Addressing counterarguments or objections as part of your argument can be one way to demonstrate that you have a thorough understanding of your topic. If you think about your audience as someone who may not share your point of view, imagining and addressing their objections in your paper with reference to your evidence might help convince them to see things from your perspective.
Assignments (and strong arguments!) do not necessarily require a counterargument. Some arguments have counterarguments that may not be relevant or appropriate to the story you're telling. But knowing how to respond to an argument critically is a valuable skill, whether you're considering your own writing or someone else's. Presenting and rebutting a counterargument can be helpful to show your audience why you believe the evidence supports the argument you're making.
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Since a counterargument responds to your own ideas, stating your own position is the first step to developing a counterargument. For instance, a paper on the topic of fully self-driving cars or "automated vehicles" might argue that they are superior to human-driven vehicles and should be promoted as an alternative to conventional forms of transportation. If this is the position of the paper, a discussion of good reasons to regulate automated vehicles could form a counterargument. Understanding the reasons behind restricting automated vehicles would then allow you to assess these reasons and compare them with your own argument.
At first, you might compare and contrast your position with an alternative, as well as some evidence in support of each position:
|
Claim |
Fully automated vehicles should be legal. |
Fully automated vehicles should not be legal. |
|
Evidence |
Many vehicles collisions are due to human error, such as distracted driving, drunk driving, or driving while tired. Allowing fully automated vehicles on the roads may reduce vehicle fatalities and they are therefore an attractive alternative to human-driven vehicles. |
Automated vehicles may be vulnerable to technical failures, cyberattacks, or other problems that do not affect human drivers. |
This is not a bad start, but the counterargument in the right-hand column above does not respond directly to the evidence listed in the left-hand column. Ideally, a counterargument should be directly relevant to your own argument. If you are discussing the dangerous behaviour of human drivers, a counterargument focussed on the cybersecurity resist of automated vehicles may not be the most relevant objection or response.
To find a more relevant counterargument, make a detailed list of the evidence in support of your own argument, and then think of the possible ways to doubt each item in your list. For example:
|
Claim |
Fully automated vehicles should be legal. |
Fully automated vehicles should not be legal. |
|
Evidence |
Automated vehicles can reduce traffic fatalities. |
Fully automated vehicles are not a perfect solution to traffic fatalities. Instead, it may be more effective to regulate drivers more strictly and improve road conditions. |
|
|
Automated vehicles can increase accessibility for people who may not otherwise be able to drive. |
Alternative investments (improved transit, safer streets) may be more affordable and accessible for more people than driverless cars. |
|
|
Automated vehicles can reduce the cost of transportation of goods and services, perhaps leading to more affordability. |
Automated vehicles may remove necessary jobs for many workers who rely on the transportation industry for an income. |
Now you have a list of ideas that do not digress completely from the main argument. Of course, some of the reasons against legalizing automated vehicles may be less convincing than others. For example, if an advocate of autonomous vehicle legalization is most concerned with the economic impacts on driving-related jobs, this might be the best counterargument to include in the paper.
Although the specific requirements may vary for different assignments, an argument on a topic often precedes a counterargument. Since the focus of a paper is ultimately on the writer’s own argument, a concise, neutral presentation of a counterargument can help the reader understand its importance without distracting from the writer’s position in the rest of the paper.
Consider the following example:
Not everyone agrees with me that the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada has hurt the U.S. job market. Some are of the opinion that the Agreement has actually helped the U.S. job market, by means of reaping cheaper products and creating more jobs in the import-export sector of the economy than were lost in the manufacturing sector. (Possin, 2002, p. 16)
The last sentence of this paragraph contains a clear conclusion (NAFTA has helped the U.S. job market), supported by two distinct, plausible reasons (decreased consumer costs, and increased job growth overall). Since Possin has expressed these reasons efficiently, he now has enough room to return to his own argument and consider each of those reasons in detail.
The other characteristic of Possin’s argument is its neutral tone. For example, rather than stating “NAFTA has enabled greedy corporations to exploit cheap labour and take more of our money”, saying NAFTA “has actually helped the U.S. job market by means of reaping cheaper products and creating more jobs” (Possin, 2002, p. 16) presents the idea without using biased or emotional language. Of course, this does not mean that the writer agrees with the statement; however, the reader can now assess both positions objectively instead of reacting to the statement emotionally.
Ultimately, the best way to demonstrate the truth of a position is to argue for it, and the best arguments have the fewest problems (Possin, 2002, p. 13). By evaluating the strength of reasons for and against a position, a successful discussion of counterarguments shows that an argument survives critical examination and is better than alternative positions.
Reference
Possin, K. (2002). Self-defense: A student guide to writing position papers. The Critical Thinking Lab.