Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

184 Unit 4 Applied critical thinking

Commentary

The response does not sweep away the

objections; and it doesn’t give any good reason

to warrant the author’s assumptions. We’ll

take the second part of the response first. This

is simply that an ex-convict does not need any

talent. But, even if it is true, the fact that

someone needs no talent to become a celebrity

does not mean that he or she has no talent –

say, as comedian, or actor, or poet. This

remains a mere assumption, and one that is

easily contested, for there clearly have been

ex-criminals who have won acclaim for other

achievements besides crime.

The first part of the reply is no better. In fact

it is no more than an insinuation. The author

wants us to believe that the producers and

others are all motivated by profit, and would

therefore say whatever was needed to protect

their ‘cut’. It doesn’t answer the actual claim

that ex-convicts may have talents as well as

notoriety. There is also a fresh assumption

here, namely that the only people who claim

that ex-convicts have talents are producers or

others who have a vested interest. In reality

there may be many people, with no vested

interest, who would also agree with the

counter-argument.

Attacking the person

This line of argument is a very common kind

of fallacy, which needs to be guarded against.

It has its own Latin name, argumentum ad

hominem, meaning an argument directed ‘at

the person’ (literally the man), rather than at

the reasoning. What makes it a fallacy is that

the argument could be perfectly sound and

effective, even if the person who is making it is

supposedly unreliable or wicked or deceitful or

stupid, or has a vested interest, or anything

else that the opponent wants to say to attack

their reputation. If the people who have

succeeded in becoming celebrities do also have

talent, then the counter-argument is a strong

one, whether or not some of the people who

say so have selfish reasons for wanting it to be

true. You cannot make the argument go away

reader has no more reason to accept than to

reject the assumption, it is a potential weakness

in the argument.

Flaw

It could even be said that the need to make this

assumption is a flaw, or reasoning error, if you

consider it to be an unwarranted assumption.

Recall, from Chapter 2.10, that a common flaw

in reasoning is the assumption that because two

things are both true, one is therefore the cause

of the other. Does the author make that mistake

here? Is he saying that because a celebrity was

once a criminal, that must be the cause of their

rise to fame and consequent wealth?

If you think that is what he is saying, then it

would be right to identify this as a flaw in the

argument. If an argument depends on an

unwarranted assumption, then it is fair to say

it is flawed, or that it is unsound, or that there

is a ‘hole in the argument’.

But the author is no fool, and is obviously

aware of the potential weakness in paragraph

2. That is probably why, in the next paragraph,
   he ‘anticipates’ a counter-argument that
   challenges his assumption(s). The purpose
   behind this is not to admit to a weakness, but
   to block the challenge that threatens to
   expose it. The challenge is that celebrity
   wealth does not come directly from crime, but
   from ‘redirected talent’. The author’s response
   is firstly that the producers and others who
   make this challenge take a cut of the profits
   and therefore ‘would say something like that’;
   and secondly that gangsters need no talent:
   their criminal reputations are enough. And he
   concludes that the income from becoming a
   celebrity is therefore still profit from crime,
   whether it is direct or indirect. It is a strong
   and uncompromising response.

How successful do you think the author’s

reply is in paragraph 3? Does it meet the

objection or not – and why?

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