Critical Thinking

The following argument is composed of three premises. Two of the premises are explicitly stated within the argument these being: (1) ‘Getting married involves promising to live with a person for the rest of one’s life’ and (2) ‘No one can safely predict that he or she will remain compatible with some other person for life’.

The third premise is implicitly stated within the argument that being: ‘A person will get married if he or she predicts that he or she will be compatible with some other person for life’. These premises aim to support the argument’s conclusion that ‘no one should get married’. In the following argument, the premises are justifiable hence they satisfy the criterion of acceptability.

The premises are justifiable and hence acceptable since (1) some marriages, specifically those within religious institutions, entail promising to live one’s whole life with another person, (2) predictions by their definition are only probabilistic estimates of future events and (3) there are instance wherein individuals chose to get married as a result of his or her presumed compatibility with another person for life. In the same manner, the premises satisfy the condition of relevance since all the premises are relevant to the conclusion of the argument.

However, the premises are not adequate to support the conclusion of the argument. The reasons for this are as follows: (1) Not all marriages entail promising to live with a person for the rest of one’s life and (2) Not all individuals base their decision to marry another person with their compatibility with that other person. It is within this context that one may also note that the argument commits the fallacy of hasty generalization which involves “drawing a general conclusion on the basis of an experience with particulars” (Walton, 1992, p. 72).

In the argument above, the general conclusion ‘no one should get married’ is based upon an experience with particular incidents that being an instance wherein a person bases his decision to get married to another person on his or her presumed compatibility for life with another person within the context of a marriage arrangement that requires both persons to live together for the rest of their lives. Given these reasons, the aforementioned argument is unsound. Reference Douglas, W. (1992). Plausible Argument in Everyday Conversation. Np: SUNY.

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