Standard form

When arguments are given in ordinary language, they often contain material which is inessential to the argument. Much of what people say or write has a rhetorical purpose, and it can be difficult to see what the premises and the conclusion are. To make it easier to assess arguments, we put them into standard form.

An argument in standard form puts the premises first, and the conclusion last. The premises and conclusion are labelled, so they can be referred to easily. A line called an inference bar is placed between the premises and the conclusion. The inference bar indicates that the conclusion is intended to follow from the premises above it.

Here’s an example.

There’s no need to stop using fossil fuels unless climate change is real. But climate change is fake. So there’s no need to stop using fossil fuels.

In standard form:

P1) There’s no need to stop using fossil fuels unless climate change is real.
P2) Climate change is fake
                                                                               
C) There’s no need to stop using fossil fuels.

Note that the ‘So’ that indicates the conclusion has been left out of the standard form. That’s because its role is to indicate where the conclusion is. It is not part of the content of the statement the arguer is trying to get you to believe.  Because there are multiple premises, we number them. It does not matter what order you put the premises  in, but in standard form they must occur above the conclusion they are intended to support.

You can view the transcript for the video ‘Standard Form’ in the Appendix.

The aim of laying out an argument in standard form is to strip an argument down to its bare bones, so it can be assessed on its merits as an argument alone. This means that the statements occurring in standard form are often rephrased so that they express their content in a straightforward way.

In ordinary language, people sometimes use questions or commands to communicate statements. When we put the argument into standard form, we rephrase them as statements.

Suppose someone says

University education was free for our parents’ generation. Shouldn’t it be free for us?

This is an argument: the person is trying to persuade you of something, and they are giving a reason. The reason is “University education was free for our parents’ generation”. “Shouldn’t it free for us?” has the form of a question, but it’s being asked rhetorically. The person who gave the argument is not asking a sincere question: they are using the question to make a point. The statement the arguer intends is “University education should be free for us”. When we put the argument into standard form, each premise and conclusion is rephrased so that it is expressed as a statement.

P1) University education was free for our parents’ generation.
                                                                               
C) University education should be free for us.

Rhetorical questions are one common way of making statements in ordinary language. Also common is expressing statements as commands. So, someone might say:

University education was free for our parents’ generation. Make it free for us!

Once again, a correct standard form rendition of the argument will rephrase the command as a statement.

P1) University education was free for our parents’ generation.
                                                                
C) University education should be free for us.

Later, we will need to assess the truth of statements in arguments. As each statement will have its truth assessed individually, each statement should be complete in itself. Consider the following argument:

Barack Obama was a great president. He was always dignified and composed.

The sentence “He was always dignified and composed” is incomplete, because we don’t know, when considering the sentence by itself, who is referred to by “he”. To make the statement complete, all we need to do is replace the “he” with the person it stands for. This is clear from the context. So, in standard form:

P1) Barack Obama was always dignified and composed.
                                                          
C) Barack Obama was a great president.

Often, to put an argument into standard form you will need to omit a lot of what is said. Consider this example:

Vegans are a bunch of puppy-kissing tree-huggers. They seem to think everybody should be vegan just because they are. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Besides, they give lousy reasons for being vegan: just as many animals are hurt through harvesting of plants as die in animal farming. 

We need to distill the argument from this. Approach such pieces of writing by asking yourself

• what is the person trying to persuade me of?
• what reasons do they give to support that?

Here, the conclusion is not explicitly stated, and you need to work it out. The main reason is clear, however. We can put the argument into standard form as follows.

P1) Just as many animals are hurt through harvesting of plants as die in animal farming.
                                                             
C) It is not the case that everyone should be vegan.

The rhetoric has been removed, and the argument has been expressed in simple statements.

You may think something is missing from the above argument. You are right. In chapter 3 we will look at how to make such standard form reconstructions more complete. Before we do so, we need to look at one important aspect of what makes a good argument: validity.