Argumentation

Identifying Arguments What Cannot be argued – Discrete Facts without interpretation- Obama won the 2008 election – Impossibilities (who would win the bear or the lion) – Preferences (Mr. Pibb is better than Dr. Pepper) – Beliefs beyond Human experience (invoking God)-

Analyzing Arguments and Evidence Components of a valid argument – Examine the Accuracy Supporting reasons are true and accurate The Structure of the argument is valid Valid arguments have: – An Argument (what the proponent/opponent wants) – A well justified reason (why they want it) Accurate and logical – A Policy conclusion The policy based on this conclusion

How to Analyze the Argument Is the argument empirical? Does the argument present any supporting data? What is the source of the data? Is it trustworthy?

Interest Groups as Actors What is Important Money Size Cohesiveness What is not Grassroots (unless astroturf) Unconventional tactics Everything that is not on the left hand side.

How to determine power? At the Federal Level – At the State Level –

When Looking at Politicians Who Matters Must be elected, or well known candidates The more senior the better The more members of their party in the legislature, the better Who Does Not Old elected officials (George W. Bush) Candidates and partieswho do not have a chance Lower-level bureaucrats

Decision makers are more important than non-decision makers

An example of an Argument Argument: We need to insure the 30+ Million Americans do not have health care Reason: Persons without health care drive up the cost of insurance for all Americans Conclusion: We should implement a single- payer plan proposed by Congress What is missing from this argument?

What Qualifies as evidence Research studies and Surveys – Method Phone, in person, mail – Sample size Larger is better if collected properly – Sponsor Many research studies are very dated

What qualifies as Evidence Case Studies – An application of the policy solution to a smaller group State level Municipal. – Be Careful May not be generalizable Apples to oranges Remember that the United States is unique

What Qualifies as Evidence Expert Testimony – – Can be misleading – Personal experience is the weakest form of evidence Precedents – Previous attempts at policy – Examine the similarities and dissimilarities – E.g vs Health Care Bill

FALLACIES

Fallacies A way of making a persuasive argument, via a mistake in reasoning Faulty Logic

Ecological Fallacy Using Aggregate Data to infer individual opinions. (taking means or grouped data and using it to explain the actions of individuals) Also called the fallacy of division- if the whole possesses a quality, but the parts might not On Grandpa Simpson wanting to help: "Call this an unfair generalization if you must, but old people are no good at everything." Moe the Bartender from the Simpsons

Exception Fallacy Taking individual behavior and applying to a group. Stereotyping Applying the preferences of one actor to a class of political actors Using one extreme “story” to justify macro-level policy

Hasty Generalization Using a small or non-representative sample to prove a point. (a type of exception fallacy) I know a guy who didn’t vote for McCain, because of Palin, so she must have cost him the election Everyone I know voted for Rick Perry in Iowa, how did he lose?

Faulty Generalization An example of the exception fallacy Evaluating all with criteria that apply only to some Be wary of saying that “Democrats”, “Republicans”, Liberals, Conservatives, believe something. Attach names with parties.

AD HOMINEN ("to the man“) Discredit a person's qualities or circumstances Don’t trust Dick Cheney, everyone knows he’s evil. Any Examples?

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY Expert Authorities can be useful for argumentation (e.g. Federal Data). Fallacious if the authority is not really an expert or when there are trust issues – Because Sean Penn likes Hugo Chavez, he has to be a good guy after all. Television Ad’s do this all the time with endorsements

EMOTIONAL APPEAL Appeals to fear and pity with little relevance to the issue Often Involve threats, pity, appeals to fear, evoke sympathy. Cutesy stories Here is a exampleexample

SLIPPERY SLOPE One undesirable effect will automatically lead to another and another We elect Obama and we will all be socialists, and then communists

Argument from Ignorance In Logic, all hypotheses are false until proven true. In this case, you assume something is true until proven false. – Kennedy assassination was an inside job – 9/11 was an inside job- prove me wrong.

For Submission 2 Present arguments that make sense Present arguments from actors that are politically relevant Present arguments that are directly related to the issues.

For Submission 2 Keep writing 1 page a day or finding 1 good source a day Spend at least 1 hour a day in a place where you are most comfortable for studying Don’t