In chapter four of Giving Reasons David Morrow talks about hidden premises.
Hidden premises are premises that are unstated but that are still needed in order to prove
the conclusion.
Often a hidden premise will be unstated because it's obvious, because the arguer figured that
it wasn't necessary to say it out loud since we all know it.
So, for example, if I say “Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal,” the
hidden premise is obviously “all men are mortal,” but I don't need to say that out
loud explicitly, because we all know that.
That's an easy thing for us to assume and the argument works just as well with that
premise being hidden.
But sometimes hidden premises are unstated because they're controversial and the arguer
may be covering them up or trying to avoid drawing a lot of attention to them.
They might be the weak point in the argument.
More often than that, hidden premises are unstated because they're simply assumed without
a lot of thought being given to them.
And for these reasons it's going to be a valuable skill for you to be able to identify and to
state the hidden premises in arguments that you're considering, whether they’re your
own arguments or other people's.
So let's look at an example.
On page 21 Morrow gives the basic argument of the Declaration of Independence.
In another video I've talked about the reliability of the explicit premise in this argument.
What I want to do right now is to take a look at the argument that he gives and identify
the hidden premise that it requires.
So on page 21 Morrow writes this: “Since King George the 3rd has mistreated the American
colonies so badly,” that's the premise, “the colonies ought to be free and independent
from the king,” and that's the conclusion.
Now, notice what we have here: the premise is about mistreatment of the colonies and
the conclusion is about the independence of the colonies.
And now what connects these two subjects is the hidden premise.
The hidden premise should show us the connection between being mistreated by the king and deserving
independence from the king.
So let's think of some possible ways we could take this hidden premise and articulate it
and make it explicit and put it into speech where we can evaluate it to see if it's true
and reliable.
One possibility would be this: “Any colony that is badly mistreated should be independent.”
So if I add that premise to the argument the argument will read this way: “King George
the third has badly mistreated the American colonies, and any colony that is badly mistreated
should be independent, therefore the American colonies ought to be free and independent
of the king.”
When I put it that way, the argument seems to work.
The premises are relevant to the conclusion, the premises are certainly strong enough to
prove the conclusion: if the American colonies are badly mistreated and *every* colony that's
badly mistreated deserves independence, then plainly the American colonies deserve independence.
The question comes up about reliability, though.
It looks to me like the hidden premise might be a little bit doubtful.
Is it truly the case that *every* colony that is mistreated
or badly mistreated should be independent?
Is that the first and the only option available for colonies reacting to being mistreated
by their king or by their sovereign?
What I would probably want to do to save this line of argument is to make my hidden premise
more specific.
“Colonies that are mistreated *in this way* should deserve independence,” or “Colonies
who could govern their own affairs,” as arguably the American colonies could, “those
colonies who are badly mistreated in these specific ways should be independent.”
Again if you take a look at the text of the Declaration of Independence, a lot of what
goes on in the middle part of the document is attempting to establish the exact nature
of the mistreatment.
We might also look at evidence elsewhere for the American colonies’
being able to govern themselves.
So with a bit of modification and being a bit more specific, I think that hidden premise
could make this argument explicitly good, could supply than the need and bring that
hidden premise out into the open.
That's not the only way that I could supply the hidden premise, however.
I could try something along these lines: “No colonies ought to be mistreated, and independence
will end the mistreatment of the colonies.”
So if I add those to the argument it reads this way: “King George the third has mistreated
the American colonies very badly, no colony should be mistreated, and independence will
bring an end to the mistreatment of the American colonies, therefore the colonies ought to
be free and independent of the king.”
Again, this will work: it seems these hidden premises, when they're made explicit, seem
to fill the logical gap between the explicit premise and the conclusion, which is really
the job that you're trying to do when you're supplying the hidden premise.
The question would come up then of the reliability of these premises.
Can we endorse the idea that no colony should be mistreated and that independence will end
the mistreatment?
We might also want to ask, is independence the only way of ending the mistreatment?
Are there other ways of ending the mistreatment of the colonies that would be better or less
radical short of full independence?
We would consider those issues in trying to supply these hidden premises for the argument.
So that's my quick look at hidden premises with some examples of how to supply them.
We'll talk more about this in the future.
I hope you found this video helpful.
Thanks for watching today; goodbye.