Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

4.9 Critical evaluation 189

This is obviously nonsense. The difference

between special diets or training techniques

and the use of certain drugs is really quite

narrow. Even the experts have some difficulty

drawing a line between, say, a ‘food

supplement’ and an actual drug. This is why

the counter-argument has to be taken seriously

even if you are in favour of prohibiting PED.

The idea that athletes could use jet-propulsion

is in a completely different league, and it is

perfectly possible to argue for one without

having to go to the other extreme.

Begging the question

The third flaw relates to the second sentence

in the paragraph: the claim that PED are

different from other ways of improving

performance because they are banned, and that

that is what makes it cheating to use them.

But the main conclusion is that drug-taking

should be banned. You cannot validly say that

something should be banned just because it is

bad, and bad because it is banned! This is what

is known as ‘begging the question’. You can

see why it is called begging the question with

the argument simplified as follows:

It is right to ban PED (conclusion).

Why?

Because using PED is cheating.

Why is it cheating?

Because PED are banned.

Another way to describe this flaw is to point

out that it contains circular reasoning, or a

circular argument. The author is arguing for the

ban on PED from the ban on PED. Many of the

flaws you find in arguments are due to circular

reasoning or question-begging. Sometimes the

circularity is obvious, as it is in this argument.

In others it is much more carefully disguised,

and you have to be vigilant to spot it.

The argument as a whole

We have found a number of weaknesses, flaws

and questionable assumptions in the

argument for prohibiting performance-

enhancing drugs. That does not mean that we

you start saying that drug-taking is fine
because it is no different from energy-giving
food you would end up having to allow
athletes to run races with jet engines strapped
to their backs.’

A straw man
A ‘straw man’ argument is one in which the
opposing argument has deliberately been
made weak, to the point where no one would
be likely to make or support it. It gets its
strange name from the custom of making
human figures out of straw for target practice,
for example to shoot arrows at.
This is what the author does here. Whether
or not you knew the name ‘straw man’, you
should have noticed that in the counter-
argument there is no suggestion that drug-
taking is ‘fine’, or that it is no different from
eating food. The counter-argument is much
more subtle than that: it merely points out
that there is a difficulty in distinguishing
between permitted ways of getting an
advantage and prohibited ones. That does not
mean that anyone raising the objection thinks
PED should be permitted, only that the
problem is not as simple as it seems.
Thus the author is arguing against an
opponent who doesn’t really exist. It looks as
though he has scored a point, but it doesn’t
count because it is such a cheap point. You will
often find this flaw in arguments that you
read. It can be persuasive if you fail to spot it.
And, if it’s done deliberately, it is cheating!

A slippery slope
Even if there were no ‘straw man’ fault in the
argument, there is another flaw in the same
sentence. It has a curious name, too: it’s often
called a ‘slippery slope’. This comes from the
idea that once you are on a slippery slope you
can’t stop yourself going all the way to the
bottom. In this case, if you say that some PED
are very like some food supplements, then,
according to the author, there is nothing to
stop you saying that anything athletes do to
gain an advantage is all right.