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Applied Arguments and Counters
According to philosophy and logic, an argument is used to convince someone on why one is taking a particular stand. This is done by giving reasons or evidences that justify a particular conclusion. Arguments are mainly made up of premises and a conclusion. The premises are mainly in the form of propositions, statements or sentences. Argument analysis is important because it is used in assessing whether the given arguments are valid, invalid, true or false. This is necessary in accepting whether one’s stand is justified or based on false reasoning. A respondent’s argument is labeled, analyzed and countered (Edward 135).
One of the arguments that the respondent put across was, “so according to you, just because every one around the state is in the opinion of putting up a xeriscape garden means that I too should be having one.” The above argument would be considered as a strawman fallacy. A strawman fallacy occurs when an individual assumes the position of their interlocutor and then proceeds to table a superficially similar position and, sometimes even goes to the extent of disapproving it. In other words, it is crediting someone with statements or ideas that one never said or had. Before the above answer, the respondent had simply been asked on whether he would mind replacing the green lawn with a xeriscape of California Native plants or drought tolerant plants.
What the interviewer simply asked was for the opinion of the respondent on the subject of xeriscaped gardens. From the question asked, there was no instance where the interviewer communicated his thoughts, ideas or opinions on xeriscaped gardens. However, the respondent, in an attempt to make the interviewer seem unreasonable, exaggerated and misrepresented his position. The above shows that indeed the respondent’s argument was a strawman’s fallacy.
In another instance, the respondent continued to argue against changing his green lawn with a xeriscape of California Native plants or drought tolerant plants by saying, “unless you had invested in a good lawn such as this one, you would not argue with my logic.” The above argument could be deemed as non-Sequitur. This simply means that the argument does not follow. The interviewer could own an even better lawn than that of the respondent and still argue against his logic.
On further questioning on why he was of the opinion of retaining a green lawn as opposed to a xeriscape of California Native plants or drought tolerant plants, the respondent put across the following argument. He believed the aesthetic value of green lawns because they went long way in curtailing many psychological and stress related ailments. He said, “go to ant state where the residents have planted green lawn on their gardens and experience the low prevalence rates of stress and other psychological related ailments among the residents.” Unless the respondent provides reliable statistics that show the planting of a lawn in one’s backyard has significantly reduced the occurrence of psychological ailments in comparison to other states that do not practice the same, the argument fails.
In another instance, the respondent said, he could not employ xeriscaping because he does not approve of thorny landscape around children. He believed xeriscape gardens are harmful to children. He added that most of the xeriscape plants had thorns and therefore was not of the opinion of planting xeriscape plants around his garden. This argument could be deemed as valid. From the above argument, the claim was that xeriscape gardens are not safe for children. The premises within the argument comprise of xeriscape gardens that are manly thorny and thorny gardens are unsafe for playing kids. The above premises necessarily lead to the conclusion. All the premises in the above argument are indeed true and logical. The fact that the premises lead to the conclusion makes the argument valid while the true nature of the premise makes the argument sound. The above argument can therefore be concluded to be a good argument.
In another statement, the respondent believed that he could not afford to plant and maintain a xeriscape of California Native plants or drought tolerant plants. Again, the argument used here is prejudiced stereotyping based on faulty information and statistics. Statistics indicate that the overall cost of xeriscaping is cheap. From the look of his well-kept loan, it was evident that the respondent was in a well financial position to afford xeriscaping. This is because the cost of maintaining a well-kept loan such as his was much expensive than xeriscaping. Xeriscaping is more advantageous and fairly cheaper in maintenance than the normal one because it lowers the consumption of imported or groundwater. This means that the excess water can be used for other domestic or community uses and the environment.
The planting of xeriscape gardens also takes less time for maintenance as opposed to the normal lawn. This makes gardening simpler and less stressful. The garden also does not require any lawn mowing. This goes a long way in saving on fuel or labor costs and time. Other cost reduction facts on xeriscaping indicate that xeriscape plants when the appropriate plant design is used, with the employment of soil grading and mulching, the plants take on the full advantage of rainfall retention. This means that when the municipality fails, or during times of water rationing, the plants will still thrive fairly well as opposed to the normal lawn (Vincent 205).
In conclusion, we find that most of the respondent’s arguments were full of strawman fallacies, non-sequiturs and many others. There are instances where the respondents assumed the position of their interlocutor and then proceeded to table a superficially similar position and, sometimes even went to the extent of disapproving it. During this instance, he exaggerated and misrepresented the interviewer’s position. At other times, the respondent’s arguments did not follow, as correlation does not imply causation. The only valid and true argument that could be evidenced was in the respondent’s claim that xeriscaping was unsafe to young children.
Word count: 1008 words
Works Cited
Edward, Damer. Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 5th Edition. New York, NY: Wadsworth, 2005. Print.
Vincent, Hendricks. Thought 2 Talk: A Crash Course in Reflection and Expression. New York, NY: Automatic Press / VIP, 2005. Print.
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