How do we responsibly live with the pandemic?
Write a fictional argumentative dialogue about some issue that arose for you in the discussion board last week (or on a related issue arising from the general question from last week) concerning responsible ways of dealing with pandemic. This might include issues such as mask wearing, social isolation, or less personally, access to adequate affordable health care and economic relief.
The dialogue should consist in five or more exchanges of reasons. An exchange of reasons is when one person says something and the other person responds to it. The dialogue on tipping below can provide a model for how to construct your dialogue. Aim for about 250+ words. (The dialogue on tipping is about 250 words)
Step One. Decide what the issue should be (the default question above, or some related issue) . Make that your focus.
Step two: Create two characters, and assume they’ve just read the debate or participated in the Discussion Board. Have one of the characters offer a brief, opening argument on the issue you choose. Then have the other character offer an opposing argument to that of the first character. The first character then responds, Etcetera. The dialogue is then a reasoned argument across a disagreement. Assume both characters are rational and sincere. Either character can reflect your personal viewpoint, or not. You can choose to have them resolve the disagreement, or not. In any case, they should respond to one another’s actual arguments. Make sure that your interlocutors make arguments.
Step three: Begin your dialogue using a three statement argument. Only one of your interlocutors need make a 3 statement argument, but it’s OK if the other one does too.
Try as best you can to have your interlocutors respond to the details of the arguments they each make.Tune into elements of sufficiency and acceptability if you see them at play.
Feel free to use the Room for Debate exchange as a source of reasons – although you are not required to.
Write this out freely the first time, and then go back and fine tune it. But don’t get hung up on editing. You can make it as “real” as possible, with the exception of excluding obscenities and insults. Spell and grammar check your dialogue.
Argumentative Dialogues are due on Sunday, , 11:55pm.
Sample Argumentative Dialogue on Tipping
Cultural note: in the US, tips are not usually included in one’s bill and waiters, etc depend on tips for part of their income)
Helen (1): A problem with tipping is that sometimes it’s very difficult to know how much to tip taxi drivers, hotel bellhops, or waiters or waitresses in restaurants. If one tips, then one ought to first know how much to tip, so tipping is wrong.
Bob (1): It’s not so difficult. If you got excellent service. Otherwise don’t give a tip at all.
Helen (2): But how much should one give? And how can you judge whether service is excellent?
Bob (2): You just have to use common sense.
Helen (3): Come on Bob, that’s no answer! Common sense is often wrong, isn’t it? What kind of criterion for good judgment is that?
Bob (3): Like most things in life, if you want to do something good, like reward excellence of service, you have to use common sense.
Helen (4): With tipping, common sense leaves too much open to uncertainty. Because of this uncertainty, both individuals involved can be offended. If the tipper gives too little, the receiver is embarrassed and uncomfortable. If the tipper gives too much, she can be embarrassed and uncomfortable. Thus the practice of tipping leads to embarrassment and discomfort.
Bob (4): A lot of students depend on tips to help pay their tuition costs. University education is a good thing. Discontinuing tipping would mean that fewer students could afford it.
Helen (5): That’s no problem. All we need to do is to raise the minimum wage.
Bob (5): That might just put a lot of restaurants out of business, with a resulting job loss for students and others.
From Douglas Walton, Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
