Deductive and Inductive Argument

In argument, you may move from evidence to conclusion in two basic ways. One is called deductive
reasoning. It proceeds from a general premise or assumption to a specific conclusion, and it is what
most people mean when they speak of logic. Using strict logical form, deduction holds that if all the
statements in the argument are true, the conclusion must also be true. The other is inductive
reasoning. It proceeds from individual observations to a more general conclusion and uses no strict
form.it requires only that all the relevant evidence be stated and that the conclusion fit the evidence
better than any other conclusion would. Most written arguments use a combination of deductive and
inductive reasoning, but here it is simpler to discuss them separately.

Deductive Arguments

The basic form of a deductive argument is a syllogism. A syllogism consists of a major premise, which
is a general statement; a minor premise, which is related but more specific statement; and a
conclusion, which has to be drawn from those premises. For example:

Major premise: All Olympic runners are fast.

Minor premise: John is an Olympic runner.

Conclusion: Therefore, John is fast.

As you can see, if you grant each of the premises, then you must also grant the conclusion – and it is
the only conclusion that you can properly draw. You cannot say that John is slow, because that
contradicts the premises, nor can you say that John is tall, because that goes beyond the premises.

Of course, this argument seems obvious, and it is much simpler than an argumentative essay would
be. But a deductive argument can be powerful, and its premises can be fairly elaborate. The
Declaration of Independence has at its core a deductive argument that might be summarized in this
way:

Major premise: Tyrannical rulers deserve no loyalty.

Minor premise: King George III is a tyrannical ruler.

Conclusion: Therefore, King George III deserves no loyalty.

The major premise is one of those truths that the Declaration claims self-evident. Much of the
Declaration consists of evidence to support the minor premise that King George is a tyrannical ruler.
And the conclusion, because it is drawn from those premises, has the force of irrefutable logic: The
king deserves no loyalty from his American subjects, who are therefore entitled to revolt against him.
When a conclusion follows logically from the major and minor premises, then the argument is said to
be valid. But if the syllogism is not logical, the argument is not valid and the conclusion is not sound.
For example:

Major premise: All dogs are animals.

Minor premise: All cats are animals.

Conclusion: Therefore, all dogs are cats.

Of course, the conclusion is absurd. But how did we wind up with such a ridiculous conclusion when
both premises are obviously true? The answer is that although both cats and dogs are animals, cats
are not included in the major premise of the syllogism. Thus the form of the syllogism is defective,
and the argument is invalid. Here is another example:

Major premise: All dogs are animals.

Minor premise: Ralph is an animal.

Conclusion: Therefore, Ralph is a dog.

Even without using formal logic, most of us can tell that there is a problem with this conclusion. This
error in logic occurs when the minor premise refers to a term in the major premise (animals) that is
undistributed – that is, it covers only items in the class denoted (dogs). In the major premise, ‘dogs’ is
the distributed term; it designates all dogs. The minor premise, however, refers not to ‘dogs’ but
‘animals’, and ‘animals’ is undistributed because it refers only to animals that are dogs. Just because,
as the minor premise establishes, Ralph is an animal, it does not follow that he is also a dog. He could
be a cat, a horse, or even a human being.

But even if a syllogism is valid – that is, correct in its form – its conclusion will not necessarily be true.
For example:

Major premise: All dogs are brown.

Minor premise: My poodle Toby is a dog.

Conclusion: Therefore, Toby is brown.

As it happens, Toby is black. The conclusion is false because the major premise is false: Many dogs
are not brown. If Toby had actually been brown, the conclusion would have been correct, but only by
chance, not by logic. To be ‘sound’, the syllogism must be both logical and true.

The advantage of a deductive argument is that if you convince your audience to accept your major
and minor premises, they should also accept your conclusion. The problem is to establish your basic
assumptions. You try to select premises that you know your audience accepts or that are self-evident
– that is , premises that most people would believe to be true. Do not think, however, that ‘most
people’ is made up only of your friends and acquaintances. Think, too, of those who may hold
different views. If you think that your premises are too controversial or difficult to establish firmly,
you should use inductive reasoning.
Inductive Arguments

Inductive arguments move from specific examples or facts to a general conclusion. Unlike deduction,
induction has no distinctive form, and its conclusions are less definitive than those of syllogisms
whose forms are valid and whose premises are clearly true. Still, there is a sequence of events that is
common to much inductive thinking and to some writing based on that thinking. First, usually, you
decide on a question to be answered – or , especially in scientific work, a tentative answer to such a
question, called a ‘hypothesis’. Then you gather all the evidence you can find that is relevant to the
question and that may be important to finding the answer. Finally you draw a conclusion, often
called an ‘inference’, that answers the question and takes the evidence into account. Here is a very
simple example:

Question: How did that living-room window get broken?

Evidence: There is a baseball on the living-room floor.

The baseball was not there this morning.

Some children were playing baseball this afternoon.

They were playing in the vacant lot across from the window.

They stopped playing a little while ago.

They are not in the vacant lot now.

Conclusion: One of the children hit or threw the ball through the window. Then they all ran away.

The conclusion seems obvious. That is because it takes all of the evidence into account. But if it
turned out that the children had been playing softball, not baseball, that one additional piece of
evidence would make the conclusion very doubtful – and the true answer would be much harder to
infer. And just because the conclusion is believable you cannot necessarily assume it is true. Even if
the children had been playing baseball, the window could have been broken in some other way.
Perhaps a bird flew against it, and perhaps the baseball in the living room had been there unnoticed
all day, so that the second piece of ‘evidence’ is not true.

Because inductive arguments tend to be more complicated than this example, how can you move
from the evidence you have collected to a sound conclusion? That crucial step can be a big one, and
indeed it is sometimes called an ‘inductive leap’. With induction, conclusions are never certain, only
highly probable. Although the form of induction does not point to any particular type of conclusion
the way deduction does, making sure that your evidence is relevant, representative, and sufficient
can increase the probability of your conclusion’s being sound. In addition, the more information you
gather, the better your chances of establishing the connection between your evidence and your
conclusion.

Considering alternate conclusions is a good way to avoid reaching unjustified or false conclusion. In
the example above, a hypothesis something like this might follow the question:

Hypothesis: Those children playing baseball broke the living-room window.

Many people stop reasoning at this point, without considering the evidence. When the gap between
your evidence and your conclusion is too great, you can be accused of reaching a hasty conclusion or
one that is not borne out by the facts. This well-named error is called ‘jumping to a conclusion’
because it amounts to a premature inductive leap. In induction, the hypothesis is merely the starting
point. The rest of the inductive process continues as if the question were still to be answered—as in
fact it is until all the evidence has been taken into account.

Fallacies of Argument

Fallacies ae statements that look like arguments but are not logically defensible and may actually be
deceptive. When detected they can backfire and turn even a sympathetic audience against your
position. Here are some of the more common fallacies that you should try to avoid.

Begging the Question: Begging the question is a logical fallacy that assumes in the premise what the
arguer is trying to prove in the conclusion. This tactic asks us to agree that certain points are self-
evident when they are not.

“The unfair and shortsighted legislation that limits free trade is clearly a threat to the American
economy.”

Restrictions against free trade may or may not be unfair and shortsighted, but emotionally loaded
language does not constitute proof. The statement begs the question because it assumes what it
should be proving—that restrictive legislation is dangerous.

Argument from Analogy: An analogy is a comparison of two unlike things. Although analogies can
explain an abstract or unclear idea and can be quite convincing, they never prove anything. When
you base an argument on an analogy and ignore important dissimilarities between the two things
being compared, you create a fallacy.

“The overcrowded conditions in some parts of our city have forced people together like rats in a cage.
Like rats, they will eventually turn on one another, fighting and killing until a balance is restored. It is
therefore necessary that we vote to appropriate funds to build low-cost housing.”

No evidence is offered that people behave like rats under these or any conditions. Simply because
two things have some characteristics in common, the conclusion does not necessarily follow that
they are alike in other respects.

Personal Attack (Argument Ad Hominem): This fallacy tries to turn attention away from the facts of
an issue by attacking the motives or character of one’s opponents.

“The public should not take seriously Dr. Mason’s plan for upgrading county health services. He is a
former alcoholic whose second wife recently divorced him.”

This attack on Dr. Mason’s character says nothing about the quality of his plan. Sometimes there is a
connection between a person’s private and public lives – for example, a case of conflict of interest.
But no evidence of such a connection is given here.
Hasty or Sweeping Generalization: This fallacy occurs when a general principle is applied mistakenly
to a special case.

“Because preschool programs help children from social relationships, Amy and Fred Winkler should
send their son Marc to nursery school.”

Perhaps Marc would benefit from nursery school, perhaps not. Like many other children he may be
shy, or frail in health, or otherwise not ready for the experience. General rules nearly always have
exceptions, and the case in point may be one of those exceptions.

False Dilemma (Either/Or Fallacy): This kind of argument assumes that there are only two
alternatives when more exist.

“We must choose between life and death, between total disarmament and nuclear war. There can be
no neutrality on this issue.”

An argument like this misrepresents issues and forces people to choose between extremes instead of
exploring more moderate possibilities.

Equivocation: This fallacy occurs when you change the meaning of a key term at some point in your
argument. Equivocation makes it seem as if your conclusion follows from your premises when it
actually does not.

“As a human endeavor computers are praiseworthy and even remarkable accomplishment. But how
human can we hope to be if we rely on computers to make our decisions?”

The use of ‘human’ in the first sentence refers to the entire human race. In the second sentence
human means ‘merciful’ or ‘civilized’. By subtly shifting this term to refer to qualities characteristic of
people as opposed to machines, the writer makes his argument seem more sound than it is.

Red Herring: This fallacy occurs when you change the focus of an argument to divert your audience
from the actual issue. Very often this is done to move an argument from a weak position to a
stronger one.

“So far, Mr. Bradley, our state representative, has spent months debating the proposed tax bill. The
governor has said that he needs the revenue that this bill offers, but Mr. Bradley refuses to support
him. One can only wonder if Mr. Bradley has nothing better to do in his own district than to spend so
much time opposing the governor.”

The focus of this argument should be the merits of the tax bill. Instead, the writer shifts to the
irrelevant issue of Mr. Bradley’s spending too much time opposing the governor.

You Also (Tu Quoque): This fallacy occurs when you assert that an opponent’s argument has no
value because the opponent does not follow his or her own advice. In other words, you accuse an
opponent of acting in a way that is not in line with his or her stated position (“you do it too”).

“How can that judge favor mandatory drug testing? During his confirmation hearings, he admitted
having smoked marijuana.”
Appeal to the Doubtful Authority: Often people will attempt to bolster an argument with references
to experts or famous people. These appeals are valid when the person you are quoting or referring to
is an expert in the area you are discussing. You commit a fallacy, however, when you cite individuals
who have no expertise concerning the issue with which you are concerned.

“According to Ted Koppel, interest rates will decline during the next fiscal year.”

Although Ted Koppel is a competent television interviewer, he has no background in business or

finance. In the final analysis, his pronouncements about interest rates are no more than an opinion,
or, the best, an educated guess.

Misleading Statistics: This fallacy occurs when the person arguing misrepresents statistical evidence
in an attempt to influence an audience.

“Women will never be competent electricians; 50 percent of the women in the electrical technology
section.”

Here the writer has neglected to mention that there were only two women in the course. Because
this statistic is not based on a big enough sample, it cannot be used as evidence to support the
argument.

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (After This, Therefore Because of This): This fallacy, known as Post Hoc
reasoning, assumes that because two events occur close together in time, the first must cause the
second.

“Every time a Republican is elected president a recession follows. If we want to avoid another
recession, we should elect a Democrat.”

This statement makes a mistaken connection between Republican presidents and recessions. Even if
we were to grant the truth of the assertion that recessions always occur during the tenure of
Republican presidents, no casual connection has been established.

Non Sequitur (It Does Not Follow): This fallacy occurs when irrelevant evidence is used to support an
assertion.

“Disarmament weakened America after WW1. Disarmament also weakened America after the
Vietnam War. Considering this evidence, we should not continue to negotiate with the Soviet Union.”

The effects of disarmament in the past have nothing to do with current negotiations with the Soviet
Union. For this reason they are irrelevant to the soundness f any current treaty.