Discussion Question #12: Criteria for Accepting or Rejecting Claims

When evaluating an argument we have several ways to decide whether we should accept or reject a claim. First, the source of the claim must be identified and evaluated in itself. A claim from a reliable best friend you've known for years would certainly hold more weight to you than if a random stranger told you something. We're more likely to accept a claim from a known friend whom we trust.

Media outlets are also a tricky source to evaluate, as a news station isn't just a single person, it's many different people reporting at different times. When judging a source from a media outlet or a news station on television, it's always important to look at their history of past claims. Pay close attention to any political bias that you'd find between Fox News and CNN for example. We can only accept a claim from a media outlet that has a reliable history and isn't biased.

Our best and most reliable source of information comes from our own personal experience. If we've heard a claim, we can most likely evaluate it based purely on what we've experienced in the past. By judging claims based on personal experience, we can use the criteria below:

-Accept a claim if we know it is true from our own experience.
-Reject a claim if we know it is false from our own experience.
       (Exceptions)
       -Good reason to doubt our memory/perception.
       -The claim contradicts other experiences of ours, and there is a good argument against the claim.

For example, if the claim is "studying leads to better grades", we can accept this claim as we've all studied and seen the benefits studying brings to class performance. If the claim was "studying doesn't have any benefits", I'm sure all of us would reject this claim as it contradicts our own personal experiences that we know to be true.

The exceptions in the list may apply to a personal experience that happened too long ago for you to remember accurately, or if you were in "another state of mind". If there does happen to be a claim that contradicts our own experiences and there is good argument against that claim, we also must make an exception.

If we don't have good reason to either accept or reject a claim, then we must "suspend judgement" on evaluating that claim until we gain enough knowledge to make a logical decision.