Confronted with one of these questions, we can imagine the family proceeding in any of several awful directions we never saw on those old sitcoms; My father starts shouting and making threats, my mother cries, my little sister stomps off and slams the door, my nine-year old brother kicks me in the groin. But we can imagine the discussion (or at least maybe you can) taking a different turn; we all sit down and the people try to work toward answers to those questions put above.

That is, while the family might fall apart faced by such an issue, it also might not; it might do some work toward resolving the tension, the controversy, the issue. Thus, my mother might say at our dinner table, "I think you ought to give college another try--you got some good grades--there is not really a question about your ability. And you've developed some interests since then; I see you reading the police reports and crime stories every day, and you are interested in legal issues, criminal rights. You could even think in terms of going to law school. And if you do not get into law school, a college degree would at least make you eligible to apply to Police Academy to become a detective or policeman."

My mother, then, does not leave in tears but addresses the issue, has an answer to the question of what I ought to do. Her answer (what we will often call a stand or position) is that I ought to go back to school with the goal of going into some sort of work in law or law enforcement. She provides something to us to show that this is a good answer to the question--that is, she supports her answer. She does this by reminding me of my abilities and interests: I can get good grades, and I am interested in legal matters. Her argument is a good example of something which would come from a mother's point of view; her concern is for my future and my welfare, and she has paid some attention to me, what I like and what I might want.

--I (the author, not the failed college student couch potato) will continue this story in a moment, but want to point out that we have in these last few paragraphs a small model of what the next few sections are about. You are given a quote, something someone has said, which is relevant to some QUESTION or ISSUE. That issue is spelled out or clarified. What the person said in the quote is described in terms of that issue, and also in terms of POSITION, SUPPORT, and POINT OF VIEW. And then, as in this very paragraph you read now, I try to make you conscious of what we are doing. I as it were hold a mirror up to have you watch what you do. I remark on what I see and invite you to watch yourself too, much as someone teaching weightlifting or ballet or public speaking might do, in hopes that paying attention and becoming self-aware might help you with the skills.

Meanwhile, back at the dinner table, my father is putting in his oar. "What a crock. So what if you're smart. You were smart before, and you still flunked out. What makes you think it will be any different this time. Be realistic, instead of dreaming of castles years down the road. Jeff Murphy is now the foreman on swing shift at the mill, and he owes me favors; you can get on down there right away."

So my father too has presented an argument. His is for the claim that my mother's solution will not work, and he supports that by pointing to my past record and to how long and uncertain a process my mother's solution would involve, when a quicker solution is available. It is probably a bad rap for fathers to say that this comes from a father's point of view--it comes, let us say, from someone who has strong opinions about what I ought to do, and who has concerns for finding a quick and practical solution. And, again, what he has done is to be contrasted with all the other routes these discussions often take; he did not start shouting and making threats, nor turn his back and stomp off. Arguments are noble things.

My sister joins the discussion carrying a manila envelope."Look at these," she says, spilling a bunch of mouldy and yellowedúnewspaper clippings onto the dining table. "Remember your cartoons? the strip you did for the paper your senior year? and the drawingsúyou sent off to FAMILY CIRCLE? You loved doing this stuff. And it is FUNNY. Remember the fan letter you got from the man in Portland? This is a waste, letting your talent go. You should be following this up. Even when you just doodle at the kitchen phone, it sometimes is very good. Here's one right here. You wanted to go work with that guy at the Portland Museum Art School--you could still do it. Look at this. Read this one. Look at the lines in this one."

My sister has an argument too. Her method is to bring in evidence to support her claim that I should be pursuing a career in cartooning. My father will roll his eyes, but my sister will keep pushing drawings at us, reminding us how much I liked doing this kind of work and how good it is. Her point of view is like my mother's, in that it is based on a concern for me and on paying attention to things I did. She also has looked at this evidence quite a lot harder than anyone else at the table, and has confidence in her own ability to decide how good and how important it is. Is she biased so much that she should not be taken seriously? Well, that is one question to ask on the way to deciding whether her argument is a good one, but for now that is jumping ahead--we will discuss the distinction between description and evaluation in a bit.

My little brother chimes in. "I think you ought to be a fireman." We all look at him with carefully solemn faces while he twitches. "Well, I wanna be a fireman." And he runs off.

Was that an argument? Perhaps the right answer is to chuckle. He was trying to enter in. But here again is a place for the reminder that our rule of thumb is not a device to use for sorting arguments from non-arguments.

Remember too that whether an argument is good or bad may not be enough to settle an issue. My mother may be right about my interests and abilities, and even have hit on the kind of life that would make me happy, but still my father could be right about it not being enough because I just would not persevere. Also, it is possible that they could ALL be off the mark, though with the best of intentions (if, for example, my interest in legal matters, criminal cases, and rights of the accused comes from my secret life as a small-time cocaine dealer). And yet if everything is brought out and dealt with, the kinds of arguments they give may offer some hope of a resolution.

We are going to work through an example of reading and evaluating an argument, with some pauses to reflect on what the process involves. The example is a quote from a student paper, but it is an argument most of us have heard, an argument which seems to be accepted by a significant portion of students, and an argument which shows up sometimes in letters to the editor.In other words, this is a live one, on a live issue; if you were to bring it up for discussion in a group or class you would likely find the discussion fairly heated, and people could have real disagreements with each other.

Abortion cannot be substituted for birth control, because if the woman was not responsible in taking precautions against becoming pregnant, she ought to have to live with the consequences.

Our first question is,
"What is the argument?"

In asking this, we are observing a distinction between DESCRIPTION and EVALUATION. While there are some problems with this distinction, for now we can think of it as just the difference between answering the question, What is the argument? (that's description) and answering the question, Is it a good argument? (evaluation).

Describing arguments is one of the parts of critical thinking which often feels artificial to us--often we want not to talk about what someone has said but to attack or defend it, but for a while we will put off judgment or appreciation until we have given a reading or description. That is, when we ask for a description, we are asking that we reserve judgement. After a career in education built on learning to read more quickly, we are now engaged in learning to go slow. It is not quite as bad as the story of the philosophy professor who assigned his students Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations the first week, the first forty pages the second week, . . . and by the last week the assignment was the first sentence. But some readers may like that story better at the end of this text. Later we will get to the question of evaluation, answering the question, "Is the argument a good one?" We can think of this as part of an effort to be fair; when we disagree with someone, we want them to be sure to hear us clearly and understand what we say, and that means we may want to do the same for them. Implicit in giving a fair description, then, is that we try to say what the argument is in terms that the arguer would agree with. We paraphrase in ways calculated to get the arguer to nod. This is akin to what is sometimes called active listening in counseling or in parenting. If the arguer disagrees with what we say here, when we are trying to describe or say what the arguer has said, we have little chance of furthering the discussion on the issue. Give her view and leave ours out for now. No cheap shots, no distortions; this is part of reading arguments fairly.

What is this argument? As a pedagogical device, we analyze that question into four parts. Each part is a question, more specific than the question asking for a description of the argument. We ask,

• What is the issue?
• What is the arguer's stand or position on that issue?
• How does the arguer support that position?
• What is the arguer's point of view?

Remember too that these questions are implied by our reminder or rule of thumb about how educated people use the word "argument," namely that we have an argument when someone takes a stand on an issue and backs it up. We will now answer those four questions for the quote above, with some comments about how we might have gone awry.

What is the issue? We might be tempted to say that the issue is abortion, but that would be lazy and over-broad. As soon as people seriously enter into a discussion of abortion, abortion is not one issue but a whole nest of issues. One of the ways we can avoid making the mistake of choosing an overly general wording of the issue comes from reminding ourselves that issues are QUESTIONS about which people disagree (or could disagree). For now, then, we will insist on giving an issue in the form of a question, and try to give the particular question the quote is addressing. The result is that we will not say the issue to which this argument is addressed is abortion, or even that the issue is, "Is it okay for women to get abortions?" The first is not a question but a topic which covers a lot of questions, and the second is not even answered in the quote; the person quoted could go either way. We need to be more specific:
May abortion morally be used as a means of birth control?
This is pretty close, since the quote clearly answers this question and provides something which is supposed to back up that answer. Further, none of the quote needs to be thrown away as irrelevant--that is, our reading of the issue doesn't leave us with the question of why the speaker said some large part of what she did say. Though it is not always reliable, this is a sign that we may have the question right. Too, this really is an issue we can recognize apart from the quote. Part of the debate about abortion centers on whether women too often are making the decision merely on grounds of convenience, and on the other side whether women should have to give some more compelling reason for getting an abortion than that they will be inconvenienced by the pregnancy. In other words, one large question in the debate about abortion is, Is not wanting to be pregnant good enough grounds for getting an abortion? That would misrepresent this particular argument, though, since the speaker never directly answers this question. Though we can tell that the speaker would say a strong no in those cases where the woman used no birth control, it is unclear what the speaker's position would be in those cases in which the woman took every precaution and was terribly responsible but the birth control measures failed. So we are left with our original formulation of the issue as, May abortion morally be used as a means of birth control?

As we practice this process, we will find that often getting clear about the issue is the most difficult part of our work. We are going to return to examine the process of clarifying issues, but the issue in this quote may be clear enough. Still, getting the issue right helps make much of the rest of the work of describing the argument easy. And that is the last indicator for us to notice; if the other parts of the description fall easily into place, that is a sign that we do have the issue properly articulated.

Position? What is the speaker's answer to the question at issue? For this quote, the answer is simple. The answer is no. A woman may not morally use abortion in place of birth control.

Sometimes students are tempted to give a paraphrase of the whole argument as the position. "No, because. . . ."ú Don't. Just answer the question, you might say to the quote. Leave the reasons alone for a moment. That's next. May a woman morally use abortion as a means of birth control? The position in the quote is no. Period. Sometimes we might use the word CLAIM or CONCLUSION instead of position. Since we have given the issue as a question, this part of the description of the argument is the answer to that question.

Support? The speaker offers something to show that that "No" is the right answer, namely that women should be responsible during sex, and if they are not, they should live with the consequences. That is, if the woman risked a pregnancy by having unprotected sex, then she should not be able to avoid the consequences of taking that risk.

Point of view? The speaker has a concern that people be responsible during sex. He or she also believes that people who take risks should not be coddled or bailed out when the risk proves to have consequences. The speaker is not someone with special expertise or experience; at least none of that is shaping the thinking in this quote. We might be inclined to think the speaker is male, or cynical about human beings or women shirking responsibilities, but that may or may not be true. We have no grounds for thinking the speaker is an expert or scientist or is speaking out of purely religious concerns.ΠIn some ways, the speaker may be regarded as having an ordinary point of view rather than a specialized one--she or he is like you and me.

This ends the description part of our work with this quote. We will practice this sort of description again. We start with a quote.The quote will allegedly have an argument in it. We will try to reserve judgement about the value of what the speaker says while we answer the description question, what the speaker's argument is. We break that question down into parts in order to help us describe clearly.

Logicians often think of logic as a study of the proper evaluation of arguments, and the part of the work which involves description or reading arguments is merely a prelude to the part which matters. The part which matters, on this view, is passing judgement on arguments, and constructing theory which justifies the judgements. The emphasis in this text on learning how to read arguments is one thing which sets it apart from the usual text.

Surely evaluation of arguments does play a part in thinking them through. Let us finish thinking this one through, and be self-aware, that is, pay attention to how we do that.

We are already aware of how classroom discussions of arguments often proceed--if someone were not moderating the discussion, the discussion could easily turn into a rancorous free-for-all, partly because some people naturally wish to press disagreements rather than resolve them. The distinction between description and evaluation sometimes helps to frame the discussion and give it a common purpose. This is true because the first part of the discussion, namely describing the argument, puts a severe limitation on what sort of comments are in order. Only things with which the arguer would agree help to further this part of the discussion. We can abbreviate this as a kind of maxim or suggestion, though it is a bit strong: Description requires us to

There is an interesting history of the teaching and theory of evaluation of arguments. For the moment, though, let us only remind ourselves of a rough division between schooled methods of evaluation and naive methods. Schooled methods include what we can learn from logic and philosophy of science, courses on research methods, and the study of logical fallacies. In this text we will spend some time thinking about and looking at these methods, but that comes later. Naive evaluation is evaluation not informed by any method we get from teachers or books. Take a look at how those evaluations might look.

Under the heading of naive evaluations, we can sort out a couple of basic approaches. The first might be the method (if we can call it that, since it isn't), of passing judgement on arguments based on whether we agree or disagree with the position put forward. So, on the topic of abortion, if we are pro-choice, we then decide that all arguments which are pro-choice are good arguments, and all arguments which are against the possibility of abortion are bad arguments. Or if we ourselves are, say, against corporal punishment for children, or for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, or would claim that sociology is a legitimate field of study, or are for much stiffer prison sentences for repeat offenders without exception--or if we have an opposing position on any of these--we use this method when our own position is the sorting device to separate good arguments on the issue from bad.

This method has some striking advantages. It is simple. We hardly ever seem to make a mistake in using it, partly because its use protects us from the possibility of ever looking at mistakes. It is easy to pass on to our children. Its use is quite popular and familiar. It is comfortable; it leads us naturally to spend time with people who reinforce us and our stands on controversies, and people whom we can pat on the back in turn for being right and right-thinking.

In contrast to that, though still under the heading of naive methods of evaluation, is another method which for some strange reason is also practiced fairly commonly. We can abbreviate our description of this method by saying that it consists of taking the issue seriously. In some ways it is more like an attitude than a method; we use this method when we entertain the possibility that we have not arrived at a final answer on the question at issue. We worry. Perhaps we might change our mind. When someone says something we disagree with and offers support--an argument, then--we take it in as something which may help us to think about how we stand on the issue. And when someone gives an argument with which we do agree, we still worry--we consider how we might answer if we were on the opposing side.

This method is a pain. We alienate our acquaintances, especially those who are used to just pronouncing The Word on issues or potential issues. We are not comfortable. There are lots of times we wish we could just agree with someone but we cannot. People who disagree with us can seem to be as helpful to us as those who think every word we speak is gospel. We are restless, furrow our brows a lot, keep having to ask questions. Our friends get impatient with us. God help our spouses. Our kids hate it and go crazy. We stick out like sore thumbs at PTA meetings and in committees. The advantages, if that is what they are, seem perverse. If we are wrong about something, this method may help us find that out. Arguments and arguers seem to seek us out, once they realize we will give them a hearing. Our humility requires us to assume that we are making mistakes which are too subtle for us to catch yet, and so sometimes it seems we are on an ascending spiral of misteps, like a video game in which we move to new levels by blowing it on this one but recognizing and understanding how we blew it.

This has been a caricature, of course. The method of worry can be overdone, and it takes some time and dedication to get to be good at it. You do not suddenly have a worry about an issue just by saying you do. Usually, worrying about an issue requires us to have some background, and takes practice. And those of us who are inclined to try to please the teacher or to try to master critical thinking skills as though they are a game will sometimes learn to mouth the questions instead of think. So we needn't worry that this way of thinking will suddenly possess us like some awful and unshakable Zen enlightenment that alienates us from our familiar world. It will do that, but it can be avoided by learning the moves of description and evaluation as if they are just to get a good grade--as a substitute for thinking instead of a serious enterprise that we might really worry about.ΠAnd if we do get sucked in and become this kind of worrier, we might be able to get along with people still. For one thing, we can always hold our tongue, and suffer in silence.

A couple more comments about evaluation before we go back to finish up with our example. It should be clear by now that what is being advocated in this book is this latter kind of naive evaluation, what I have called the method of worry. It is not an unfamiliar method. We can see it at work in any good City Council meeting or a committee taking up a debate, on the editorial pages or in the editorial columns of newspapers and news magazines, in scholarly journals. I have said it is a naive method, but not to put it down. I mean rather to make clear the distinction between this sort of argument evaluation and those methods of evaluation which are taught in schools and proceed out of theory. My argument that this is the method of choice is simple; we must use this method, because it is the method against which we measure any other. That is, if another method is to be considered, we will decide whether that method (whether from formal logic, philosophy of science, the study of fallacies) is good or bad by how it helps us think through real arguments when we are worrying about the real issues those arguments address.

Worrying about the issue is the method we are trying out. Remember the quote we started with:

Abortion cannot be substituted for birth control, because if the woman was not responsible in taking precautions against becoming pregnant, she ought to have to live with the consequences.

This is a good quote to work with, since many people have a hard time taking the issue seriously. Many people, that is, have their minds made up on the question of whether women can be justified in getting an abortion as a substitute for birth control. When we do have our minds made up, we may need something to help us with the job of thinking the question through. We are inclined to take our own opinions as the correct view to hold, with varying degrees of certainty. We may think anyone who disagrees is crazy or immoral or ignorant or ú-----ú(fill in this blank yourself).

What could help? Sometimes the reminder that this is a live issue, that perhaps not all the people on the other side are idiots or have antennae, will do it. Sometimes the question "Why do you take the stand you do?" will help.

Given an argument, there is another possible help, in the form of an admonition, parallel and opposite to the admonition for describing arguments. This one is

Issue? One thing an opponent might say is that this question, of whether a woman can substitute abortion for birth control, never takes up the crucial questions. Asking this question, that is, bypasses the questions of whether a woman has moral rights that can extend so far as aborting, whether the fetus should have its interests taken into account, whether the method of conception has anything to do with whether the fetus should be allowed to survive.

Position? Simple opposition here is certainly possible. It is likely to come in the form of arguments, and most will have to do with support, will focus on support rather than just the position.

Support? There are several things for an opponent to say here.

• --The support in the quote is sexist, in that it assumes the responsibility is basically the pregnant woman's, and the consequences are to be the woman's as well. It neglects the responsibility of the man in the sexual act and perhaps the high stakes on the part of the fetus in the consequences.
• --The support seems to assume a contractual view of sex, as though having sex with someone is like signing a piece of paper which carries obligations. While there may be times and places in which this is a proper view of sex, as perhaps in sex within a marriage, it is at least an issue whether sex always carries obligations with it.
• --The support embodies a view of pregnancy (and possibly parenthood) which treats pregnancy as an appropriate means of punishment for some wrongdoing, as though being pregnant were like being under house arrest. This is questionable. It might be possible, for instance, that we should think of pregnancy and parenthood as something we might wish to reserve for the best people among us, and as something which is valued by the society as being among the most noble things we do. Thinking of pregnancy and parenthood as appropriate methods of punishment is to put them down, improperly so.
• --The support takes a view toward people who take risks which is sometimes inappropriate. Sometimes we do want people to take the consequences of their actions; if my junior-high-school daughter keeps forgetting her lunch, it may be that I will decide to quit bailing her out the way I have been doing, by dropping the lunch off at school on my way to work. Some of the progress we have made in treating alcoholics and addicts has come from the realization that often it is a complete mistake to cover up for them or give them more chances or bail them out--what is often recommended is that we let them "hit bottom" in the hopes that they may then change. But in occupations and sports where people take risks or make dangerous choices we do not necessarily insist that they face all the possible consequences; a construction worker on high steel is not required to work without a safety line just because he freely chose the job, nor a skydiver to jump without a reserve chute. It is not clear that a woman who engages in unprotected sex is more like an absent-minded child who needs to be taught a lesson than she is like a worker entitled to limit her risks.

What we have done is to cast a cold eye on the argument. We have spent some time trying to think like an opponent, even if we happen to agree with the position the arguer defends. This is in a way a schizophrenic enterprise; we put our own views on hold until we have spent time thinking about what someone else could say. There are times, as we will see, when the effect is like a hall of mirrors--he could say this, but she could reply that, but then he could reply in turn with this other thing, and so on. That sort of progression cannot be taken far or all hope of progress on the issue will be lost in confusion.

Fundamental at this point is that we have left ourselves out of the talk about the issue until we have in mind what an arguer is saying and what that arguer's opponent could say in reply. Someday we will get to what WE want to say. But not yet.

From Chapter Four

Are advertisements arguments?

Perhaps we can think about this better if we work with a particular example. We could use any ad, but in order to sharpen the debate, I'll use one for which the opposing position is taken, from Howard Kahane's Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 5th edition (1988: Wadsworth, Belmont, CA), p. 21.

More people in America drink Budweiser than any other beer.

Now we can take on the question, are ads arguments? at least in a preliminary way, by taking up the question, is the Bud ad an argument?

Just what is the issue? By now, we have some tools for trying to figure out what the issue is. Strikingly in this case, there are live related issues: all those issues having to do with drinking, perhaps those having to do with handling problems associated with drinking, and perhaps some having to do with whether there should be restrictions on ads for alcoholic beverages. This clearly is not meant to settle any of those issues even if we can tell what the speaker would probably say. The ad is meant to influence individual viewers buying beer. Kahane takes the position the ad supports to be that I should drink Bud, so the question for which that must be the answer is,
What beer should I drink?

This way of putting the issue has some corroboration in the fact that it makes the rest of the description of the argument easy. Position? Bud. I should drink Budweiser. Support? Because Budweiser is drunk by more Americans than any other beer. Point of View? Ah, well, this is a problem. The voice-over is not the voice of God at an early age, though it sounds that way. It is not even the voice of Anheuser Busch Brewing Company, or the president of A. B. The voice is likely to be that of a person who has much more expensive tastes than Bud. The voice is that of someone who was hired by an advertising agency because it sounds authoritative, trustworthy, and up. The advertising agency is rich in concerns and expertise--this quote does not come from someone like you and me, nor from anyone like the beautiful people on the screen. The concerns are not concerns about any of the issues alluded to above; they are concerns for such things as what will appeal to a wide audience, especially those who now drink Bud and need reinforcement for that and those who might drink Bud if they are reached somehow by an ad. There is a concern (at the very least in the background) for what their bosses will think and their bosses concerns for sales figures, which means money. It seems we can give an answer to the question about point of view, after all; we've specified who's talking and something of the concerns behind the quote.

We have been successful, then, at reading the ad as an argument. Kahane too has been successful at laying out what the argument is in the ad. These readings would be some of the main grounds or support for the position that the ad does contain an argument. There is more support possible for a Yes answer to the question, does this ad contain an argument? One way to support such a claim, which is consistent with some current psychological theories about human cognition, might be to say that ads influence people's decisions--ads persuade or attempt to persuade people to do things, and so they must be offering a choice to people and support in the form of reasons or evidence or some such for picking a particular alternative faced in that choice. A choice in this kind of setting means that the consumer faces a situation in which there are several possible courses of action--that sounds a lot like an issue, and the course of action the ad is hoping the consumer takes looks like a conclusion or position. And then of course what ads excel in is the subtle push toward that course of action (putting a product in your shopping cart, for example), which can be easily seen as support or premises for the decision the consumer makes. Faced with a choice, an ad offers an answer and some grounds for that answer. What more could an argument be? Of course ads are arguments.

The paragraph above, then summarizes arguments for the claim that this ad and other ads are arguments. There may be some lack of clarity regarding the point of view--who would care about this? what concerns would anyone have to lead them to making a case that ads are arguments? But we will leave this.

Now look at the opposition. What follows, that is, is an argument that ads are not arguments. It has several pieces.

--Consider the Budweiser ad, and consider the issue the ad supposedly addresses. Now think about the live issues about beer and drinking. Some of those could be easily listed.

• How strict should we be with drunken drivers?
• What level of blood alcohol in a driver should be tolerated by law?
• What should be done about underage drinkers?
• How can school education regarding alcohol be improved?
• When and how should a family be helped to intervene in cases of alcoholism?
• What is the best way to deal with a recovering alcoholic if one gives a party?
• How can parents best help their children prepare to cope with decisions about drinking?

Now, take a deep breath and try this one:

Which beer should I drink?

It is a joke. This is not an issue at all. The word "should" is completely out of place. People do not (except in odd situations) choose their beer based on shoulds or oughts. And while we can think of situations in which someone could raise a similar question, those people are not the target audience for this ad.

Let's spell that out: Suppose the Critical Thinking class traditionally ends with a two-day keg party. We collect money and draft Vickie to buy the beer because she has a pickup. However, Vickie unfortunately acquired a taste in Ireland last summer for Irish green lager with bitters, and finds an importer who has five kegs of it in stock from a shipment which went awry in New York last St. Patrick's Day. Delighted, she shows up at the party with a truckload of this stuff. Those of us who are there early are either shocked and appalled or treat it as a joke, and send her off. Now we have the proper situation for her to face a serious question, namely, what beer should I buy? (not, you'll notice, quite the same thing as, what beer should I drink?). And in this situation, the Budweiser ad could be a help, a help which even offers evidence for its providing the right answer to her question.

Of course the ad was not targeted to people whose pickups are full of the wrong choice of beer. To read the ad as an argument on this sort of issue requires that a strange situation be read into the background. In the absence of such a background, we have no way to take the ad as such an argument.

The issue, "What beer should I drink?" is a fake or bogus issue, or a joke. This becomes even clearer when we consider another issue which sometimes arises, namely, "Should I drink?" Though even that one is a special case, since few people drink or abstain based on shoulds or oughts. The question, that is, is more likely to be, "Shall I drink?" The proper response to that is just as likely to be a simple decision as it is to be arguments.

There is not an argument here. The support so far for that claim is that there is only a fake or bogus issue.

--Further, if there is an argument, what is it? Kahane gives two different readings to the argument, and I have given another above. The one I give above is very odd on retrospect, and Kahane gives us no way to choose between the two readings he gives. This is another way of casting doubt on the claim that there is an argument in the ad. That is, the ad is not an argument because we cannot tell what argument it is.

--Still more. Think about advertisements and how they do their work. (Kahane's book is actually a good reference for following up on this matter, in his later chapter on advertising. Many others have also written on this topic.) Often ads are at their most effective when they get people to avoid thinking about their choices. That is, ads may have the objective of keeping you from looking at the shelves as you trundle along, pulling off merchandise on autopilot. You can see this with children on Saturday afternoons in the cereal sections. Many times the ad is interested in keeping you reassured that you have been drinking the right thing all along, using safe and effective and prudent and cheap and sexy automobiles, booze, mouthwash, makeup, deodorant, cigarettes, sanitary napkins, brands of clothing--and so you do not need to think the next time you spend money. Research about just what makes ads effective is equivocal, but we may sometimes more properly think of modern ads as just causing us to buy rather than thinking of them as talking us into buying.

Take a case. The author is a shade tree auto mechanic, with a phase in his checkered past of working on and racing performance cars. He is a perfect sucker for certain kinds of ads, namely ads like those for Alfa Romeos detailing the superiority of DeDion rear suspensions, and the ads for Porsche on how Porsches (finally, now) minimize acceleration-induced camber changes and therefore oversteer in hard corners. The ads are terrific, and are easy to read as arguments. But the descriptions of how these ads are put together and the market research that goes on along with them makes clear that the main message is not directed at the question Which car should John Powell buy? It is rather like a subtle massage of the lower ego, an insinuation that this is your kind of car, J. P., the kind of car for fading ex-hotrodders with pretentions to understanding engineering. The fact that so many people read the ads who never buy a new car and never will speaks to how good those ads are at making people feel good.

Other ads operate by raising anxieties and then pointing us toward a product which will alleviate those anxieties. Worries about body odor, dandruff, bad breath, how likely I am to be decapitated in an auto accident, whether my wife and children will have to live under a bridge if I die soon; all these are anxieties which advertisers want me to have, anxieties they are careful to manufacture and then to cultivate like rare orchids.

Consider another ad, this one too brought to our attention courtesy of Howard Kahane's book. This was a print ad, consisting of a quote in the middle of quite a lot of white space:

100,000 doctors have quit smoking cigarettes.
(Maybe they know something you don't.)

followed by a small footnote that this message has been brought to us by the American Medical Association.

Shouldn't we read this one as an argument? We certainly could, and it would make a certain kind of sense. The issue is a live one for smokers, namely "Shouldn't I quit?" The ad supports a position of yes, by pointing to a certain set of health authorities, our physicians, who not only say yes but act accordingly. The point of view is that of our doctors, concerned for our health and long life. Corroboration of this reading comes from its placement in the book in a chapter which includes the fallacy of questionable authority, and a discussion of bandwagon effect, since the numbers used make it look as if it is saying we ought to do something because lots of others are doing it too. I have had students claim that it is a good argument, since medical doctors are after all generally well-informed, have proper opportunity to acquire experience, are in the right field to speak on this, don't get higher fees if they quit, and seem generally to agree that smokers ought to quit.

This, then, is an appeal to authority, where someone claims something is so because an authority (or authorities) endorses that claim. Not only that, it is an appeal to authority which may have some legitimacy. We could think still of some niggling worries, but it is possible that they could be resolved, and the argument emerge unscathed. For instance, 100,000 is a suspiciously round number, (perhaps explained by the fact that the AMA is being careful and conservative though it has reason to believe that 108,560 doctors have quit). We do not know how many doctors there are, either, and it may make a difference if the other percentage of doctors who continue to puff away (leaving out those who never did smoke) is 2 percent rather than 60 percent, especially since we like agreement among our authorities. But perhaps the right answers to these questions could be had.

That is the case for the claim that the AMA ad is or contains an argument. By now, you have some tools to make the case for the other side. Go ahead.

Think about the message of this ad. Is this ad aimed at smokers? Think about the point of view, the concerns out of which this ad came. Do those who paid for this ad want people to quit smoking? What are their concerns? Think about the issue, and about the other possible arguments which could be made to help resolve that issue.

The answer is that if there is an argument here it is a side effect, sort of like the terrific tan I got by working as a kid picking cotton. It has little or nothing to do with the ad in its purpose, message, or audience, nor does it address the questions about smoking which you and your doctor might discuss.

What is this ad about? It is, I suggest, about doctors being good guys--sensible, knowledgable, authorities, examples for the rest of us to look up to from our state of ignorance. The purpose of the ad is to reaffirm a kind of image of doctors as those the rest of the nation properly entrusts its welfare to (and so does not regulate or tax too heavily). The ad depends for its force on its audience already knowing what the right position is on the issue of whether smokers should quit. Hell, yes, smokers should quit, and doctors are on the side of the angels and the Surgeon General. The audience then for this ad is not just smokers but anyone who knows a smoker or sees smokers in moving around in the world. Further, if the ad had wanted to help those who face the issue, Should I quit? it could have done so by rehearsing a summary of research results and nailing the American Tobacco Institute's objections up for all to see tegether with the AMA's replies.

The trouble is that not very many people are interested in that issue; most smokers are not, and one of the problems smokers have is with people who think the smokers are ignorant of what they are doing (especially galling in the case of small children who bring the smoker the latest research results or clip stories and leave them on the mirror). Among smokers, it is much more likely that the live issue will be, not Should I quit? but rather, How can I quit?--what works, won't cause me to pork out, and doesn't take too much hassle? (Footnote: There are lots of possibilities here which vary in insight level and thoughtfulness, from "Why do I seem intent on killing myself off?" and "How do I find an insurance company that does not require a medical exam?" through "Granted I have good reasons for killing myself off, what if I change my mind after it is too late?") If this were an argument on whether I should quit, the AMA is just the outfit to put together some good arguments which would address the issue. Instead they pat each other on the back and face us, the public, to say, "See how united we stand? See what good guys we are? Remember how much we know?"

In support of the claim that this ad is not properly read as an argument, then, I have suggested that it has a purpose unrelated to the issue, a purpose which is much more crucial for us to see than any possible reading of it as an argument. Further, that purpose helps to make sense of the ad in a grim, cynical, moneygrubbing sort of way which might be preferable to the overly wholesome and romanticized view of doctors that we have from reading it as an argument. And last, if the AMA wanted to put together an argument for quitting smoking, they could have done the job so much better.

I have made a case against those who would read ads as arguments by taking up a couple of ads which could be read as arguments and showing that those readings are misleading. Reading the ads as arguments makes us miss what the ads are about, what their purpose is, and how they work. Because these two were plausible candidates for being arguments but they are not, I suggest that other ads should not be taken as arguments without some further thought.

Send comments and suggestions about this page to: jwp2@axe.humboldt.edu
Last Updated: 1998 September 10.

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