Enthymemes, enthymemes!
Thanks to the state of Oregon for putting Measure 50 on the ballot! And thanks to "The News Hour" on PBS for a segment on the measure! I now have ENTHYMEMES!
If passed by the voters in Oregon, Measure 50 will increase the state's tobacco tax to pay for health care for children. In an interview with a smoker who is the mother of a diabetic son who receives state health insurance for his health care, she said she didn' think cigarettes should be taxed because there are a lot of other "bad things ou there. It's not because we smoke that kids get sick. " She also said that smokers didn't cause her son to be diabetic.
A tobacco industry lobbyist was shown speaking. He said: "We're taxing a convenient minority who has a habit that's unpopular and that's easy to pick on. What does an Oregon smoker have to do with the problem of uninsurance with kids today? Can you make a logical argument that because somebody lights up and smokes, they're somehow responsible for 117,000 kids being uninsured?" In the interview with the reporter, the lobbyist said, "The logic of using a smoking tax to fund health care is people quit smoking, you have no health care, and so you're rooting for one behavior - for people to quit. But on the back of that, you're trying to fund a program with money you hope disappears, and it makes no sense."
The next argument came from an advocate for the measure. She said, "Tobacco causes more than $1 billion a year in health care costs in Oregon. We know that exposure to second-hand smoke causes tens of thousands of hospital admissions for children." She also said, "No matter how hard we might try, we can't get everyone to quit smoking, and they won't." She said the tax would be a stable revenue source.
So, we see people on both sides of the argument using enthymemes to move people to support their positions. For the mom who smokes and the industry lobbyist, the smokers aren't doing anything one way or the other regarding child health care costs. The act of lighting up a cigarette does not affect the cost of health care, they say. Besides, there are other bad behaviors "out there." The advocate, on the other hand, ties her argument to the fact that second-hand smoke contributes to children's health problems and therefore, the smokers should help bear the costs of insuring these children. If you're going to smoke, you should take responsibility for what your smoking causes, she is saying.
9 comments:
I like those, Helen. Three different enthymemes on two different sides of one argument.
The mom is saying that smoking doesn't make kids sick, so it's senseless to tax smokers to insure children. In terms of eliciting sympathy, this argument fails on at least two levels. First of all, the tax is essentially voluntary; if she doesn't want to pay it, she can stop buying cigarettes. Second, it's easy to refute with scientific research, as the advocate does. Her identity and what she says actually serves as an argument for the law. A mom who smokes (1 point for the law's advocates) with a dibetic child (another point for the advocates), who doesn't seem to plan on quitting (and another).
The lobbyist's argument is more sophisticated. He says that smokers aren't resposible for the uninsured kids, so why should they have to pay to fix the problem? As a lobbyist, his job is to generate support for his position, which doesn't necessarily mean telling the truth or saying what's correct. I think many people would agree with his argument. He shows the enormous gap between the simple, pleasurable act of lighting up and the undeniably horrible fact that 117,000 kids don't have medical insurance. He challenges anyone to fill in that gap with a logical progression of causes and effects.
The advocate plainly states that smoking raises the cost of health care, which of course makes it difficult for poor people to insure their kids, and that secondhand smoke directly affects people's health, especially the health of smokers' children. So, taxing the smokers makes perfect sense.
Here’s another example, albeit a much simpler one. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “Freedom to smoke without harassment.” This is an enthymeme built on a false premise. The statement relies on the constitutional freedom to pursue happiness, but disallows the right to free speech. If we must accept that people have the right to smoke, then we must also accept that others have the right to harass smokers, at least verbally. There is no constitutional provision to protect us from harming or harassing each other, but if there were, it would reverse both arguments, still invalidating the original statement.
I was thinking about enthymemes in a similar context last night, when I was listening to a guy on the radio make a great argument for state-supported programs to alleviate mental illness and build community in the US (reminded me of Michael Moore’s “Sicko”). He mentioned raising taxes, and I thought, “Oh, now you’ve blown it, dude. Americans will never go for higher taxes.” I hear people bitching about taxes all the time – how high they are, how they’re being wasted, how one might avoid paying them. When someone says “no new taxes,” they mean “taxes are bad, so we shouldn’t have new ones.” People who spout anti-tax rhetoric seem often to treat “taxes are bad” as the major premise of their argument, as if the “badness” of said taxes is self-evident.
Here’s an example of what I mean, from the website of Americans for Tax Reform, regarding their “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”:
“Politicians often run for office saying they won't raise taxes, but then quickly turn their backs on the taxpayer. The idea of the Pledge is simple enough: Make them put their no-new-taxes rhetoric in writing…
Since its rollout with the endorsement of President Reagan in 1986, the pledge has become de rigeur for Republicans seeking office, and is a necessity for Democrats running in Republican districts. Numbers in Congress are approaching 50% in each house. There are now only seven Senate and eight House Republicans who are not pledgesigners.”
Not a word on the whole site about why we shouldn’t have new taxes. They even have a “Hall of Shame” that lists “pledge breakers.” What I really love about this site is its preemptive approach. Apparently it doesn’t matter what the new taxes might be used for; we must crush them before they are even considered.
Occasionally I’ll hear someone posit a reasonable premise for this stance (“tax revenue is being mismanaged,” etc.), but most of the time the major premise is missing. The missing premise could be any of a great number of arguments, but few of those would flatter the character of our no-new-taxer.
Let me give you an illustration. If you’ve seen “Sicko,” you may have wondered, as I did, if people in Europe are more enlightened somehow, just looking at the correlation between quality of life and tax rates. But, it turns out, Europeans bitch about taxes too:
"It's clear that [gas] taxes are much too high in oil-rich Norway," Oslo resident Gro Pettersen told newspaper Aftenposten. "It's sick!"
The missing premise is more obvious in this example: We have lots of oil and should be able to use it up as quickly as we like. Even though oil is a non-renewable resource. Fuck the future, and whatnot. I don’t think you’d have to dig very deep to find similar attitudes among anti-tax Americans. “No new taxes” is a great rallying cry for those who would have a Hummer in every driveway, a Nike on every foot, but “no new taxes” will not solve our social and environmental problems.
I might as well share my enthymeme's here too!
I was watching tv over the weekend and noticed a really obvious one used in almost all commercials:
Images show happy, beautiful, or successful people associated with a product. The unstated premise being that by buying that product, a person becomes happier, better looking, more successful etc.
I think this enthymeme has become a cultural commonplace, and most people overlook the obvious gap in logic.
Another one came in a conversation over the weekend where people agreed that a student will do well in a class if they attend all classes (the reverse also being true that a student cannot do well in class if they don't come all the time). The unstated logic would show that grades must be based on attendance.
I'm finally understanding the concept of the Enthymemes, but what is the actual meaning of "Enthymeme"? I suppose it is just a missing/"given" piece of an argument that the speaker assumes is not needed, or for a more cynical view, omits to bolster his/her argument.
I think one of the places I experience this most often is in the dating scene; there is always a great deal of assumptions made by anyone "on the prowl." If, hypothetically speaking of course, I were to refuse to give my number to a person, a hypothetical response I may have received could be "So you have intimacy issues." The assumption being that giving my number out is a good thing and a sign of... affection? Confidence?
Another enthymeme that I seem to have run into, which connects with the project I want to do, is the idea that Silence = Agreement/Approval. If people do not speak out, they must be agreeing with what is being said. I think this is used most often in politics for those who are in power. If, for example, the current administration were to use the last election with this in mind, they could easily make the argument that the people who chose not to vote didn't see a reason to change the leadership and current policy, otherwise they would have voted. If people are silent, they must agree with what is being said.
Unless, of course, the silence is dumbfounded speechlessness…
I seem to be finding more and more of these missing or assumed points in everyday life. We work on a great many assumptions, or “givens” in our culture. From what I’ve seen of Ancient Greek texts (which is by far more limited than most everyone else in the class,) the Ancient Greeks seem to be working under more deeply seeded “givens.” This allows for Aristotle to use his absolutes freely in his writings. All the people is clearly referring to all the people that matter in Greek Society: there was no need to elaborate.
Here's another enthymeme (and I like the spot the modern enthymeme thing a lot). The set-up, thanks to crooksandliars.com is that Rush (disclosure: I HATE him) criticizes an 18 year old Yuptik Indian for her break-down during global warming testimony about the destruction on her village by the rising sea levels and the local pollution destroying their food sources.
On the site, some pro-Rush bloggers/commenters have answered to the commentary (and name-calling) of the anti-Rush commenters by either pointing out that Democrats name call or pointing out that they believe Dems use the young and disadvantaged as 'human shields' for their arguments.
As far as the mutual name-calling, the assumption is that the first set of people to name call bear the responsibility for the standard of content in the rest of the discussion. Another assumption underlying that argument is that consensus may be achieved by aligning the person you wish to denigrate with the lowest comparison you can. (ad hominem arguments)
In terms of the use of human shields, the assumption is that the individual and their ability to express themselves is inherently diminished by the presence a the group and their interests. The assumption is also that the sanity of anyone who vouches for those viewpoints can be challenged, that the individual may not comment on the personal effects of any particular decision and that the individuals are hand-picked to make them difficult to rebut and their rebutters subject to attack as bullies.
I think an area of enthymemes that we haven't really touched on in this blog is children's advertising. With Christmas approaching I've been overwhelmed with new toy ads in the mail and on tv. An add that I recently saw on tv was a teacher talking to two well dressed parents at a parent teacher confernce and she tells them that their children need to start playing their video games. I guess one enthymeme is that video games will make children smarter but their is also another underlying one, if you are a good parent you will spend a great deal of money to buy these video games because they will make you better parents and help make your children smarter kids.
Here are some of the premises and unstated premises I see in this argument.
*Teachers suggest that parents should buy their children video games.
*Teachers know our children well and know what they need to learn.
*Unstated: expensive video games will help your children preform better in school.
*Students will do better in school once they have these games.
I'm not exactly sure how to set up this argument logically via Aristotle's terms but I think it is another example of enthymemes in advertising.
First, I'll demostrate an enthymeme I found in yesterday's Daily Lobo. Abir Kopty, a Christian Palestinian living in Israel, was here at UNM on Tuesday to participate in a panel discussion on various Middle Eastern issues. She stated during the debate that "[she] opposes any type of killing, whether it is Israeli or Palestinian, because [she] want[s] [her] community to be clear of any immoral actions."
The syllogism and the enthymeme are as follows:
1. All acts of killing fall under the class of immoral actions.(Enthymeme)
2. Israelis and Palestinians kill each other.
3. Israelis and Palestinians are thus committing immoral acts.
This concludes with Korty's desire that her community be free of killing. One assumption that is obviously questionable is whether _all_ killing is immoral--if so, what makes the particular species/circumstance universally immoral; but if not, what situations might be exonerable? Also, we can critique the metaethical category of "immorality"--what is it, and how does it relate to various acts, which are then deemed as such.
A second example dealing with the rather nasty debate over evolution/creationism is from today's Daily Lobo. Andres Saenz writes in response to Debbie Cox's apparently dismissive remark that "creationist theory [is] an outmoded fairy tale."
Saenz then remarks that "[if] she is referring to the Bible, then she is completely wrong, because it is one of the most extensively documented books in history. It's my personal conviction that the events it narrates were very real--just look at the Great Pyramids.
During the 400 years of Jewish slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel must have built those monuments for the pharoahs. [. . .]"
The argument seems to work in the following way:
1. The Bible is a reliable historical source. [Enthymeme]
2. The Jews built the pyramids during their captivity, a story/event documented in the Bible.
3.The Jews also wrote the Bible.
4. Therefore, the Jews (or Judaism), have given us a reliable historical source.
Firstly, we have no grounds from Saenz as to what sort/type of historiographical method might be used in the Bible. Secondly, the problem of multiple authorship within the Bible (and its inherent inconsistencies--ex. Gen. 1 vs. Gen. 2) make the plausibility of the events narrated questionable. Thirdly, we have numerous fallacies:
1. Because the pyramids exist, the Jews must have built them. [Fallacy of false cause]
2. "[I]t is one of the most extensively documented books in history." [Fallacies of equivocation and ambiguity]("extensively documented?" how? according to what criteria? which members of the History Department consider the Bible to be a reliable documentary source?)
3. In regard to Saenz's later supplementary comment with respect to the authority of the Bible, he claims that "80 percent of all humans believe in a supreme being of some sort, whether it be Allah, Buddha, Krishna or whomever", this appeal commits the fallacy of the appeal to authority--this authority can't be cited as presenting adequate grounds for a type of historiography. The Presence is absent (bad Derrida joke).
There are other problems with this letter and the debate in general, but I don't want to seem like too much of a member of the Logic Police.
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