What are the qualities of a good argument? Explain with an example.

On the book “Attacking Faulty Reasoning”, T. Edward Damer shared an excellent

framework about creating a good argument. In his book, he talked about crafting a good
argument and shared five (5) principles or characteristics in developing a good
argument.
According to Damer, “Argument is constituted by two or more explicit and/or implicit
claims, one or more of which supports or provides evidence for the truth or merit of
another claim, the conclusion.” Argument, at its core must consist a conclusion, and one
or more premises, or claims because the conclusion is what the communicator wants
his or her audience o be accepted and the premises are the reasons for believing that
the conclusion is true.
The five principles in developing a good argument are: 1) Structure, 2) Relevance, 3)
Acceptability, 4) Sufficiency, 5) Rebuttal.
Structure. A good argument must meet the fundamental requirements of a well-
formatted argument. On the book of Damer, he stated that an argument does not use
reasons that contradict each other, that contradict the conclusion, or that explicitly or
implicitly assume the truth of the conclusion. In evaluating the structure of an argument,
we must look at the following: 1) Does the communication include at least one reason to
support the conclusion as being true? 2) Could any of the key premises be interpreted
as making the same claim as the conclusion? 3) Do any of the premises contradict
another premise, or does the conclusion contradict any of the premises? If it doesn’t
meet the first standard then it is not an argument hence, it just a mere opinion. On the
second one, it would be a “circular argument”, where in “since A, therefore A”. However,
no one would likely use that kind of argument, because there would be no independent
reason given to support the conclusion and no one would like give the same premise
the conclusion.
Relevance. As what Damer said, “A premise is relevant if its acceptance provides some
reason to believe, counts in favor of, or has some bearing on the truth or merit of the
conclusion. A premise is irrelevant if its acceptance has no bearing on, provides no
evidence for, or has no connection to the truth or merit of the conclusion.” In argument,
we must believe that the reasons were providing must be relevant for the truth or merit
of our conclusion. We must ask what makes our premise or reasons be relevant to our
argument. In assessing the relevance of our argument, we must look into two things.
First, if the premise is said to be true, does the premise make it more likely believable to
the audience that the conclusion is true? Because if the answer is yes, the premise is
probably relevant. Second, if the premise were true, should it be considered in
accepting the truth for the conclusion? If not, then its probably not relevant. An example
of this would be, “Jerry’s height is only 4 ft. tall so, he must be a dwarf.” Another
example of this would be, “Kian is over six ft. tall, so, he must be good at playing
basketball.”
Acceptability. In argument, the reasons that the speaker provides in his or her
argument should be likely to be accepted by a mature, and rational adult. As what
Damer said, a premise should be acceptable to a mature, rational adult if it meets the
following standards of the premise acceptability if it is: 1) a claim that is a matter of
undisputed common knowledge, 2) a claim that is confirmed by one’s own personal
experience or observation, 3) an “uncontroverted eyewitness testimony,” or an
“uncontroverted claim from a relevant authority, and 4) a relatively minor claim that
seems to be a reasonable assumption in the context of the argument. However, a
premise would be likely rejected by a mature, rational adult if it meets the following
conditions of premise of unacceptability if it is: 1) a claim that contradicts credible
evidence, a well-established claim, or a legitimate authority, 2) a claim that is
inconsistent with one’s own experiences or observations, and 3) a claim that is based
on another unstated but highly questionable assumption. In the principle of
acceptability, we must asses it if the premise provided one that a mature, rational adult
would likely be accepted and if whether the evidence provided in the claim does
conform to the standards of acceptability or the conditions of unacceptability.
Sufficiency. In an argument, the speaker or communicator’s reasons must be sufficient
from the beginning to the end to justify the acceptance of his or her conclusion. Damer,
said that, “There must be a sufficient number of relevant and acceptable premises of the
appropriate kind and weight in order for an argument to be good enough for us to
accept its conclusion.” This principle is said to be one of the most difficult principle to
apply, because it is said to be a judgement call. As there are no specific guidelines for
what constitutes a sufficient number and weight of reasons to accept conclusions.
Normally, it would often reach into a disagreement bout the weight or sufficiency of the
premises if it prevents two intelligent and well-meaning people from reaching the same
conclusion based on same available premises or evidence. In evaluating the sufficiency
of the premises in an argument, we must look into the following: First, we must check if
the reasons provided are enough to drive the arguer’s conclusion because if not, then
the argument violates the sufficiency principle. Second, we must look if the premise
based on insufficient evidence or faulty causal analysis because some premises provide
evidences that is based on too sample or unrepresentative data or it could be even
based on the personal experience of the arguer or of small set of acquaintances of the
arguer.
Rebuttal. A good argument must include an effective rebuttal to all anticipated serious
criticisms of the argument. You must end all the possible trivial objections or criticisms
coming from the other party by giving a strong and effective rebut. In here, Damer said
that, “An argument cannot be a good one if it does not anticipate and effectively rebut or
blunt the force of the most serious criticisms against it and the position that it supports.
A good arguer should be constantly mindful of the fact that an argument is not finished
until one has ‘finished off’ the criticisms and counterarguments.” In rebuttal, in order to
asses it you must look into these questions: First, does the does the argument provided
address the strongest counterarguments effectively? Second, does the arguer
anticipate and address serious weaknesses in the argument? And lastly, does the
argument show why alternative positions are flawed? On the other hand, in making
rebuttals, others would often use diversionary tactics instead of making an effective
rebuttal. An example of this are the arguments that misinterprets the criticism and would
bring up objections as side issue or resort to humor or ridicule are using devices that
clearly fail to make effective responses. There are also arguments that would ignore or
deny the counterevidence against the position defended. And there are some arguers
who tries to avoid responding to a criticism by attacking the critic instead of the criticism.
In short, a good argument must have a well-formed structure where it contains the
reasons and that those reasons don’t contradict to each other or assuming, to the
conclusion. Those reasons provided in the arguments must be relevant to the truth of
the conclusion. In additional, these reasons should be accepted by a mature and a
rational adult. Furthermore, the reasons must be sufficient from the beginning to the end
in number and weight to drive the arguments conclusion. And finally, the argument
should anticipate and address the trivial and serious criticisms proactively, and to
address this, the speaker uses shar counterattacks.

Describe and explain the following fallacies by providing an example:

During arguments, the speaker must always give legitimate reasonings in lined with
their claims. However, sometimes this is being violated as there are speaker who would
illegitimate reasonings and use fallacies. Fallacies are the common errors in reasoning
that will undermine the cause of an argument. It can be either illegitimate or irrelevant
arguments. If often can be identified because when a speaker used fallacies, it is
because they lack evidence to support their claim. Here is the list of different fallacies.
1. Causal Fallacy
Causal fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong
moves" within the construction of an argument. A fallacious argument is also
deceptive by appearing to be better than it really is. Some fallacies are
committed intentionally to control or persuade by deception, while others are
committed unintentionally thanks to carelessness or ignorance. For Philosophers,
a fallacy is reasoning that involves a conclusion without the evidence to support
it. this might need to do with pure logic, with the assumptions that the argument
relies on, or with the way words are used, especially if they do not keep precisely
the same meaning throughout the argument. Here is the example: “People have
been trying for centuries to prove that God exists. But no one has yet been able
to prove it. Therefore, God does not exist.” Here's an opposing argument that
commits the same fallacy: “People have been trying for years to prove that God
does not exist. But no one has yet been able to prove it.
2. Slippery Slope Fallacy
A slippery slope fallacy occurs when someone makes a claim about a series of
events that would lead to one major event, usually a bad event. In this fallacy, a
person makes a claim that one event leads to another event and so on until we
come to some awful conclusion. Along the way, each step or event in the faulty
logic becomes more and more improbable.
Example: If we don’t have a ballpen, then we won’t be able to answer the exam,
eventually we were going to fail the subject and will end up dropping out of
school.
3. Strawman Argument
Strawman argument is a fallacious argument that distorts an opposing stance in
order to make it easier to attack. It represents the idea that although a strawman
may look like a human, it won’t put up a resistance to fight. It disturbs and twists
the opposition’s stance or the stance of the other party in order for them to make
it easier for them to rebut and make the stance of the other part loosen. An
example of this would be, where A states that we must divert more federal
funding to social programs to help unfortunate people manage their expenses
and contribute to the economy. However, B would say that the though was
completely ridiculous and that you can’t just give money away to people who
doesn’t work because it would make them lazy and greedy.
4. Appeal to Pity
Appeal to pity is the attempt to distract from truth of the conclusion of the use of
pity. This argument tells that by arguing to someone, you have to make them feel
pity, you have to make them feel guilty. Being in this situation will make you think
more on what will you do or what would you say on the person you are talking.
When you encounter a people like this and they did something wrong, instead of
giving an evidence or proof they will say their personal reasons for you to pity
them. An example of this is that, for us students when we are absent on the day
of the quiz, we ask our teachers to give us a chance to take the quiz. They will
then ask us the reasons why we are absent and we will say that we suffered from
fever. Our teacher will then ask us to provide a medical certificate for our reasons
to be valid. But then, we can say that we can’t provide any medical certificate
because of the reason that our family is short in money and it will only add to the
expenses in the family. Here, in the example that I gave maybe the teachers will
give us a chance to take the quiz because you make them felt guilty to the
reason, we said that we have no money.
5. False Analogy
A false analogy makes inferences based on an analogy that is too different from
other argument. Some analogies are not false. Indeed, it could be argued that
analogical reasoning is in the foundation of all formal, rational thought. It is
reasoning by analogy that allows us to generalize from specific instances to
general forms or abstract principles. An example of this would often tell that
people who cannot go without their coffee every morning is just the same with
alcoholics.