1.2 More Complex and Interesting Arguments

Arguments become more complex when we are not immediately certain about how to resolve them. For example, if I argue that I am a faster runner than you and if you disagree, we have an argument. It might seem that this difference of opinion could be easily resolved by having a race. But we will first have to agree on what form the race should take. In other words, we will have to reach agreement on what the phrase faster runner means (are we talking about a sprint, a middle distance, a long distance, or some combination of races?). Until we find some agreement on what constitutes a proper measurement of the key term in the argument, we will not be able to resolve the issue. And obviously if I make a claim that I am a better athlete or more intelligent than you, the definition of the key term (better athlete or more intelligent) is going to be considerably more difficult to define.

This form of argument is extremely common in science and in social science, where the issue is often the adequacy of a particular research model or method which has come up with certain conclusions. The central issue then is whether or not the test which has been devised to resolve an argument is adequate (just as I might argue that a sprint is not an adequate test of running ability).

This point is even more obvious if we move to a really complex argument like the guilt or innocence of an accused person. Here we cannot simply stand the disputants back to back; nor can we devise a series of physical tests or consult a special book to resolve the question. To obtain a conclusion, we have to set up an agreed-upon process in which the different possibilities are presented, explored, challenged, in short, argued, and then finally adjudicated by a disinterested third party (a judge or a jury), all within the context of some acknowledged rules of what counts as evidence or acceptable presentation of a case and what does not. The entire complex process requires from the participants a shared agreement about the appropriateness of the means undertaken to resolve it and a long process of argument.

This example brings out once again the essential point that arguments cannot proceed to any sort of satisfactory conclusion unless the parties to the disagreement have a common understanding of the rule-governed process by which the argument can proceed to a resolution. At different times and in different cultures, the processes by which disagreements have been dealt with have varied enormously, from trials by combat (to judge the guilt or innocence of someone accused of treason), to inspections of animal entrails (to decide on the right course of military action), to casting the stones and bones or various sacred objects, to consulting scripture, oracles, designated holy persons, or the astrological signs, to flipping coins, and so on.

Any of these above methods will effectively resolve the argument provided all parties to it concur that the process (whose rules they understand and agree to) is the appropriate way to proceed. One of the major problems when different cultures collide is often that the different peoples do not understand each other's methods for dealing with arguments.

It is, of course, essential for any continuing peaceful order in society and in one's personal life that agreed-upon methods for resolving arguments be in place. Without them, certain decisions might be impossible to make with any hope of securing agreement, and at times the argument may degenerate into active hostility and physical violence (resolving the dispute by brute force, without any rules). The latter is generally a sign that whatever is supposed to be working to resolve disagreements is no longer effective. And when such violence takes over an entire society, its culture has broken down in the most serious way possible (i.e., in civil war).

For that reason, we insist that judicial arguments, legislative debates, industrial disputes, divorce mediation, and so on take place in specially designated places and according to agreed upon processes and rules, rather than in the back streets. And for the same reason we agree to abide by the processes we have set up to resolve the argument, even if the result is not always what we had hoped for.

Thus, for example, in Canada we agree that the winner in an election will be the leader of all the people and that the verdict of the jury will decide the matter once and for all in a murder trial. In any situation where we begin to abandon our agreement that such decisions will resolve the issue (for example, by taking the law into our own hands if the result does not satisfy us), the fabric of society starts to experience important and dangerous tensions.