Critical thinking for Students (12 page)

There is a group of types of argument that uses what are termed ‘appeals’. As with any sort of claim, an appeal needs to be judged in terms of whether or not it’s relevant.

So what do we mean by ‘appeals’ in Critical Thinking? They are a category of claims in which some feature or quality is used to try to argue a particular point. We’ll start with the appeal to popularity.

This argument uses the evidence of public belief about evolution to argue that we must doubt evolution. It uses no other evidence. So is the evidence relevant? Straightforwardly, absolutely no. Darwin’s account of evolution as the explanation for the development of species cannot be judged by what the public thinks of it. It either works as a scientific explanation or it doesn’t. It would be like condemning the view that the Earth moves around the Sun on the grounds that, five hundred years ago, the widespread view was that the Sun moved around the Earth. 

With the argument about evolution, we have an irrelevant appeal to popularity. It uses irrelevant evidence, so it is a very weak argument. So what does a relevant appeal to popularity look like? Is it like this one?

Public opinion surveys are often quoted to show what ought or ought not to be done. But are they relevant appeals to popularity? In this previous example (from September 2009), the figures are fairly close, but the bigger number is in favour of US troops fighting in Afghanistan. Does it follow therefore that the US should keep troops there?

This is a more difficult one. In that governments in democratic countries are supposed to take some notice of public opinion (if nothing else, so that they can win elections), then this evidence is not irrelevant. But it could be said that it is only weak evidence. Perhaps the public have insufficient information or understanding of the issues involved. Perhaps, therefore, an appeal to popularity on a number of issues needs, at best, to be only part of the evidence.

Any argument which wants to infer the
truth
of something, where the truth is something unaffected by what the wider public thinks, is going to have an irrelevant appeal to popularity. As we have seen, examples here include evolution (the truth of which is unaffected by public opinion). Another subject is GM foods. Even if the majority of the public is against their widespread use, this isn’t relevant to whether or not they’re a partial solution to solving food shortages.

Arguments which are concerned with how public opinion (or part of it) might affect what
ought
to be done
might
have relevant appeals to popularity. Thus we could make a distinction between an argument looking at whether or not capital punishment deters people from crime and an argument looking at whether it is acceptable to execute people. In the first argument, public opinion will not tell us whether or not capital punishment works as a deterrent; in the second, acceptability can (although doesn’t need to) be based on what the public thinks.

We’ll now move on to another type of appeal. You are likely to have seen some of the reality TV programmes, in which people (normally unknown members of the public) audition and then, if initially acceptable, perform as part of a process which can lead to fame and riches. The defining characteristic is meant to be talent. In the programme called
X-Factor
(in the UK), the relevant talent is the ability to sing. So, if the programme works, the contestant with the greatest ability to sing should win. However, an appeal to popularity is built into the selection process, which raises a problem straightaway. But there is more. Talent might, at times, be sacrificed for something else. This is
pity
. Just listen while some young man or woman warbles on, with the obligatory tears in their eyes.

We’ll switch them off there. You will have got the point by now. None of this information is relevant to the inference ‘I’ve got to win this’, because none of the evidence that follows is anything to do with talent.

What we have here is not an appeal to popularity, but an appeal to pity. And it’s an irrelevant appeal to pity. People should win talent shows because they are the most talented, not because they are to be the most pitied. Thus we have here an irrelevant appeal to pity. But, as with appeals to popularity, are there any relevant appeals to pity?

Does this work? The conclusion that bullfighting should be banned is drawn from evidence that focuses on the suffering that bulls have to endure in the ring. The intention of the author is that one should feel distress at reading this evidence, distress that is designed to make one pity the bull and thus support the conclusion. It works for me, and it might work for you. If it doesn’t, then this will be because you will see what happens to the bull as acceptable. Whether or not it works, this could be seen as a relevant appeal to pity in that it is concerned with what actually goes on in the bullring.

Whilst we’re thinking about bullfighting, what do you think of the next piece of information?

If this was used in the above argument, would it be a relevant or an irrelevant appeal to popularity?

You could argue that it looks pretty relevant. If the majority of the Spanish population has no interest, then this would seem to emphasise the lack of justification for the cruelty involved. (Although this is a difficult area: one could not say that the cruelty was less if the majority approved of bullfighting. Pain is pain, regardless of numbers.)

There is another type of appeal that we can bring in here. Here’s the British actor and comedian Ricky Gervais on the subject of bullfighting.

We could incorporate this comment into the argument as something like ‘the
well-known
actor and comedian Ricky Gervais says that bullfighting is very cruel and there cannot be any pleasure in watching an animal being speared to death’.

In a way, it provides another line of reasoning. We’ve had the evidence of cruelty; we’ve had the lack of interest; we’ve now got somebody famous emphasising the cruelty. Though Ricky Gervais is not an authority or an expert on the subject of bullfighting, there is a way that his fame is being used to make him look authoritative. And there is a category of appeals called ‘appeal to authority’. In some ways, it fits here. Ricky Gervais is seen as an important figure, someone who can add weight to a campaign against bullfighting. This is why the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) includes his comments on their website.

In a very real sense, of course, what Ricky Gervais thinks is neither here nor there. One website claims that Madonna and Celine Dion support bullfighting. Does their apparent support make the case against bullfighting less strong? No.

So, are there appeals to authority which are relevant? This is where we need to slide in another appeal, which sits in the same place. This is ‘appeal to expertise’. An appeal to an authority as a relevant expert is something that is different. The appeal isn’t to a simply well-known figure, but to someone (or, indeed, an organisation) whose expertise is relevant to the argument.

This would mean that, though Prince Charles often makes his views known on the subject of architecture, we should not see his views as significant in that he has no obvious expertise in this area. (The same point applies to his views on organic and GM foods.)

If we wanted to produce an argument against buying organic food, then we could use the evidence of an expert.

In this argument, the Prince of Wales’s position is contrasted with that of a group of experts, the leader of which had expertise in a very relevant subject. In this way, the appeal to expertise is a very relevant one and makes the argument much stronger. Anyone wanting to argue in favour of organic food by appealing to the authority of the Prince of Wales will have a problem showing him to be an expert.

Of course, an appeal to expertise which might work in one area won’t necessarily work in another. If we wanted to argue about the state of the Royal finances, then we might wish to appeal to the expertise (and authority) of the Prince of Wales, and leave Dr Dangour to concentrate on looking at the nutritional benefits of non-organic carrots.

Whilst we’ve got the Prince of Wales away from his pleasant but expensive organic marmalade, he might be interested in another appeal.

In this example, there is an appeal to history (which can also be seen as an appeal to tradition). You can see how it works:
x
has been going on for some time, so it should continue. At an important level, it’s not a very powerful appeal, if there are reasons to suggest that the tradition or historical continuity are no longer good reasons (perhaps things have changed in relevant ways; perhaps there are now better ways of doing things).

Good examples could be found in sport. The tradition of starting athletic races with the sound of a gun has been shown to be a problem because, in these days of measuring athletic performance in terms of hundredths of a second, there is the problem that those nearest the sound have a very slight advantage (because of the speed at which sound travels). So, to say, ‘we’ve done it like this for a long time’ turns out to be a poor reason to continue with the practice. Similarly, an appeal to tradition or history in other sports can be countered with reasons that show the advantages of using new methods. For example, the use of video replays in cricket and the ‘Hawk-Eye’ electronic system in tennis could be relevant to other sports, such as football.

We’ve looked at some appeals that are used in argument. It needs to be remembered that appeals are not in themselves weaknesses. You might see that some people lump together ‘flaws and appeals’ as if appeals are inevitable weaknesses. We have seen that doing this shows a misunderstanding of the nature of appeals. It is only when appeals are not relevant to the argument that we have a weakness, the weakness of irrelevant evidence. Any appeal, of whatever sort, needs to be judged in this way.

Enough of weaknesses: we’re now going to look at some specific ways of arguing.