CLAIMS AND ARGUMENTS
When you use critical reasoning, your ultimate aim is usually to figure out whether to accept, or believe, a statement—either someone else’s state- ment or one of your own. A statement, or claim, is an assertion that something is or is not the case; it is either true or false. These are statements:
• The ship sailed on the wind-tossed sea.
• I feel tired and listless.
• Murder is wrong.
• 5 � 5 � 10.
• A circle is not a square.
These statements assert that something is or is not the case. Whether you accept them, reject them, or neither, they are still statements because they are assertions that can be either true or false.
The following, however, are not statements; they do not assert that something is or is not the case:
• Why is Anna laughing?
• Is abortion immoral?
• Hand me the screwdriver.
• Don’t speak to me.
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• Hello, Webster.
• For heaven’s sake!
A fundamental principle of critical reasoning is that we should not accept a statement as true with- out good reasons. If a statement is supported by good reasons, we are entitled to believe it. The bet- ter the reasons supporting a statement, the more likely it is to be true. Our acceptance of a state- ment, then, can vary in strength. If a statement is supported by strong reasons, we are entitled to believe it strongly. If it is supported by weaker reasons, our belief should likewise be weaker. If the reasons are equivocal—if they do not help us decide one way or another—we should suspend judgment until the evidence is more definitive.