Warrants

1. Michael Bobian UN2001 04.21.10 Warrants

2. In General • Explain our reasoning • Abstract, debated, hard to understand • Connect Claim and Reason • How evidence is connected to Reason • Commonplace • Explicit • Implicit

3. What Warrants Look Like • Direct or Oblique • If a problem continues, resources invested in prevention are wasted. • Spending money for nothing is a waste. • An ounce of prevention is wasted if you still need the cure.

4. What Warrants Look Like • Two Parts • General circumstance • General consequence • When(ever) X, then Y. • Figure 1

5. Knowing When to Warrant • Many principle of reasoning so: • Researchers state warrants when they think readers will quesetion • Reader will question (look for a warrant if) • Principle of reasoning is new or controversial • Argument is unfamiliar • Resist claim because they just don’t want it to be true

6. Test Your Warrant • Convince reader to accept warrant first • When children manifest behavior arising not from teaching or modeling, but spontaneously, that behavior is genetically based.warrantHomosexuality must therefore have a strong genetic componentclaimbecause . . .reason

7. Test Your Warrant • Readers will challenge your warrant most when they resist your claims • Anticipate the objection • Ask • Is that warrant true and appropriately limited? • Does it apply to the reason and claim? • Is it appropriate and persuasive for the readers of this argument? • Figure 2 • Figure 3

8. Testing Other’s Warrants • Ask: How would other readers defend the warrant you challenge? • The population of Zackland must be controlledclaim because it isoutstripping its resources and heading for disaster.reasonWhen a population grows beyond its resources, only a reduction in population will save the country from collapse.warrant

9. Economic analysis: • When countries A, B, and C exceeded their means, each collapsed. They tried to prevent collapse by every means other than population control, but it did no good.reasonWhen societies reach a point where their population exceeds their resources, the only way they can prevent collapse is to reduce their population.claim/warrant

10. Religious belief: • It doesn’t make any difference what the economic consequences might be; it is immoral to discourage married couples from having children.claimWhen people are advised to defy God’s will as revealed in our holy books, that advice is sinful.warrant

11. Cultural conditioning: • Whenever we put our minds to a problem of limited resources, we can solve it.