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Students Zone / Structure for Criticism / Criticism – Playing devil’s advocate
Step 1: Are there exceptions?
Even though you might have no obvious reason for doubting someone’s arguments, play devil’s advocate: ask yourself, are there exceptions to these?
For example, a politician might argue that ‘All criminals come from socially deprived backgrounds’. If we were to think of an exception to this we could argue that we’ve all read in the newspapers about convicted criminals, who, on the contrary, have come from quite privileged backgrounds.
Step 2: If there are exceptions, are they general or specific?
2.1 Specific exceptions
If they are specific, then, while the politician can still retain her claim, you’ve found sufficient grounds to justify qualifying it in order to take account of the special cases you’ve uncovered.
To return to our example, if the exceptions were just limited to one or two individuals from privileged backgrounds, she would have to qualify the original claim.
2.2 General exceptions
However, if you have found a general category of exceptions, then you will have to move onto steps 3 and 4.
Say you’ve discovered that most white collar and computer crime is, in fact, committed by criminals with university degrees. In this case the objection cannot be dealt with so easily: you will have to ask the following questions.
Step 3: Is the claim too strong?
If you have found a general category of exceptions you must first ask yourself, does this make the original claim too strong: more than the evidence can support? If it does, then the politician cannot maintain her claim: she must either rein it in, qualifying it in general terms, or abandon it altogether.
In our case the evidence can’t support the claim, so, if she wants to maintain it, she must qualify it by excluding all white collar and computer crime. However, this might weaken and restrict it so much that it might be wiser to abandon it altogether, particularly when it leads you to suspect that you could probably find other groups, too, if you looked hard enough.
Step 4: Does it account for only part of the case?
Alternatively, if it can’t be qualified, and there is sufficient merit in the argument to warrant not abandoning it, then the only thing she can do is to extend the claim to cover the general category of cases that is currently excluded. However, if this is possible, it is quite likely to lead to conclusions she either didn’t see in the first place, or wouldn’t agree with on the basis of her argument so far.
You might, for example, agree with the claim the politician has made, although question the notion that it is the ‘socially’ deprived who are the source of crime. You might argue that there are others responsible for crimes, who are deprived in different ways. They may never have been socially deprived, but they may not have had a stable father-figure in their lives: there may have been a family breakdown, or they may have been moved from one boarding school to another without ever being able to establish long-lasting paternal relations.
So, in this case the claim may be worth holding on to, but only in the extended form to cover this new category of deprivation. However, this may lead the politician either to conclusions she didn’t foresee, or in a direction which doesn’t serve the main purpose of her argument, which may have been to establish the claim that all crime can be identified with a particular social class.
Whichever is the outcome, whether you step off at steps 2, 3 or 4, you will have discovered for yourself that you have well thought out reasons for criticising the theory, and, if the theory is your own, you have uncovered ways of saving and improving it.
Questions:
1. Teachers are prevented from teaching effectively because their time is taken up with trying to maintain discipline.
2. Children today are taught to pass exams and tests, rather than to learn.
3. All journalists are concerned about is selling papers by exposing private affairs.
4. Rather than inform the public the media manipulate public opinion according to its own agenda.
5. A democracy needs an informed public, but we all know a lot more about the private lives of celebrities than we do about serious political issues.
6. The reason so few people are prepared to donate their organs is because they fear doctors will give up too soon trying to save their lives and declare them dead while their organs are still recoverable.
7. Today the main concern of doctors is how to run their medical practices as efficient businesses, rather than treat patients.
8. Businessmen are reluctant to invest in the economy to create jobs because of the strict labour laws.
9. ‘Anecdotal evidence from teachers and parents indicates that increasing intake of Omega 3 may improve learning and concentration for some children.’
10. All racism is the result of a deep sense of insecurity.
