The Making of Arguments

by J. H. Gardiner

Scientific arguments, therefore, make constant use of both methods. Medical research frequently begins with the gathering of statistics from reported cases, and the theory or theories suggested by the method of agreement working on these facts leads to the application of the method of difference through some series of critical experiments. In general the conclusions of science where experiment cannot be used depend on the method of agreement, especially in the larger theories in biology and geology, where the lapse of unnumbered centuries is necessary to bring about changes. In physics, in chemistry, in medicine, on the other hand, critical experiments are generally possible, and so progress is by the method of difference. In such subjects as political science and government, where experiment is out of the question, one must depend chiefly on the method of agreement, except in such cases as will be mentioned below where a change in policy has the same effect as an experiment. Here, however, one must not forget that in all matters human the incalculable clement of human nature enters to complicate all results, and that emotion and feeling are always irrational.

It is by the same processes that we get most of our explanations of the world as we go through it, and most of the facts on which we base judgment and action. When the same sort of thing happens in a number of fairly different cases, we begin to suspect that there is a reason; and if we are going to make an argument on the subject, we take note of the cases and try in some way to arrange and tabulate them. The supporters of a protective tariff collect instances of prosperity under such a tariff, the supporters of free trade cases of prosperity under free trade, the believers in the classical education cases of men trained in that way who have attained to eminence, believers in the elective system cases of men who are the products of that system who have attained equal eminence. In most cases such collection of instances does not carry you far toward a coercive argument; the cases are too complex for you to assert that any one factor is the cause of the result.

In another kind of case you can come a little nearer. In an argument for the establishment of a commission form of government in a given city or town there are now enough cases of this type of government in practice to make possible a good argument by the method of agreement; the places are scattered over the country, north and south, east and west, and range greatly in size and environments; and all of them so far (1911) report improvement in efficiency and honesty of government. Accordingly it is a fair presumption that the improvement is due to the introduction of the new form of government, since in all other respects the places which have tried it have little in common.

A more important result of the inquiry is to lead us on to an application of the method of difference. Starting with this strong probability that the improvement is due to the new form of government, we can go a step further and examine a single case, in order to establish more clearly the sequence of events which we call a cause. In the case of any given town which has adopted the commission government the material for the application of the method of difference is ready to our hands, if nothing else has been changed in the town but the form of government. The inhabitants and the voters are the same, the physical conditions are the same. If now we seek for the cause of an admitted improvement in the administration of the city affairs, we are driven to ascribe it to the only factor in the case which has been changed, and this is the form of government. Such an argument, if supported by figures and specific facts, is obviously strong.

The same kind of argument is constantly used in the discussion of prohibition and local option as a means of reducing the amount of liquor consumed in a community, for the frequent changes both in states and in smaller communities provide material for the application of the same method of difference. Here, however, the factors are more complex, on account of differences in the character of the population in different places, and their inherited habits as concerns the use of wine, beer, and other liquors.

40. Faulty Generalization. Both generalization through the method of agreement, and the assignment of causes through the method of difference, however, have their dangers, like all forms of reasoning. A discussion of these dangers will throw light on the processes themselves.

The chief danger when you reason through the method of agreement is of jumping to a conclusion too soon, and before you have collected enough cases for a safe conclusion. This is to commit the fallacy known as hasty generalization. It is the error committed by the dogmatic sort of globetrotter, who after six weeks spent in Swiss-managed hotels in Italy will supply you with a full set of opinions on the government, morals, and customs of the country. In a less crass form it affects the judgment of most Englishmen who write books about this country, for they come over with letters of introduction to New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, and then generalize about the rest of the country and its population.

We are all in danger from the fallacy, however, for it is a necessary law of the mind that we shall begin to make opinions and judgments on a subject as soon as we become acquainted with it. The only safeguards are, in the first place, to keep these preliminary judgments tentative and fluid, and in the second, to keep them to one's self until there is some need of expressing them. The path to wisdom in action is through open-mindedness and caution.

When one has to refute an argument in which there is faulty generalization, it is often easy to point out that its author had no sufficient time or chance to make observations, or to point out that the instances on which he relied are not fair examples of their class. In practice the strength of an argument in which this error is to be found lies largely in the positiveness with which it is pronounced; for it is human nature to accept opinions which have an outward appearance of certainty.

A not uncommon form of faulty generalization is to base an argument on a mere enumeration of similar cases. This is a poor foundation for an argument, especially for a probability in the future, unless the enumeration approaches an exhaustive list of all possible cases. To have reasoned a few years ago that because Yale had beaten Harvard at rowing almost every year for fifteen years it had a permanent superiority in the strength and skill of its oarsmen would have been dangerous, for when the years before the given period were looked up they would have shown results the other way. And an enumeration may run through a very long period of time, and still in the end be upset.