Evaluating arguments: judging the premises for acceptability, judging the premises for relevance to the conclusion, judging whether the premises are sufficient to support the conclusion, and applying the principle of charity when interpreting an argument.

What this dot point is asking

Recognising and laying out an argument is only half the skill; the goal of Arguments in Action is to evaluate it. SQA Higher Philosophy uses three criteria for assessing the premises of any argument, acceptability, relevance and sufficiency, and expects you to apply the principle of charity when deciding what the argument really claims. This dot point pulls the whole area together: it is how you reach a reasoned verdict on an argument.

The three criteria

• Acceptability. A premise is acceptable if it is true, well supported, or at least reasonable to believe. A false or doubtful premise fails this test (it is the same concern as soundness for deduction).
• Relevance. A premise is relevant if it actually counts towards the conclusion. An ad hominem premise ("she is unpopular") is irrelevant to a factual conclusion, however true it is.
• Sufficiency. Even acceptable and relevant premises may not be enough. "He has a motive" is relevant to "he is guilty" but not sufficient on its own; you need more.

How the criteria fit together

The three criteria are applied in sequence and the argument must pass all of them. A premise can be acceptable but irrelevant (true yet beside the point), or relevant but unacceptable (on topic yet false), or both acceptable and relevant yet still insufficient (true and on point but not enough to clinch the conclusion). When you evaluate, you say which criterion an argument fails and why, that is the substance of the assessment.

The principle of charity

Charity matters because evaluating a weakened version of an argument proves nothing; the arguer can reply "that is not what I meant". By reading the strongest version, you avoid the straw man fallacy and ensure that any criticism which survives is genuinely powerful. Charity is also practical: many real arguments leave a premise unstated, and charitable interpretation supplies the missing premise so the argument can be tested fairly for validity, sufficiency or relevance.

Examples in context

Take: "Violent video games should be banned, because some people who commit violent crimes have played them." Evaluate by the three criteria. Acceptability: the premise (some violent offenders have played such games) is broadly true, so it passes. Relevance: it bears on the conclusion only weakly, since playing a game and committing a crime may merely co-occur. Sufficiency: it is clearly insufficient, because the vast majority of players are not violent, so the premise does not establish that the games cause violence or warrant a ban. Verdict: acceptable, weakly relevant, but insufficient, so the argument fails. Notice the evaluation pinpoints sufficiency as the breaking point and explains why, which is exactly what earns the marks.

Try this

Q1. Name the three criteria for evaluating the premises of an argument. [3 marks]

• Cue. Acceptability (are the premises true or reasonable?), relevance (do they bear on the conclusion?) and sufficiency (are they together enough to support it?).

Q2. Why does the principle of charity improve an evaluation? [2 marks]

• Cue. It makes you assess the strongest reasonable version of the argument, avoiding a straw man, so any criticism that survives genuinely tells against the position.