Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

4.9 Critical evaluation 185

his bestselling autobiography serialised in the

newspapers or made into a successful film. The

victim might be forgiven for thinking, ‘Some

of that fame has been got at my expense. The

criminal gets the money and I get nothing.

What is more, I am not a celebrity because no

one is really interested in my injuries or losses,

only in his wickedness.’

But, persuasive as it may be, is this

reasoning sound? Are there any assumptions

hidden behind the strong language? Arguably,

yes. For a start you would have to assume that

there really is a ‘right’ of the kind the author

claims for the victim. People have rights not to

be harmed by others, but those rights are dealt

with by the courts when they hand out their

sentences. Once such sentences have been

served, is there really a continuing right for

the victim never to see the criminal doing

well? Arguably, no – as we shall see when we

look at further argument in the next unit.

What the author is asking us to accept in

this paragraph is that allowing criminals to

exercise their rights to a fresh start is unfair to

their former victims. But this requires another

major assumption. It is the assumption that if

victims and criminals both have rights, the

victim’s rights should come first. Without this

assumption there are no grounds for the

conclusion; for if, as the counter-argument

claims, an ex-convict has the same rights as

anyone else, then it is hard to see how the

author can claim that the victim should have

some special right over the criminal. This is a

potential weakness in the argument, and it is

one we will return to in Chapter 4.10.

Conclusion

So we come to the last paragraph, which

consists of the conclusion and a further

sub-argument. It has two strands. One is that

people freely choose to become criminals; and

that if they make that choice they should be

barred from future (‘respectable’) wealth. The

other is that if people thinking of becoming

criminals know they will be effectively

just by discrediting those who may use it. Yet it
is surprising how often this strategy is used.
What you can legitimately say is that if the
only support for some point of view comes
from an obviously unreliable source and from
no other, then we ought to treat it with some
suspicion. But that is a very different matter
from saying, as the author does in this case,
that because certain people ‘would say that,
wouldn’t they!’, the substance of what they say
must be false.

Another counter-argument and response

follow in the fourth paragraph. Critically

evaluate the reasoning in this paragraph,

identifying any assumptions and/or flaws

that it contains.

Activity

Commentary
You probably picked up straight away that
there was another ad hominem argument here.
The claim that a concern for the rights of
ex-convicts is ‘typical of... woolly-minded
liberals’ is obviously directed at the person
rather than their argument. However, the
author does go on to say why such concerns are
misplaced, and here the argument is much
stronger. Thus if you ignore the ad hominem part
of the paragraph you are still left with two or
three reasons that do respond to the objection,
and (if true) also support the author’s own
argument. These are the claims that:

• victims also have rights, one of which is
the right not to see those who hurt them
enjoying wealth and celebrity
• victims don’t get the same chances (of
celebrity) as ex-convicts.

These are powerfully persuasive points. You can
easily imagine how frustrating and insulting it
would be for someone who had been attacked
or robbed to later watch the person who had
done this hosting a television show, or seeing