate the costs and
exaggerate the benefits of a proposal. Honesty will enhance your ethos.
• Will a skeptic suggest counterproposals? Once you’ve convinced readers that
a problem exists, they are likely to suggest solutions different from yours.
It makes sense to anticipate alternative solutions and to work out ways to
argue why your solution is better. And who knows? You may end up liking
the counterproposal better and changing your mind about what to propose!
Readings
Our first reading, by student writer Megan Johnson, is a practical proposal address-
ing the problem of an inequitable meal plan on her campus one that she claims
discriminates against women. As a practical proposal, it uses headings and other
elements of document design aimed at giving it a finished and professional appear-
ance. When sent to the intended audience, it is accompanied by a single-spaced
letter of transmittal following the conventional format of a business letter.
324 Chapter 15
Ms. Jane Doe
Student Essay
A Practical Proposal
Megan Johnson
Vice President for Budgeting and Finance
Certain University
Certain City
Certain State, Zip
Dear Ms. Doe:
Enclosed is a proposal that addresses our university’s minimum meal-plan requirements for
students living on campus. My proposal shows the problems associated with this requirement and
suggests a workable solution for the university.
The enclosed proposal suggests a modest plan for allowing students to use their campus cards
to purchase items off campus. Currently, students are required to purchase a minimum meal plan of
$1,170, even though women eat less than men and often have to donate unspent meal funds back to
the university. This proposal would give students the option to spend some of their meal plan money
off campus. The benefits of my plan include more fairness to women students, fewer incentives toward
binge eating, more opportunities for student bonding, and better relations with the nearby business
community.
Through web research, I have discovered that other universities have systems in place similar
to the one I am proposing. I hope that my proposal is received well and considered as a work-
able option. A change in the minimum meal-plan requirement might make our university a more
desirable option for more prospective students as well as ultimately benefit the general welfare
of the current student body.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Megan Johnson (Student)
A Proposal to Allow Off-Campus Purchases with a University Meal Card,
Submitted by Megan Johnson (Student)
Problem
The problem with this university’s required meal plan is that it is too large for many students,
particularly women. For example, at the end of Winter Quarter, my final balance on my meal
card was $268.50, all of which, except for $100, I had to donate back to the university. As the
current system stands, students have to purchase a minimum meal plan for living on campus.
The minimum meal plan totals $1,170 per quarter. During the academic year an amount of $100
may be rolled into the next quarter. At the end of the quarter any remaining funds, excluding
the $100, will be removed from the meal plan. Therefore, if students do not spend the money on
their meal plans, it will be wasted. As a woman, I am frustrated about having to decide whether
to give my money back to the university or to use up my meal card by binge eating at the end
of each quarter.
Proposal Arguments 325
Proposed Solution
I propose that our university create a system in which students are able to use their campus meal
plans at local businesses off campus such as local drug stores, grocery stores, and restaurants. As
I will note later in this proposal, other universities have such a system, so the technical difficulties
should be easy to solve. Basically, the card works as a debit card loaded with the amount of money
the student places on the card. Local businesses would swipe a student’s card the same way as
the on-campus food service currently does, deducting the current charge against the amount still
available on the card. It would probably be possible to limit the total number of dollars available
for spending off campus.
Justification
My proposal would allow on-campus residential students to use some of their meal-plan money
on groceries, on non-food related items such as toiletries, or on an occasional off-campus meal at
a local restaurant. This proposal would resolve the problem of gender bias in the current system,
promote opportunities for more bonding among students, and ultimately help create a healthier
student body. Moreover, it would show the university’s commitment to its students’ welfare.
First of all, the current meal plan policy tends to discriminate against women. All students on
campus are required to have a minimum meal plan, even though men and women have clearly
different eating habits. Men tend to eat much more than women and frequently have to add money
to their meal plans to get through the quarter. In contrast, many women, like myself, don’t use up
their prepaid amounts. For example, my friend James ran out of his meal plan by the eighth week
of the quarter whereas my roommate Blaire had over $400 left on her card at the end of the quarter.
She and I, like many other women, will have to donate our money back to the school. Therefore,
women often feel cheated out of their money while men do not. It is discriminatory to require all
students, regardless of gender, to have the same minimum meal plan. However, if the university
is going to require all students to have the same minimum meal plan, then the university needs
to give women more options to spend their money on things other than food purchased in the
school dining halls.
In addition? my proposal would create more opportunities for bonding. For example, it would
allow persons who love to cook, such as me, to use the residence-hall kitchens to create “home-
cooked meals” for floormates, thus creating more friendships among students. Personally, I have
had the pleasure of helping create such bonds among the women on my floor by cooking a “family
dinner” in our floor’s kitchen. The aroma of the roasted chicken and homemade mashed potatoes
drew the students on the fifth floor into the lounge. After our shared dinner, it seemed as if the
residents of our floor felt more comfortable being around one another in a more family-like way.
I think that cooking on campus gives students a sense of comfort that they do not get when they
go to the dining halls and have food pre-made for them. While I would love to cook dinner for
my floor more often, the bottom line is that ingredients are too expensive to pay for on my regular
credit card when I have already purchased from the university more food than I can eat. If the
school were to implement a system where we could use a portion of our meal plans off campus,
students would be able to buy groceries from local stores and to put to better use the kitchens
already built into the residence halls.
In addition to creating closer bonds between students, an off-campus option for our meal
cards would help women eat more healthfully. The current system promotes bad eating habits,
causing women to overeat or even to binge in order to use up their extra meal plan money. For
example, with the leftover money on my card at the end of Fall Quarter, I bought cases of energy
drinks, which are filled with high-fructose corn syrup and other empty calories. As another exam-
ple, my friend Amber purchases multiple meals such as pizza and a burger for dinner because
(continued)
326 Chapter 15
she doesn’t want to waste her money. Overeating is obviously unhealthy and could eventually
lead to an increase in obesity or eating disorders. However, if students were able to use their meal
card off campus, they could buy items such as shampoo or other toiletries, which would be more
beneficial for women than overeating to avoid losing money.
Despite all these benefits of a new meal plan system, some administrators might be skeptical
of the benefits and focus on the drawbacks instead. The biggest drawback is the potential loss of
revenue to food services. As it is now, women help subsidize food costs for men. Without that sub-
sidy, the food service might not be able to break even, forcing them to raise food costs for everyone.
I don’t have the financial expertise to know how to compute these costs. Clearly, however, other
universities have thought about these issues and decided that allowing students to spend some
of their food money off campus was a benefit worth providing for students. For example, the
University of Texas, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Florida allow their meal
cards to be used as debit cards at local businesses. As stated on their website, the University of
Texas has a system called Bevo Bucks in which students can “purchase food, goods and services
at participating locations, both on and off campus” by loading money onto their ID cards. Also,
according to the University of Minnesota’s website, students have a system called Flex Dine con-
nected to their ID cards. FlexDine gives students the “convenience … [to eat] at Papa John’s for
residence-hall residents.” If other schools can implement off-campus use of dining cards, then the
plan is feasible. It might also be possible to limit the number of dollars that could be spent each
quarter off campus in order to assure a minimum level of revenue for the food service.
Even if my proposal would be costly in terms of lost revenue to the food service, the benefits
of my plan might still outweigh the costs. A revised meal-card system might become a recruiting
point for prospective students because they would feel as if the university is more personalized
to fit the students’ needs rather than just the university’s needs. My proposal might help prospec-
tive students see how close the students at our university are and might draw more students to
apply here. (Our website and view books could even include pictures of students cooking in the
residence-hall kitchens or eating at a local restaurant.) Moreover, local off-campus businesses
would welcome the opportunity for more student customers and might offer special promotions
for students. A new meal-card system might even improve the relationship between the university
and the surrounding community.
Based on all these reasons, I believe that the university community as a whole would benefit
if my proposal were enacted. The new plan would be especially appreciated by women students,
many of whom now subsidize the food costs of men. In addition, the new system would bring
students closer together by encouraging more creative use of the residence-hall kitchens for com-
munity meals and by reducing the incentive toward binge eating at the end of each quarter. Finally,
if other universities can use this system, then our university should be able to use it as well.
Although the food service may lose money to local businesses, the university would ultimately
benefit by creating a more flexible and attractive meal option especially for women and by
showing administrative concern for student welfare.
Critiquing “A Proposal to Allow Off-Campus Purchases with a University Meal Card”
1. In your own words, summarize briefly the problem that Megan Johnson addresses, her proposed
solution, and her justifying reasons.
2. Megan addresses her proposal to Ms. Jane Doe, an administrator who has the power to change policy. To
what extent does Megan develop audience-based reasons that resonate with this audience of university
administrators? How effectively does Megan anticipate and respond to objections her audience might
raise?
Proposal Arguments 327
3. How does Megan establish a positive ethos in this argument? To what extent does she appeal to
pathos as well as logos?
4. How effective is Megan’s proposal?
Our second reading, by student writer Ivan Snook, is a researched public policy proposal written
in response to the option 3 assignment in Learning Objective 15.5. Snook’s argument is based both
on library and Internet research and on personal experience (he is a returning veteran who served as
a Marine infantry soldier in Iraq). The kairotic moment for this paper (written in March 2014) was a
January 2014 decision by the Obama administration to allow women to serve in the combat arms a
policy decision to which Snook objects. Snook’s paper is formatted as a formal research paper using the
documentation style of the Modern Language Association (MLA). A full explanation of this format is
given in Chapter 18.
328 Chapter 15
Ivan Snook
Dr. Johnson
Argumentative Writing
March 31,2014
Snook 1
Flirting with Disaster: An Argument against Integrating
Women into the Combat Arms
In 2005 I was a rifleman for the elite 1st Reconnaissance Bat-
talion in Iraq. My deployment was not all bad. When we returned
to Camp Fallujah to repair our humvee we ate great chow, enjoyed
good entertainment, and drank contraband vodka. I never had a
girlfriend, though. I was too busy working in my all-male infan-
try unit. At the time I wished we had a few girls in the unit. What
can I say? I wanted female companionship like the guys in non-
combat jobs had. But I realized that women could never serve in
the infantry because of the negative impact of boyfriend/ girlfriend
dramatics on unit morale, cohesiveness, and ultimately combat
effectiveness.
However, America’s civilian leadership recently moved
towards integrating women into frontline combat arms units
such as infantry, tanks, and artillery. In January 2014, Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta lifted the Pentagon’s policy on all-male com-
bat arms occupations. “The department’s goal … is to ensure that
the mission is met with the best qualified and most capable people,
regardless of gender,” he said. “I’m not talking about reducing the
qualifications for the job if they can meet the qualifications for the
job, then they should have a right to serve” (qtd. in Michaels and
Vanden Brook). President Obama expanded upon Panetta’s senti-
ment by saying, “Every American can be proud that our military
will grow even stronger, with our mothers, wives, sisters, and daugh-
ters playing a greater role in protecting this country we love” ( qtd.
in Michaels and Vanden Brook, emphasis mine.)
If this policy change will indeed strengthen our military, every
American should support it. However, no one has specified how
integrating women into the combat arms will strengthen our mili-
tary. I wholeheartedly agree with integrationists who claim that
women can meet the rigorous physical and mental requirements
Proposal Arguments 329
Snook 2
for frontline combat. Any CrossFit has at least half a dozen women
more physically and mentally fit than some of my Marine broth-
ers in arms. If those were the sole criteria by which we evaluate
infantrymen, I would endorse integration. But, how an individual
soldier affects the combat unit as a whole must be considered.
The great military theorist Carl von Clausewitz coined the term
“friction” to represent the “[c]ountless minor incidents … [that]
combine to lower the general level of performance [of the military
machine].” He continues, “We should bear in mind that none of its
components is of one piece: each part is composed of individuals,
every one of whom retains his potential of friction.” Therefore, we
must not judge individual soldiers only by their individual physi-
cal capabilities, but also by their impact on the unit as a whole.
Introducing women to previously all-male combat units means
introducing the friction of romantic relationships. Petty jealousies
and other dramatic relational issues combine to lower the general
level of performance. In 1997, the nonprofit global policy think
tank RAND Corporation studied how romantic relationships affect
coed military units. The study reported that such relationships
“sexualize” the work environment, making it “difficult for col-
leagues to regard one another as just coworkers. Thus, the cohe-
sion of the unit is negatively affected” (Harrell and Miller 81). One
respondent complained, “The [cafeteria] … at night looks more
like a singles club or promenade deck than a cafeteria [for a mili-
tary unit].” Another said, “I get tired of seeing a junior enlisted
female and her boyfriend [at the cafeteria] …. This place is like
high school all over again. Everyone is dating others. To me this
is not the military. We are here to do a job not meet our spouse.
Guys seem more worried about getting a girl than doing their job”
(Harrell and Miller 81-82).
Integrationists claim the military’s high level of discipline
coupled with strict rules against fraternization will prevent roman-
tic relationships. However, those strict rules have always been
in place and have never worked. During the Gulf War, 5 percent
of deployed women were sent home early due to pregnancy.
The Navy sends home on average 10 percent of deployed female
sailors for the same reason. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, one of
America’s largest aircraft carriers, lost 45 of its 300 female sailors to
330 Chapter 15
Snook3
pregnancy leave and became one of the many U.S. Navy ships to
earn the nickname “The Love Boat” (Browne 246). My point is not
about morality. These statistics demonstrate that despite strict rules
against fraternization, 18-to-25-year-olds succumb to their natural
urges. What else should one expect when young adults are locked
away on ship or deployed to Afghanistan for months at a time? It
is analogous to locking the doors on a coed college dormitory for
a year and making rules against sex. It is preposterous to expect
18-to-25-year-olds to work, live, and relax together in such close
proximity and expect no romantic relationships to sprout.
These problems are more than just trifling lovers’ quarrels.
They affect a serious decline in performance and can lead to a total
breakdown of command structure. In 2005, Brian Kates of the New
York Daily News visited Camp Bucca, a military prison in Southern
Iraq, which he described as a drunken “out-of-control frat party.”
“In front of a cheering male audience, two young women wearing
only bras and panties threw themselves into a mud-filled plastic
kiddie pool and rolled around in a wild wrestling match.” Sergeant
Emil Ganim, who refereed the match, said other non-commissioned
officers “had been lending out their rooms for soldiers to have sex.”
These were not just young privates, either. A witness told investiga-
tors that a drunken first sergeant and master sergeant, two high-
ranking non-commissioned officers, were in attendance (Kates).
Although Camp Bucca was far away from any actual fighting, it is
safe to assume similar sexual antics and command-structure break-
downs will occur in coed frontline combat units, whose members
confront their own mortality on a daily basis.
Still, Camp Bucca is not the worst-case scenario. The mili-
tary is currently battling an epidemic of rape and sexual assault.
A study conducted by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs reported
that one-third of female veterans say they were victims of rape or
attempted rape. A third of those claim they were raped multiple
times, and 14 percent claim they were gang raped (Browne). Intro-
ducing females to frontline combat units will only exacerbate the
problem. Dr. David Grossman, one of the world’s foremost experts
on human aggression and the psychology of combat, has explained
how combat stress affects the human sex drive. He analogizes the
human body’s ability to cope with stress to a bathtub: It can hold
Proposal Arguments 331
Snook 4
only so much water before overflowing. When our body overflows
with stress, the midbrain releases hormones causing a fight-or-
flight response, often followed by a dramatic change in hunger and
sex drive. Grossman writes, “Some people lose their appetite for
food in response to stress, but many have an enhanced craving to
eat. In the same way, some individuals can lose their sex drive in
response to great stress, but other people experience a tremendous
sex drive, especially after a combat situation in which they were
triumphant” (275). Frontline combat is fueled by stress hormones,
and the potential for a woman to be sexually assaulted is very high.
An inter-unit sexual assault costs the unit two soldiers: the victim
is typically transferred to a new unit, the assaulter is sent to prison.
Replacing two comrades integrated in a tight-knit unit with two
new recruits is a difficult blow to a unit’s esprit de corps and trust
members have in one another. Thus, to put at risk a female soldier’s
sexual well-being is to also put at risk her unit’s combat ability.
Rather than respond to the physiological realities of preparing
for and engaging in combat, integrationists such as CNN’s Maren
Leed deflect to a false analogy connecting integration of women
to past arguments against integrating minorities and homosexu-
als. Regarding minorities, race is a social construct, not a biological
difference. Whereas the military somewhat successfully trained
its men to not act on racial prejudices, it is improbable that 18-to-
25-year-old men can be trained not to be sexually attracted to
women. Regarding homosexuals, one homosexual has little effect
on a group of heterosexuals, but one female can have a significant
impact on a large group of heterosexual men driven by stress
hormones.
Another integrationist argument is that changes in modern
warfare already put women in combat. They say modern warfare is
“asymmetric” and attacks can come from anywhere. It is true that
women have served in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, but inte-
grationists erroneously believe the nature of warfare has evolved
beyond traditional frontlines. Every American military engage-
ment since World War II has been a limited war, but that does not
mean all future wars will be. The wars our military must prepare
to fight are global conflicts where combat troops face well-armed
and well-trained enemies on traditional frontlines.
332 Chapter 15
SnookS
Perhaps the most important argument made by integrationists,
and one to which I am sympathetic, concerns fairness and equity.
It is extremely difficult to be promoted to general without infantry
training. Some may say the Army should change its promotion
policy, but this would harm overall morale. Frontline troops more
enthusiastically follow leaders who are sharing, or have at one time
shared, the toils and dangers of war. Thus, high-ranking female
officers hit a glass ceiling because no such experience is available
to them. However, there is an alternative to break through this
glass ceiling without making all combat units coed. The U.S. Army
National Guard consists of every imaginable combat-arms occupa-
tion. If these occupations were opened to aspiring female soldiers,
those women would have access to the necessary experience for
advancement to the military’s upper echelon and have the option of
transferring from the National Guard to active duty. General John
Vessey began his illustrious career in the National Guard infantry
and was later selected as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This
compromise would give women the opportunity to get infantry
training while still protecting our active-duty frontline infantry units
from the unnecessary friction caused by romantic relationships.
Although some outsiders call terms like friction, morale, and
unit cohesion mere buzzwords, to the Marines they mean life or
death. Coed infantry is a parlous experiment with too much at
stake. The restriction against women joining the infantry must be
reinstated before the policy becomes entrenched and the negative
side effects of romantic relationships deteriorate our fighting abil-
ity. I fully support gender equality, and I am proud of the brave
women in the Marines, Army, Navy, and Air Force who have sacri-
ficed so much defending this country I love. But when one consid-
ers the ultimate mission of the military, which is to win wars, we
must not risk losing the cohesion of combat units when there is no
exigent reason to do so except for the sake of expanding military
career opportunities for women.
Works Cited
Browne, Kingsley. Co-Ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women
Shouldn’t Fight the Nation ‘s Wars. Sentinel, 2007.
Proposal Arguments 333
Snook 6
Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Translated by M ichael Howard and
Peter Paret, Princeton UP, 1984.
Grossman, David. On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of
Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace. 3rd ed., Warrior Science, 2008.
Harrell, Margaret C., and Laura L. Miller. “New Opportunities
for Military Women: Effects Upon Readiness, Cohesion, and
Morale.” RAND Corporation, 1 Jan. 1997, www.rand.org/pubs/
monogra ph_reports I MR896 .html.
Kates, Brian. “Out of Control at Camp Crazy! Female Soldiers Dress
Down & Get Dirty for Mud Romps.” New York Daily News, 6 Feb.
2005, www.nydailynews.com/ archives/news/ control-camp-crazy-
female-soldiers-dress-dirty-mud-romps-g-s-wild-article-1.590262.
Leed, Maren. “Will Infantry Men Accept Women as Peers?”
CNN, 26 Jan. 2013, www.cnn.com/2013/01/25/opinion/
leed -women-in-infantry.
Michaels, Jim, and Tom Vanden Brook. “Women, Men Must
Meet Same Combat Standards in Military.” USA Today, 25 Jan.
2013, www.usatoday.com/story /news/world/2013/01/24/
women-in-combat-briefing/1861887.
334 Chapter 15
Critiquing “Flirting with Disaster: An Argument against Integrating Women into the
Combat Arms”
1. What is Ivan Snook’s core argument for not integrating women into the combat arms? What evi-
dence does he provide in support of his argument? Do you find that evidence persuasive?
2. What opposing or alternative views does Snook summarize? How effectively does Snook respond
to these views?
3. Snook offers as a counterproposal a way that women could get infantry training (for purposes of
career advancement) without the need to make all infantry units coed. How effective do you find
his counterproposal?
4. How effective is Snook’s use of audience-based reasons? How would you evaluate his overall appeal
to logos, ethos, and pathos?
Our third reading, from the Save-Bees.org website, is a one-page paid advocacy advertisement.
Working in conjunction with other environmental organizations such as Beyond Pesticides, the
Center for Food Safety, and Pesticide Action Network, the Save the Bees organization advocates a
moratorium on pesticides that are killing off bees. The website itself demonstrates how the Internet
can be used for education and advocacy. It solicits support for a petition directed to the U.S. Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency calling for an immediate discontinuation in the use of certain toxic
chemicals deadly to bees. On the web, this advocacy ad shows a list of organizations in support of
this moratorium.
I
I
•
ne1
Honey bees, native bees and other pollinators are
responsible for 1 out of every 3 bites of food we eat.
Bees pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that make up 90%
of the world’s food supply. Many fruits and vegetables,
including apples, blueberries, strawberries, carrots
and broccoli, as well as almonds and coffee, rely
on bees. These beneficial insects are critica l to
maintaining our diverse food supply.
Honey bee populations have been in alarming decline
since 2006. Widespread use of a new class of toxic
pesticides, neonicotinoids, is a significant contributing
factor. In addition to killing bees outright, research
has shown that even low levels of these dangerous
pesticides impair bees’ ability to learn, to find their way
back to the hive, to collect food, to produce new queens,
and to mount an effective immune response.
Proposal Arguments 335
‘ •
•
er can
This week, 15 countries are imposing a two-year
restriction on the use of several of these chemicals.
Meanwhile, the United States is stalling.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates
it will be 2018, 5 years from now, before it makes a
decision on this deadly class of pesticides.
Bees can’t wait 5 more years – they are dying now.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has the
power and responsibility to protect our pollinators.
Our nation’s food system depends on it.
HELP PROTECT FOOD CHOICES [!]….,.·· …
•• –
•.•.• Save- Bees.org l!li-..a.~
336 Chapter 15
Critiquing the Save the Bees Advocacy Ad
1. How does this advocacy advertisement give presence to the problem with bees?
2. What solution does the ad propose for helping the bees? Why hasn’t this solution already been
adopted? What action does the ad ask readers to take?
3. What reasons and evidence does this advocacy ad provide to persuade readers to take action? How
effective is this evidence?
4. How does this proposal argument appeal to personal interest as well as environmental values? How
do appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos work together in this advocacy piece?
Our fourth reading, by student Sandy Wainscott, illustrates option 5 in Learning Objective 15.5. It is a
proposal speech supported by visual aids. We have reproduced Sandy’s outline for her speech, along
with her scripts for the introduction and conclusion. (Although she delivered the body of the speech
extemporaneously from her outline, she scripted the introduction and conclusion to reduce nervous-
ness.) We have also reproduced four of her ten PowerPoint slides in Figure 15.4. She used these four
slides to introduce each of the four main points shown on the outline. Note how she has constructed her
slides as visual arguments supporting a main point (stated in the slide title).
Student Essay
————————————
Why McDonald’s Should Sell Meat and Veggie Pies:
A Proposal to End Subsidies for Cheap Meat
Sandy Wainscott
Script for Introduction: McDonald’s hamburgers are popular because they’re satisfying and pretty
darn cheap. But I will argue that the hamburger is cheap because the American taxpayer subsidizes
the cost of meat. Uncle Sam pays agribusiness to grow feed corn while not requiring agribusiness
to pay the full cost for water or for cleaning up the environmental damage caused by cattle pro-
duction. If meat producers had to recover the true cost of their product, the cost of meat would be
substantially higher, but there would be offsetting benefits: a healthier environment, happier lives
for cows and chickens, and healthier diets for all of us.
1. Meat is relatively cheap partly because taxpayers help feed the cows.
a. U.S. taxpayers give farmers money to grow feed corn, which is fed to cows.
b. U.S. taxpayers provide farmers with cheap water.
2. Cheap meat threatens health.
a. Factory-style farms significantly reduce effectiveness of antibiotics.
b. Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are potentially huge killers.
c. Factory farms are likely sources of new swine and bird flus.
d. Meat-related food poisoning harms millions of people per year and causes thousands
of deaths.
3. Cheap meat hurts the environment.
a. Factory farms create 130 times more sewage than humans.
b. Animal farming contributes more to global warming than all forms of human transpor-
tation combined.
c. Farming uses much of the world’s land and water.
Proposal Arguments 337
4. Cheap meat requires cruelty to animals.
a. Ninety-eight percent of egg-laying hens in the United States spend their entire lives in
stacked cubicle cages with 9-inch sides.
b. Cruel conditions also exist for pigs and cows.
Script for Conclusion: If we stop providing taxpayer subsidies to farmers and require farmers to
pay for the pollution they cause, the cost of meat would be much higher but with great benefits
to our health and to our environment. A restaurant like McDonald’s would likely adjust its menus.
McDonald’s would move the burger off its 99-cent menu and replace it with something like a meat
pie, a similarly warm, quick, and satisfying choice, but with a lower proportion of meat than a
burger. In a fair market, we should have to pay more for a hamburger than for a meat pie or a stir
fry. But we would have the benefit of a healthier Earth.
Figure 15.4 Sandy’s PowerPoint slides used to introduce main points
Meat is relatively cheap because taxpayers
help feed the cows
– –
$
Cheap meat hurts the environment
US animal farms produce
Cheap meat threatens health
Most antibiotics are used on farm animals
30 % used
on humans
70% used
on farm
animals
• Animal farm ing is a leading contributor to antibiotic-
resistant germs
Cheap meat reqiures cruelty to animals
Critiquing “Why McDonald’s Should Sell Meat and Veggie Pies: A Proposal to End
Subsidies for Cheap Meat”
1. Although it is common to design PowerPoint slides that use topics and bullets to reproduce the
speaker’s outline, most public speaking experts prefer the approach that Sandy takes in this speech.
She uses photographs, drawings, and graphics to create a visual argument that reinforces rather than
simply reproduces the verbal message of her speech. How do her slides operate visually to create
arguments from both logos and pathos?
338 Chapter 15
2. Note that the top heading of each slide is a complete sentence making a point rather than a topic
phrase without a subject and verb. For example, the top-left slide in Figure 15.4 might have had the
heading “Cheap Meat” or “Role of Subsidies.” Do you agree with most experts, who would say that
the complete-sentence version (“Meat is relatively cheap because taxpayers help feed the cows”) is
more effective? Why or why not?
3. How effective do you find Sandy’s speech?
Our final reading appeared in The Wall Street Journal on February 19,2011. The authors are both profes-
sors of entomology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. In 2007, Marcel Dicke was awarded
the NWO-Spinoza award, often called the Dutch Nobel Prize. He gives speeches (summaries of which
are available on the web) arguing that humans should eat insects rather than meat as one solution to
the environmental degradation caused by the meat industry. Coauthor Arnold Van Huis coordinates
a research consortium of scientists investigating the nutritional value of insects. He also gives cooking
classes featuring bug recipes.
The Six-Legged Meat of the Future
MARCEL DICKE AND ARNOLD VAN HUIS
At the London restaurant Archipelago, diners can order the $11 Baby Bee Brulee: a creamy custard
topped with a crunchy little bee. In New York, the Mexican restaurant Toloache offers $11 chapulines
tacos: two tacos stuffed with Oaxacan-style dried grasshoppers.
Could beetles, dragonfly larvae, and water bug caviar be the meat of the future? As the global
population booms and demand strains the world’s supply of meat, there’s a growing need for alternate
animal proteins. Insects are high in protein, B vitamins and minerals like iron and zinc, and they’re low
in fat. Insects are easier to raise than livestock, and they produce less waste. Insects are abundant. Of all
the known animal species, 80°/o walk on six legs; over 1,000 edible species have been identified. And the
taste? It’s often described as “nutty.”
Worms, crickets, dung beetles to most people they’re just creepy crawlers. To Brooklyn painter
and art professor Marc Dennis, they’re yummy ingredients for his Bug Dinners.
The vast majority of the developing world already eats insects. In Laos and Thailand, weaver-ant
pupae are a highly prized and nutritious delicacy. They are prepared with shallots, lettuce, chilies,
lime, and spices and served with sticky rice. Further back in history, the ancient Romans considered
beetle larvae to be gourmet fare, and the Old Testament mentions eating crickets and grasshoppers. In
the 20th century, the Japanese emperor Hirohito’s favorite meal was a mixture of cooked rice, canned
wasps (including larvae, pupae, and adults), soy sauce, and sugar.
s Will Westerners ever take to insects as food? It’s
possible. We are entomologists at Wageningen Uni-
versity, and we started promoting insects as food in
the Netherlands in the 1990s. Many people laughed-
and cringed at first, but interest gradually became
more serious. In 2006 we created a “Wageningen-
City of Insects” science festival to promote the idea
of eating bugs; it attracted more than 20,000 visitors.
Over the past two years, three Dutch insect-
raising companies, which normally produce feed
for animals in zoos, have set up special production
lines to raise locusts and mealworms for human con-
sumption. Now those insects are sold, freeze-dried, in
Proposal Arguments 339
two-dozen retail food outlets that cater to restaurants. A few restaurants in the Netherlands have already
placed insects on the menu, with locusts and mealworms (beetle larvae) usually among the dishes.
Insects have a reputation for being dirty and carrying diseases yet less than 0.5°/o of all known insect
species are harmful to people, farm animals, or crop plants. When raised under hygienic conditions-
eating bugs straight out of the backyard generally isn’t recommended many insects are perfectly safe
to eat.
Meanwhile, our food needs are on the rise. The human population is expected to grow from six bil-
lion in 2000 to nine billion in 2050. Meat production is expected to double in the same period, as demand
grows from rising wealth. Pastures and fodder already use up 70°/o of all agricultural land, so increasing
livestock production would require expanding agricultural acreage at the expense of rain forests and
other natural lands. Officials at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently pre-
dicted that beef could become an extreme luxury item by 2050,like caviar, due to rising production costs.
Raising insects for food would avoid many of the problems associated with livestock. For instance,
swine and humans are similar enough that they can share many diseases. Such co-infection can yield
new disease strains that are lethal to humans, as happened during a swine fever outbreak in the Neth-
erlands in the late 1990s. Because insects are so different from us, such risks are accordingly lower.
Insects are also cold-blooded, so they don’t need as much feed as animals like pigs and cows, which 10
consume more energy to maintain their body temperatures. Ten pounds of feed yields one pound of beef,
three pounds of pork, five pounds of chicken, and up to six pounds of insect meat.
Insects produce less waste, too. The proportion of livestock that is not edible after processing is 30°/o
for pork, 35°/o for chicken, 45°/o for beef, and 65°/o for lamb. By contrast, only 20°/o of a cricket is inedible.
Raising insects requires relatively little water, especially as compared to the production of conven-
tional meat (it takes more than 10 gallons of water, for instance, to produce about two pounds of beef).
Insects also produce far less ammonia and other greenhouse gases per pound of body weight. Livestock
is responsible for at least 10°/o of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Raising insects is more humane as well. Housing cattle, swine or chickens in high densities causes
stress to the animals, but insects like mealworms and locusts naturally like to live in dense quarters.
The insects can be crowded into vertical stacked trays or cages. Nor do bug farms have to be restricted
to rural areas; they could sprout up anywhere, from a suburban strip mall to an apartment building.
Enterprising gourmets could even keep a few trays of meal worms in the garage to ensure a fresh supply.
The first insect fare is likely to be incorporated subtly into dishes, as a replacement for meat in meat-
balls and sauces. It also can be mixed into prepared foods to boost their nutritional value like putting
meal worm paste into a quiche. And dry-roasted insects can be used as a replacement for nuts in baked
goods like cookies and breads.
We continue to make progress in the Netherlands, where the ministry of agriculture is funding a 15
new $1.3 million research program to develop ways to raise edible insects on food waste, such as brew-
ers’ grain (a byproduct of beer brewing), soyhulls (the skin of the soybean), and apple pomace (the
pulpy remains after the juice has been pressed out). Other research is focusing on how protein could be
extracted from insects and used in processed foods.
Though it is true that intentionally eating insects is common only in developing countries, everyone
already eats some amount of insects. The average person consumes about a pound of insects per year,
mostly mixed into other foods. In the U.S., most processed foods contain small amounts of insects, within
limits set by the Food and Drug Administration. For chocolate, the FDA limit is 60 insect fragments per
100 grams. Peanut butter can have up to 30 insect parts per 100 grams, and fruit juice can have five fruit-
fly eggs and one or two larvae per 250 milliliters (just over a cup). We also use many insect products to
dye our foods, such as the red dye cochineal in imitation crab sticks, Campari, and candies. So we’re
already some of the way there in making six-legged creatures a regular part of our diet.
Not long ago, foods like kiwis and sushi weren’t widely known or available. It is quite likely that in 2020
we will look back in surprise at the era when our menus didn’t include locusts, beetle larvae, dragonfly larvae,
crickets, and other insect delights.
340 Chapter 15
Critiquing “The Six-Legged Meat of the Future”
1. Earlier in this chapter, we noted that a problem faced by all proposal writers is “the need to over-
come people’s natural conservatism.” Their readers’ natural conservatism is a major constraint for
coauthors Dicke and Van Huis (“Hey, I’ve never eaten bugs before! If four-legged meat was good
enough for my parents, it’s good enough for me!”) How do the authors use the appeals of logos,
ethos, and pathos to try to overcome this natural conservatism?
2. Although this journalistic piece does not have a tightly closed-form structure with transitions and
because clauses marking each reason, it still provides a logical progression of separate reasons in
support of eating insects. Convert this argument into a bulleted list of because clauses in support of
the claim “Westerners should eat insects as a major source of protein.”
3. Are you persuaded by this argument? Would you try some mealworm spaghetti or a handful of
fried crickets? Why or why not?
Part Four Arguments in Depth:Types of Claims
11 An Introduction to the Types of Claims
12 Definition and Resemblance Arguments
13 Causal Arguments
14 Evaluation and Ethical Arguments
15 Proposal Arguments
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
