Ethical Inquiry Discussion Project Analyzing Complex Arguments

For this project, each small group will be assigned one of the essays on abortion and will try to agree on an analysis of the central argument of that essay. I am supposing that each essay has something that deserves to be called a "central argument," that is, a series of logically connected steps leading to a main conclusion. Your job is to try to agree on what that conclusion is and what the steps are that are supposed to lead us to it.

A sugested process:

1. First try to decide what the central conclusion or main point of the essay is.

2. Then generate a list of statements that you think are part of the reasoning that the author presents to support that conclusion. At first, simply propose candidates for inclusion in the list. Make a note of where in the text those statements can be found. Then spend some time critiqueing your list. Try to agree which items are really essential and which are not. (Some points made by an author may not form part of his or her central argument. They may be digressions, rebuttals or hypotheses which are later rejected.)

3. Next, try to agree on the order in which those statements should be arranged. Try to find a way of presenting the author's reasoning as a logical series of steps that makes sense to you (even though you may not agree with the conclusion, or with one or more of the steps along the way).

[Note: at this point you may need to go back to step 2 and find some more statements to use in constructing a logical argument. Or you may find that some of the statements you have are unnecessary.]

4. Look over what you have constructed. Does it seem to have any gaps or holes in it? If so, can you find ways to fill those gaps by adding steps to the reasoning? (Perhaps you have missed part of the author's reasoning. Perhaps the author's reasoning really is flawed, but you can think of a way to repair the flaw.)

5. Finally, taking the argument as you have now revised or repaired it, discuss whether you think it is a good argument. Does it convince you that the author's main conclusion is true? If not, where does it go wrong?