Skip to main content

Chapter 8

When I began reading this chapter, I didn't realize how many types of values there are. I thought that values were simply what people thought was important. However, this chapter introduced me to new concepts and ideas centered around the concept of values. Terms such as stated/implied values, positive/negative values, terminal/instrumental values and abstract/concrete values were all new to me.

While I found all of these terms new and interesting, the ones that caught my attention the most were positive and negative values. Specifically, I thought that it was interesting how they can be used in an argument. Upon reading the title of that section, I figured that positive values were things that were good that we would want to play off of in an argument, and negative values were either contradictory values, or values that many people don't hold, and I thought they were things that one would want to stay away from in an argument. For example, I were to make an argument about free college, I would play off of the benefits that everyone having access to education would bring to society, but I may try to stay away from saying something like, "we all need to pay to make sure everyone can have an education to make our society better." I thought that a positive value would be equal opportunity and a developing society, and a negative value would be everyone paying to allow others to go to college.

However, the book stated that, to go against an argument, you may want to point out positive values that oppose the argument or negative values that go along with the argument. This was obviously a bit different of an interpretation than my own. Though it does state that this could "depend on the (argument) strategy devised." In the books example, they talked more about keywords and the connotations that they held to positive or negative values. For example, if I were to say, "Free college for all does not make economic sense. It would force citizens to pay for a service that they may not directly benefit from. We have reason to believe that there are still enough students going to university and bettering our society without the added cost to the public." So, through the book's definition and example of these terms, the negative values here would be "does not make economic sense," "force," "may not directly benefit," and the positive value would be "reason" and "bettering."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chap 5

Chapter five focuses primarily on identifying and developing propositions for problems that people think are relevant. It goes over 6 steps for choosing a valid proposition based on a perceived “feeling of doubt.” While all six steps may not be necessary, the collectively ensure a well thought out and firm proposition. The six steps include identifying the question, surveying implicated objectives (or understanding what is the goal accomplishment in regard to the question), searching for new information, considering alternative options, considering costs and risks of each potential proposition, and then finally choosing one of the propositions. The authors then go on to talk about analyzing and strengthening the proposition chosen. This includes identification and ranking of the issues that the proposition addresses as well as understanding how the decision makers will react to these issues and propositions. In general, with all these methods of critically analyzing the proposition, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chaper 8

Chapter 8 of Argumentation and Critical Decision Making continues down the route of talking about support for argumentation. This chapter specifically focuses on values as support for arguments, how to recognize them and the best ways to attack them. Values are defined as “ concepts of what is desirable that arguers use and decision makers understand” (121).  There are several types of values mentioned such as stated, implied, positive, negative, terminal, instrumental, abstract and concrete values.  Stated values are state directly what concepts they hold. For example, words such as “freedom” or “health” are stated values because they mean exactly what they're trying to portray. Not all values are as explicit. Some are more vague and called implied values. One of the examples that the book uses to show the contrast between the two is in the case of work equality. When talking about the subject saying, “ Equal pay for equal work” would be a stated value and “ Women deserve th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Case Building

Chapter 6 of Argumentation and Critical Decision Making focuses on the steps required in building a case. Among the concepts that are discussed, visualization stands out as one of the most important. On page 101, the authors even state “Powerful arguments are only half of the job in preparing a case or presentation. The other half is developing a convincing vision through which you can tell the story of your ultimate purpose” In other words, having a great argument alone is not going to necessarily gain you adherence. Instead, it needs to be supplemented with a story that vividly shows the decision maker the outcome if they were to agree to the proposition.   The chapter goes on to say that to create a powerful vision you must know the decision maker’s narrative of the subject you are arguing about. The example that is given is college. Some decision makers might have had the greatest time of their lives in college during which they made a ton of friends and found love. On the ...
1 comment
Read more