1 1C o m b i n a t i o n s : A n E x a m p l eobservations or runs scientific tests that provide premises for another
argument that is supposed to justify the conclusion that Victor ’s death was
caused by a bullet to the head. This argument is also an appeal to an author-
ity, but here the authority is a scientific expert rather than a friend.
Yet another argument, possibly based on firing marks on the bullet, can
then justify you in believing that the bullet came from a certain gun. More
arguments, possibly based on eyewitnesses, then justify the claims that
Madison was the person who fired that gun at Victor. And so on.
All of these arguments depend on background assumptions. When you
see the marks on the bullet that killed Victor line up with the marks on an-
other bullet that was fired from the alleged murder weapon, you assume
that guns leave distinctive marks on bullets and that nobody switched the
bullets. A good prosecutor will provide arguments for these assumptions,
but nobody can prove everything. Arguments always start from assump-
tions. This problem will occupy us at several points later, including parts
of Chapters 3 and 5. The point for now is just that the prosecution needs to
produce several arguments of various kinds in order to justify the claim that
Madison killed Victor.
It is also crucial that killing violates the law. If not, then Madison should
not be found guilty for killing Victor. So, how can the prosecutor justify
the assumption that such killing is illegal? Prosecutors usually just quote
a statute or cite a common law principle and apply it to the case, but that
argument assumes a lot of background information. In the case of a statute,
there must be a duly elected legislature, it must have jurisdiction over the
place and time where and when the killing occurred, it must follow required
procedures, and the content of the law must be constitutionally permissible.
Given such a context, if the legislature says that a certain kind of killing is
illegal, then it is illegal. It is fascinating that merely announcing that some-
thing is illegal thereby makes it illegal. We will explore such performatives
and speech acts in Chapter 2. For now we will simply assume that all of
these arguments could be provided if needed.
Even so, Madison might have had some justification for killing Victor,
such as self-defense. This justification for her act can be presented in an ar-
gument basically like this: I have a reason to protect my own life, and I need
to kill Victor first in order to protect my own life, so I have a reason to kill
Victor. This justification differs in several ways from the kind of justification
that we have been discussing so far. For one thing, this argument provides
a reason for a different person—a reason for Madison—whereas the pre-
ceding arguments provided a reason for you as a juror. This argument also
provides a reason with a different kind of object, since it justifies an action
(killing Victor) whereas the previous arguments justified a belief (the belief
that Madison did kill Victor). It provides a practical reason instead of an in-
tellectual reason. Despite these differences, however, if her attorneys want to
show that Madison has this new kind of justification, they need to give an
argument to show that she was justified in doing what she did.97364_ch01_ptg01_001-016.indd 11 11/14/13 1:51 PM
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