Types of Arguments

Definition Arguments

How terms are defined can be critical to an arguer’s point. Indeed, an argument can sometimes hinge on how the audience understands a particular term that is central to an arguer’s stance.

And definition arguments can appear in virtually every rhetorical situation imaginable. When we were kids, for example, our parents probably outlined a clear argument for how the term “bed time” was defined. (“Bed time is 9:00 pm on the dot, whether or not you’ve finished playing your video game!”)

And in less mundane instances–like in legal arguments–a term’s definition can have very serious implications, like the distinctions between some of the following, related terms:

• Homicide: killing another person, legally or illegally, for justified or unjustified reasons. By a strict definition, soldiers on a battlefield can commit homicide, so too can someone who intentionally or unintentionally kills someone out of self defense

• Murder: an intentional, illegal act involving malice, forethought, and planning.

• Manslaughter: a less intentional act, not involving a high degree of forethought or deliberateness, and while the outcome is still fatal, the act itself may not overtly involve malice or the intention to kill.

In a broad sense, all three terms involve one person killing another, but there are a wide number of contextual elements related to the person’s actions that must be defined. In all the above cases, however, how a person’s intentions are defined is critical.

Or perhaps, someone can attempt to discredit a particular news organization by categorizing it–by defining it–as “fake news.” Remember, however, that an argument is only sound if the arguer provides appropriate evidence to support their claim, so if one were to define a news organization as a purveyor of “fake news,” it’s incumbent on that person to provide evidence of faulty, inaccurate reporting by that news organization. Indeed, without evidence, an argument doesn’t hold water.

Of course, definition arguments don’t necessarily have to appear in highly consequential situations; consider the following clip where the comedian Pete Holmes argues that traffic (often thought of as the textbook example of a frustrating event to avoid at all costs) ought to be understood–ought to be defined–to be a positive experience.

Evaluative Arguments

In an evaluative argument, you evaluate whether something is good/bad, effective/ineffective, helpful/harmful, etc. But you also need to establish the criteria for the difference in good/bad, etc. For example, you might evaluate a children’s book for your Introduction to Educational Theory class, but you would need to establish clear criteria for your evaluation for your audience. For our purposes, there are three sets of criteria we’ll be discussing that we can use to make evaluative arguments:

• Practical: Does the thing being evaluated achieve the practical purpose it sets out to achieve?

• Aesthetic: Does the thing being evaluated successfully adhere to a set of artistic standards?

• Ethical: Does the thing being evaluated successfully adhere to a set of ethical standards?

When we’re evaluating something, it’s important to identify which set of criteria we’re holding it to. Equally, it’s useful to note that sometimes these criteria can work against each other. For example, a disposable plastic drinking straw may easily be evaluated as “good” by meeting a set of practical criteria: it provides a cheap, accessible, sanitary way for consumers to drink beverages. However, that same drinking straw could just as easily be evaluated as “bad” by a set of ethical criteria: these same straws end up in landfills, take decades to breakdown, and negatively impact wildlife on land and sea. Equally, say the same disposable drinking straw is green and that it matches the color of the logo of a chain of coffee shops that’s looking for a straw supplier; that same drinking straw, then, could be evaluated as “good” by a set of aesthetic criteria (and practical criteria as well). Indeed, different evaluative criteria can serve very different purposes, so it will be important for us to think about how we are evaluating something and which criteria we’re using.

When we’re selecting the criteria that we’ll be basing our evaluative arguments on, it’s critical that we consider our audience and the set (or sets) of criteria that they value. Consider the above example about plastic drinking straws. If our audience is likely to perceive the situation by a set of ethical criteria, then they are more likely to be persuaded by the negative ethical evaluation (i.e. that disposable plastic drinking straws are bad because they damage the environment). Or if our audience is likely to perceive the situation by a set of practical criteria (perhaps they want the straw that is cheapest) then they are more likely to be persuaded by an evaluative argument that’s based on practical criteria. Again, here, as always, thinking about audience is a crucial step in the process of persuasion.

Causal Arguments

Causal arguments argue that there is a cause and effect relationship between things. Causal arguments also use evidence to say that one condition contributed to the existence of another condition. Sometimes the cause and effect relationship between certain things can seem really clear cut.  However, there may be more going on than we see at first look. Consider the following scenario.

While we’re not here to adjudicate who is responsible for the vase breaking, what the above hypothetical situation illustrates is that what we often think of as a straightforward cause-and-effect relationship can often be more complicated than it seems upon further inspection. Equally, this scenario illustrates how one can structure a causal argument, which argues that there is a cause and effect relationship between certain conditions.

And while the above scenario might seem fairly innocuous, that’s not always the case for causal arguments in the real world. Take for instance the 1985 firebombing of the MOVE house in West Philadelphia. MOVE is an organization that began in the early 1970’s. They practiced a communal lifestyle and argued in favor of justice for all, specifically for racial justice. After several years of growing tensions between the Philadelphia Police Department involving, among other things, the death of Officer James J. Ramp, an explosive device was dropped on the residence where the MOVE members lived. That explosive device detonated, and the building subsequently caught fire. The fire was deliberately not extinguished immediately. Eleven members of MOVE died in the blaze, including five children. Furthermore, the fire spread to the rowhomes of the nearby residents, destroying them as well.[1]The official commission that investigated this event determined that while the city’s handling of it was “unconscionable,” no one from the city government was charged with any wrongdoing.

This event raises a number of questions about causal arguments–questions that are still debated to this day, pertaining to who should be held responsible for the death and destruction caused by this event:

• Should the then-mayor of Philadelphia (Mayor Wilson Goode) be held responsible, since he approved the bombing?

• Should the Fire Commissioner be held responsible for not taking the initiative to quickly stop the blaze once it started? Or should the Police Commissioner be held responsible for not determining that the fire was a true danger to many, which he should have communicated to the Fire Commissioner? (Both the Police Commissioner and Fire Commissioner were at the scene, monitoring the events of the day.)

• Do the members of MOVE share some of the responsibility for engaging in actions that could have been perceived as having provoked the police and the city? Equally, do they share some of the responsibility for failing to evacuate the building once it caught fire?

Again, it’s not our responsibility to adjudicate this particular situation, but what’s important is that it raises a number of questions about causal relationships and highlights the way that the circumstances that caused an event can open be open to interpretation.

Proposal Arguments

Proposal arguments propose that something should, ought to, or must happen. These may be one of the most common kinds of arguments we encounter in our day-to-day lives; however, despite how often we find them, they can actually be rhetorically quite complex, perhaps because they appear deceptively simple to make. And this is exactly why we’re covering them last, since there are some very important subtleties to them.

The basic idea behind a proposal argument seems pretty straightforward: we state what we think should happen and then marshal evidence to support that proposal. Seems easy, right?

Let’s look at a hypothetical example:

• Friend #1: “We should go see Movie X!” (Proposal claim)

• Friend #2: “Okay, sounds good. I’m in!”

Friend #1 is making a proposal claim, arguing that both friends should go see a particular movie.  In an abstract setting, this claim makes sense. However, Friend #2’s response seems pretty unlikely. If you were Friend #2, you’d probably have a few questions about why Friend #1 thinks you should go see this movie, right? Equally, you’d probably expect Friend #1 to provide at least some evidence (however scant) about why you should go see this movie. Perhaps, for example, you might want to know about the actors or the director. Maybe you’re curious about what critics are saying. Perhaps you’d like to know how long it is. Indeed, these are pretty typical things that your average person would want to know before they pay for their movie ticket. Maybe a more genuine conversation would look like this:

• Friend #1: “Hey, did you know that Movie X in the theaters right now?” (Definition claim, establishing the existence of a condition.)

• Friend #2: “Yeah, I did!”

• Friend #1: “I’ve been reading that critics across the board are praising it. One critic whose opinion I really trust even said that it’s the best movie to come out all year.” (Evaluative claim, arguing that something is good.)

• Friend #2: “Oh wow!”

• Friend #1: “I think we should go see it!” (Proposal claim)

Note that in this second example, in order for Friend #1 to build a sound proposal argument, they have to first make several other claims–notably a definition claim, establishing the existence of a condition, following by an evaluative claim, arguing that the movie is good.

However, in less mundane examples, proposal arguments often begin by identifying a problem before proposing a solution to it. For instance, in recent years, there has been increased public awareness of the dangers of disposable plastic drinking straws, particularly focused on the dangers they cause to wildlife. Many stakeholders have proposed (and even implemented) a variety of different solutions. Starbucks, for example, redesigned their cold-drink cups so that they could stop giving customers obligatory straws with their beverages. Other establishments have switched to using straws that are made of paper, which is more biodegradable and therefore breaks down more easily. Other companies have started marketing washable, reusable plastic straws that can be reused over and over again. While a wide variety of solutions have been proposed (and while many of those proposals have even been enacted), what’s important to note is that these proposals were in response to what was identified as a problem–i.e. The wastefulness of disposable drinking straws.