Critical Reasoning: Evaluating

Arguments and Forming

Arguments

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Dear Students,

I have compiled this little practical book filled with short activities which may help you
better understand the issues regarding argument evaluation and formation. This is not
an official UNISA document and shouldn’t be treated as such. This is just to help you
through some of the more confusing stuff.

I hope it helps and enjoy!

Danielle Swanepoel

The Important of Critical Reasoning

When we make decisions about even the simplest things, we use reasons to do so.
When we try to convince other people to think differently, we use reasons to do so.
The strength of our reasoning will determine whether we make a difference in the way
other people think. Also, using reasoning properly will provide good explanations as
to why we do the things we do. So, for instance, if I choose to drive on the right side
of the road (which is wrong because in South Africa we drive on the left), then what
sounds like the best reason for me doing this: 1) Because the car just kept veering to
the right and it hurt my arms trying to steady the car, so it was just easier to just let the
car drive on the right side of the road, 2) I couldn’t tell left from right, 3) There was a
baby sitting in the middle of the left lane which caused me to swerve into the right
lane, 4) The police told me too.

What you pick out as a good reason is going to say a lot about the way you think. If
you think option 1 is a good enough reason to drive on the right side of the road, then
something is wrong with your reasoning. Let’s unpack this further. Let’s say the car did
veer to the right all the time and the driver’s arms began to ache, that may be the
reason that the car veered to the right… but then, wouldn’t it just continue veering
and the driver would end up in a ditch on the side of the road? So, there’s a problem
with that answer. What about answer number two? If someone said this to you, I’m
hoping that you will not just accept it but rather ask at least some of the following
questions: “could you not tell left from right because you were drunk?; Has it always
been this way for you, because then how did you get your driver’s license in the first
place? If you chose to drive on the right side of the road…then you must have known
where the left side was… then if this is the case, then you do know the difference
between left and right.

If we unpack all the answers, good critical reasoning will tell us that number 4 is most
likely the correct answer. But to get to this point where we are clear as to what the
correct answer could be, we need to ask questions. In addition to that, we also need
to work out probabilities. Let’s look at answer number 3 and 4 and ask ourselves which
one is the most probable? I’m aiming for number 4 being the most probable.
However, don’t just cancel out number 3. Maybe the driver is telling the truth, but I’d
need to see evidence in order to believe the baby sitting in the road story.

To reason critically and in a way that will make your parents proud, you need to be
able to do the following:

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 • Identify conclusions
• Identify reasons
• Identify parts of an argument
• Evaluate support for conclusions
• Construct arguments

Topic 1: Identifying Conclusions

A conclusion is often only found in an argument (even conclusions found in essays

and stuff try to leave the reader with some kind of understanding of a particular point
of view). So, you won’t necessarily find a conclusion in a price tag or an
advertisement, unless both these things are trying to convince you of something.

So, an argument is a discussion, statement or set of positions that tries to convince you
of something. Let’s look at an advertisement example.

Activity 1.1

Study the advertisement and answer the following questions:

1) Is this advertisement trying to convince you of something? ____________________

2) What is it trying to convince you of?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
3) What images do they use to convince you?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

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When we look at arguments, we are trying to figure out what the conclusion is. Usually,
in most academic arguments, we will see words such as “so”, “therefore”, “must”,
“cannot”, “should”.

Sometimes there won’t be conclusion indicator words to show where the conclusion
is. If this happens, look at each sentence and try to figure out if this sentence is trying
to tell you something which the other sentences provide evidence for. So, read the
sentence and ask: ‘Does the rest of this passage give any extra information which tells
me why I should believe this?’ If the answer is ‘no’, then the sentence is not a
conclusion; if the answer is ‘yes’, then the sentence is a conclusion.

Further, if after careful reading, none of the sentences in a passage is a conclusion,

then the passage is not an argument: no conclusion, no argument. If one of the
sentences is a conclusion supported by reason(s) in the rest of the passage, then the
passage is an argument.

Activity 1.2

For each of the following passages, decide if it is an argument and if it is, what is the
conclusion.

1) Pets are good for you. Research has shown that pet owners are less likely than
other people to be depressed or to suffer from high blood pressure.

Argument? YES / NO

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

2) Children who are good at spelling usually have a good visual memory. Poor
spellers have not learnt to look at words carefully. Practice in reading does
not necessarily help poor spellers.

Argument? YES / NO

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

3) Millions of rands of public money are spent defending riverside farmland from
flooding. Some of this money should be given to farmers to compensate them
for taking such land out of production. This would save money and would
benefit the environment, since if rivers were allowed to flood, their natural
flood plains would provide wetland meadows and woodland rich in wildlife.

Argument? YES / NO

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Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

4) This year the incidence of gale force winds in some parts of Cape Town has
been very high. The wettest months were December and January. March was
very warm, with average temperatures much higher than in March last year.

Argument? YES / NO

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

5) The presence of security cameras has been shown to reduce crime in areas
such as shopping malls. But security cameras are not an unqualified success.
Law-abiding citizens do not wish to have all their activities observed, and
criminals may commit just as much crime, but do so in areas where there are
no cameras.

Argument? YES / NO

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Topic 2: Identifying Reasons

When we talk about reasons in arguments, we are talking about those things which
support conclusions. Sometimes, people use really bad reasons to support their
conclusions and then we are less likely to believe them or be persuaded by what
they are trying to say.

Some words indicate reasons: Because, since, for, due to…

Sometimes arguments will use hypothetical conditional statements to indicate

reasons. For example, the word “if” in an argument might come before or a reason.
So, for instance: if I swim in shark infested water, I will be eaten by a shark. If we look
for the conclusion here, what is this person trying to convince me of? That I’m going
to be eaten by a shark. Why? Because I chose to swim in shark infested water.

Activity 2.1

For each of the following passages, decide if it is an argument and if it is, what is the
conclusion and what are the reasons.

1) It is right to ban cigarette advertising because it encourages young people to

start smoking. But even if it had no such influence on young people, it would
be right to ban it because it could give existing smokers the mistaken
impression that their habit is socially acceptable.

Argument? YES / NO

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Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Reasons:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

2) A majority of prospective parents would prefer to have sons rather than

daughters. So, if people can choose the sex of their child, it is likely that
eventually there will be many more males than females in the population. A
preponderance of males in the population is likely to produce serious social
problems. Therefore, we should discourage the use of techniques which
enable people to choose the sex of their child.

Argument? YES / NO

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Reasons:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

3) Our 40,000 GIs stationed in South Korea support a corrupt regime. The savings
in dollars which would result from their coming home could make a sizable
dent in the projected federal deficit. Furthermore, the Korean conflict ended
30 years ago. Hence it is time we brought our troops home.

Argument? YES / NO

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Reasons:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Activity 2.2

In the following arguments, the conclusions have been pointed out for you. Look
carefully at the reasons though (there are several options for each) and ask which
one best supports the conclusions (underline the answer).

1) Conclusion: Blood donors should be paid for giving blood.

(a) The Blood Donor service is expensive to administer.

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 (b) People who give blood usually do so because they want to help others.
(c) There is a shortage of blood donors, and payment would encourage more
people to become donors.

2) Conclusion: When choosing someone for a job, employers should base their
decision on the applicants’ personalities, rather than on their skills.
(a) Personalities may change over time, and skills go out of date.
(b) Skills can easily be taught, but personalities are difficult to change.
(c) Some skills cannot be acquired by everyone, but everyone can develop a
good personality.

3) Conclusion: Installing insulation in your house may be economical in the long

run.
(a) Less fuel is needed to heat a house which has been insulated.
(b) In a house which has been insulated the air feels warmer.
(c) Some types of insulation cause houses to be damp.

4) Conclusion: In order to reduce crime, we should not use imprisonment as a

punishment for young offenders.
(a) Young offenders could be taught job skills whilst in prison.
(b) It would be expensive to build new prisons to relieve prison overcrowding.
(c) Young offenders are more likely to re-offend if their punishment has been
a term of imprisonment.

5) Conclusion: Sam could not have committed the murder.

(a) Sally had both the opportunity and a motive to commit the murder.
(b) Sam could not have gained anything by committing the murder.
(c) Sam was several miles away from the scene of the murder when the
victim was stabbed to death.

Topic 3: Identifying parts of an argument

Arguments have premises (written as P1, P2, P3) and conclusion (written as C).
Sometimes, but not often, there will be two conclusions. Almost always though, there
will be more than one premise. So, an argument will look something like this:

(P1) Roses are red

(P2) Tabby is a rose

Therefore, (C) Tabby is red

Or,

(P1) Kanye West is the king of fashion

(P2) Kanye has worn Adidas once

(P3) Kanye has worn Puma 56 times

Therefore, (C) Puma is better than Adidas

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If I was trying to convince you that Puma is better than Adidas, I could use the above
three premises to do so.

Activity 3.1

Read the following passages and write them out as P1, P2 (however many premises
there are), and the conclusion.

1) The ban on smoking in public places in the UK is likely to be accepted without

much protest. In Spain and Italy, countries in which the percentage of smokers
is higher than in the UK, there have been no major problems arising from a
similar ban.

2) Testing drugs on animals cannot give us the information we need in order to

assess safety for humans, because animals are too different from humans. The
evidence for this is that some drugs which appeared safe in animal tests have
been harmful to humans, and that aspirin and penicillin are poisonous to cats.

3) The birth rate in European countries is declining very fast. This means that even
though people are living longer, eventually the size of the population will fall,
and there will be fewer and fewer people of working age to sustain an ageing
population. Either it will be necessary to raise the retirement age, or younger
people will have to increase their productivity at work.

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 4) The introduction of tests on drivers for drugs such as cannabis is being
considered, and it has been suggested that a zero limit may be set. The result
would be that someone with even a small amount of cannabis in the
bloodstream could be prosecuted. This would be unfair because some people
whose driving was not impaired could be prosecuted, since cannabis can
remain in the bloodstream for up to four months. So, if drug tests are introduced,
the limit should not be set at zero.

5) Transplanting animal organs into humans should not be allowed. These

transplants are expensive to perform, and the risk of animal diseases being
transmitted to humans cannot be ruled out. It should be possible to solve the
shortfall of organs available for transplant by persuading more people to carry
organ donor cards. A human organ must give a human being a better chance
of survival.

Topic 4: Evaluating Support for Conclusions

In one of the above examples I supported my conclusion that Puma is better than
Adidas by using three reasons, one them stating that Kanye West is the king of
fashion. I would be able to convince you (very quickly and easily) that Puma is
better than Adidas if you are an avid Kanye West fan and think that his fashion sense
is amazing. But, what happens if you think Kanye West dresses badly and that Jay-Z

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is way better? A quote about Jay-Z: "The king of what? The king of styyyle." —Style
Wars. If you believe this, then the Kanye West argument doesn’t really work right?
There’s a couple of things we have to watch out for with regards to the kind of
evidence we use to support our conclusions. In order to better evaluate the truth of
arguments, we need to appeal to: common-sense, reliability of authorities,
relevance of conclusions, etc.
When we evaluate support for conclusions, we should ask the following questions:
1) Are the reasons provided even relevant to the conclusions?
2) If they are relevant, then are they good reasons for accepting the
conclusions?
3) Is there any form of evidence or reasons I can provide which will weaken this
conclusion?

Activity 4.1
Look at the following examples and indicate if the reasons are relevant, if they are
good reasons (tick the good/ bad box next to reasons) and if you can think of any
other reasons that might weaken the conclusion.

1) You ought to take a Happitum travel sickness pill when you go on the ferry.
They are very effective against sea-sickness, and you have always been sick
in the past when you’ve travelled by sea.
Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Reasons (good/ bad?):
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

2) New drugs have been developed which can combat the body’s tendency
to reject transplanted organs. In the past, most of the deaths which have
occurred shortly after heart transplant operations have been due to rejection.
So, it is likely that these new drugs will improve the survival rate of heart
transplant patients.

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Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Reasons (good/ bad?):

__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

3) Some people say that the depiction of violence on television has no effect on
viewers’ behaviour. However, if what was shown on television did not affect
behaviour, television advertising would never influence viewers to buy certain
products. But we know that it does. So, it cannot be true that television
violence does not affect behaviour.

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Reasons (good/ bad?):
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

4) If people became healthier as the affluence of the country increased, we

would expect the population to be healthier now than it was thirty years ago.
But over the last thirty years new illnesses, such as chronic fatigue syndrome,
have appeared, and we have become more vulnerable to old diseases such
as heart disease, strokes and cancer. So, the increased wealth of the country
has not produced improvements in the health of the population.

Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Reasons (good/ bad?):

__________________________________________________________________________________

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__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

5) Crimes and outrages of all sorts have been committed under a full moon by a
wide variety of people. The advice to derive from this is clear: when the moon
is full, trust no-one, not even yourself.
Conclusion:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Reasons (good/ bad?):

__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Topic 5: Constructing Arguments

Many times in life we will try to convince our friends, families, colleagues or professors
of our point of view. But we only get this right when our point of view makes sense
and if, thinking the way we think will somehow be beneficial to the people we are
trying to convince. When one political party tries to convince you to vote for them,
they need to give you good reasons to do so. If their reasons are stupid, then you
may be less likely to vote for them. Just like if you are trying to argue for something
and your reasons are stupid, people are less likely to be convinced that your view is
best.

To construct good, solid arguments, you need to do the following:

1) Look for as much evidence as you can to support your argument, this means
doing a lot of research and gathering as much information as you can.
2) Examine the evidence you’ve got and ask yourself if all of it is relevant to
what it is you are arguing for.
3) Ask yourself if the evidence you have is reliable. Any evidence that seems a
bit unreliable should probably be discarded.
4) Gather evidence that seems to be related to your idea and also consider
evidence from others that goes against what you are trying to say. Then show
how they are wrong.
5) Reach a conclusion.
6) Come to an overall conclusion and line up the reasons in a logical, coherent
fashion that will support this conclusion.
7) DO NOT INGORE objections to your conclusion. This is weak if you do. Show
how yours is stronger than theirs.
8) Once you are written up your argument, look for anything in the argument
that will cause problems for you. For instance, look at lack of clarity, flaws,
explanations that don’t make enough sense and references that are gotten
from sources which are not reputable).

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Activity 5.1

Formulate an argument (following the P1, P2, C structure) for each of the following
questions:

Look at the following example:

Question: Is the widespread use of the motor car a good thing or a bad thing?

Answer:

P1) Motor cars cause harmful gasses for the environment

P2) Human beings need oxygen to breath and these harmful gasses inhibit this

Therefore, C) the widespread use of the motor car is a bad thing.

1) Should the use of soft drugs be legalised?

2) Should capital punishment be reintroduced in South Africa?

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 3) What use, if any, should be made of animals in medical research?

4) Is it justifiable to claim that people have a ‘right’ to have children?

5) Should all organs from dead bodies be automatically available at death for
transplant without any consent being required?

i
Compiled by Danielle Swanepoel (2017).
Examples and questions gleaned from: Thomson, A. (2002). Critical Reasoning: A Practical Introduction.
London: Routledge.

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