The Meaning And Concept Of Argument

What Makes an Argument an Argument?

The purpose of an argument is to persuade others into believing what you may be asserting or claiming. This can mean that you do not need an argument if you are just describing something, explaining how something works or listing something. However, you may need to use one when the point you are making may not be well known or may not be well accepted, even if it is not obviously true. An argument can also be used if there is a disagreement or when some new, alternative view is presented. Argument are used in most essay topics, the overall question for the essay will try to encompass a modern day argument and the students will be required to argue both sides.

For example, are eugenics ethical? What type of government system is best? Questions like these help a student become opened minded about modern issues that will face them in the future. Arguments are seen everywhere in day to day life, you just need to know how to recognise them. What Makes a Good Argument? A good argument should always be convincing. You need to find yourself believing your claim before you can make someone else believe it. Even if you do not find the reasoning believable, at least find the conclusion that you will come to believable. This entails three things, which sum up the key points of a good argument

• Are the premises acceptable or reasonable?
• Is the evidence used to back up the points relevant to the claim?
• Do the reasons provided, provide sufficient grounds to lead the audience to accept the claim?

These three points are known as the acceptability, relevance and grounds conditions of an argument. If an argument fulfils these three conditions, then it is very likely to be a convincing argument.

Proposition

What Is The Proposition?

The main point or proposition of this article is whether torture is justified to be used against terrorists. The article looks into the pros and cons of the main point and weighs them up to eventually form a conclusion. The article talks about when democratic countries should sacrifice their moral compass to save the lives of other people. There are many sub points within the text as well, such as the surveillance, the detention centres for said terrorists and targeted killings. Every one of these sub points remains unbiased and presents the information to the reader in way that enables them to formulate their own ideas about the proposition. This article in particular is talking about a very controversial topic so when presenting their proposition they have to remain sensitive to every ideology that may be reading the article.

Argument

This article presents an argument with inductive reasoning; this can be observed in paragraph nine. “Proponents of the use of torture in such cases argue that saving lives has a higher value than avoiding infliction of pain, especially where the lives are innocent and where the pain would be inflicted on guilty terrorists”. This sentence gives us the appropriate inductive reasoning layout. Some guilty terrorists deserve to be tortured to save innocent lives, which means more innocent lives will be saved if more guilty terrorists are tortured. The principle preferred standpoint of inductive thinking, and the reason that a large portion of our thinking is inductive, is that it works better in circumstances when our data is deficient.

For psychological frameworks like our own, where our experience is exceptionally constrained, inductive thinking encourages us reach now and again life sparing inference rapidly at the time. In more formal fields like science, inductive thinking enables us to sum up laws of nature and the universe, despite the fact that our experience of it is an amazingly little rate, regardless of whether we incorporate the whole aggregate understanding of mankind after some time. Where deductive thinking is extraordinary for shut frameworks, inductive thinking is incredible for open ones.