Guide to Critical Thinking

In logic, an argument is the methodical presentation 
of one’s position on a topic, not a heated fight with 
another person.
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© 2015 Bridgepoint Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Not for resale or redistribution.

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Section 1.3 
What Is Logic?
For now, let us refer to an argument as a methodical defense of a position. Suppose that Diana 
is against a proposed increase in the tax rate. She decides to write a letter to the editor to pres-
ent her reasons why a tax increase would be detrimental to all. She researches the subject, 
including what economists have to say about tax increases and the position of the opposition. 
She then writes an informed defense of her position. By advancing a methodical defense of a 
position, Diana has prepared an argument.
A Tool for Arriving at Warranted Judgments
For our purposes, the word judgment refers simply to an informed evaluation. You examine 
the evidence with the goal of verifying that if it is not factual, it is at least probable or theo-
retically conceivable. When you make a judgment, you are determining whether you think 
something is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, real or fake, delicious 
or disgusting, fun or boring, and so on. It is by means of judgments that we furnish our world 
of beliefs. The richer our world of beliefs, the clearer we can be about what makes us happy. 
Judgments are thus very important, so we need to make sure they are sound.
What about the word warrant? Why are warranted judgments preferable to unwarranted 
ones? What is a warrant? If you are familiar with the criminal justice system or television 
crime dramas, you may know that a warrant is an authoritative document that permits the 
search and seizure of potential evidence or the arrest of a person believed to have commit-
ted a crime. Without a warrant, such search and seizure, as well as coercing an individual 
to submit to interrogation or imprisonment, is a violation of the protections and rights that 
individuals in free societies enjoy. The warrant certifies that the search or arrest of a person 
is justified—that there is sufficient reason or evidence to show that the search or arrest does 
not unduly violate the person’s rights. More generally, we say that an action is warranted if it 
is based on adequate reason or evidence.
Accordingly, our judgments are warranted when there is adequate reason or evidence for 
making them. In contrast, when we speak of something being unwarranted, we mean that it 
lacks adequate reason or evidence. For example, unwarranted fears are fears we have without 
good reason. Children may have unwarranted fears of monsters under their beds. They are 
afraid of the monsters, but they do not have any real evidence that the monsters are there. 
Our judgments are unwarranted when, like a child’s belief in lurking monsters under the bed, 
there is little evidence that they are actually true.
In the criminal justice system, the move from suspicion to arrest must be warranted. Simi-
larly, in logic, the move from grounds to judgment must be warranted (see A Closer Look: War-
rants for the Belief in God for an example). We want our judgments to be more like a properly 
executed search warrant than a child’s fear of monsters. If we fail to consider the grounds for 
our judgments, then we are risking our lives by means of blind decisions; our judgments are 
no more likely to give us true beliefs than false ones. It is thus essential to master the tools for 
arriving at warranted judgments.
It is important to recognize the urgency for obtaining such mastery. It is not merely another 
nice thing to add to the bucket list—something we will get around to doing, right after we 
trek to the Himalayas. Rather, mastering the argument—the fundamental tool for arriving at 
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© 2015 Bridgepoint Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Not for resale or redistribution.

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Section 1.3 
What Is Logic?