ARTICLES 

Knockdown Arguments 

MICHAEL WREEN Marquette University 

Keywords: argumentum ad baculum, ad baculum fallacy, fear, threat, dialectical approach to 
argumentation, rhetorical approach to argumentation, individuation of arguments, coercive 
arguments. 

Abstract: Two brainless curs, Alan Brinton and Douglas Walton, have recently had the 
impudence to suggest that several of my views on argumentum ad baculum are mistaken. 
While hardship and toil await them in this life and eternal damnation in the next, punishment 
begins with this paper. In it, I clarify my position, defend my views, and critique their 
arguments. Last, I argue ad baculum against both of them, threatening both with the loss of 
reputation, employment, and respect unless they repudiate every objection raised against me 
and publicly abase themselves. 

Two critics-for such people, I regret to say, do exist-have recently made all 
sorts of nasty and altogether cloth-headed remarks about my articles on 
argumentum ad baculum. "Wreen must have taken one too many on the button 
himself," says the one. "His brains are as scrambled as Sunday's eggs." The other 
is no less insulting. "Perhaps his mother can forgive such idiocy," he smirks in a 
vain attempt at wit, "but personally I think that it should be beaten out of him." 

Bears have probably eaten them both by now, like the children who made 
mock of the prophet Elisha. But in case they've temporarily managed to elude 
their fate, all will be remedied with this article. The blush of embarrassment will 
mantle their cheeks once it's published, and their colleagues will be of one voice 
for their resignation. Hungry job applicants in argumentation theory, then, please 
take note. Two positions will soon become available, one at Boise State 
University, another at the University of Winnipeg. 

I 

Actually, Douglas Walton has a number of positive things to say about my work 
on ad baculum, as well as some reservations about it. He agrees with me that one 
of Copi 's examples of a supposed ad baculum fallacy, 

[a] lobbyist uses the ad baculum when he reminds a representative that he (the 
lobbyist) can influence so many thousands of voters in the representative's 
constituency, or so many potential contributors to campaign funds, I 



Knockdown Arguments 317 

won't do, and he quotes my critique (of the claim that the lobbyist's argument is 
fallacious) with approval: 

[The lobbyist's] conclusion is not that the bill [in question] is a good one, but 
that the politician ought, from the point of view of self-interest, to support it. l 

Our reasons for thinking Copi wrong about the case, however, are really very 
different. 

I think that Copi has misinterpreted the argument, and that it has an 
altogether different conclusion from the one he indicates, a fact which comes to 
the fore when the argument is explicitly reconstructed. Properly interpreted, the 
argument isn't fallacious at all, and is, in fact, quite strong. 

Walton, on the other hand, thinks that Copi is guilty of (what I'll call) a 
dialogical oversight: the lobbyist's 

'reminder' or 'threat,' however it has been taken or interpreted by the 
representative or others, may be exactly the means for the lobbyist to fulfill his 
legitimate goal of the dialogue-namely to get the representative to agree to 
support the legislation in question (p. 145). 

But that just seems wrong. The argument is non-fallacious for the very 
mundane reason that, properly understood, its conclusion is well-supported by the 
reasons marshalled for it. The goals of the dialogue, whatever they may be, and 
whether they're legitimate or illegitimate (a notion I'll explore later), have 
nothing to do with it. In many cases, knowing what people are up t()----and thus in 
some sense knowing what the goals of a dialogue are-can certainly be very 
helpful in reconstructing an argument, properly exercising charity in respect to it, 
and determining what standards of evidence are applicable. That I wouldn't 
dream of denying.> In the case at hand, for instance, we draw upon our everyday 
knowledge of people and lobbyists in order to reconstruct the argument and 
impute a conclusion on the order of: You, the representative, ought, from the 
point of view of self-interest, to vote for the legislation. But although we should 
use our general knowledge of the world in reconstructing arguments, and should 
also exercise charity in doing so, what sort of dialogue the argument is contained 
in (if indeed it occurs within a dialogue at all), and what the goals of the dialogue 
are, don't provide a criterion for, and have no bearing on, the strength of the duly 
reconstructed argument. A fortiori, they have no bearing on whether a fallacy has 
been committed. The lobbyist's ultimate goal (or, more obscurely, the goal of the 
dialogue), legitimate or not, might have been anything or its brother, but as long 
as the argument is what it is, it remains non-fallacious! I bring this up because 
even though it seems obvious to me, and even common sense, it doesn't to 
Walton, and this case, one in which we seemingly agree, actually serves to 
highlight one major difference between us. 

II 

That difference is that Walton takes the concept of an argument to be essentially 
dialectical, and I don't. All arguments, and not just ad baculums, have to be 



318 Michael Wreen 

understood within a theoretical framework of a two- or more-person series of 
rule-governed linguistic exchanges, according to Walton. Argument-types' (such 
as ad baculum or ad hominem) and fallacies, as (at least I take it) concepts 
parasitic on that of an argument, would then also have to be understood as 
dialectical. I don't think that this is so, though this is neither the time nor the place 
to launch into a full-scale critical investigation of the dialectical approach to 
argumentation. 6 However, noting the difference between Walton and me on this 
point, and exploring it to some extent, is important for the purposes of this paper, 
for it affects and underlies a number of our differences. 

III 

Take another case dfscussed by Walton (but not by me). "A formidably large 
salesman takes out a bottle of window cleaner from his suitcase as Dagwood 
answers the door." The salesman says. "I'm selling this window cleaner. And I'm 
not a guy who likes to fool around. Either you buy it, or ['II punch your lights 
out." Walking back into the living room after buying two bottles of the 
miraculous stuff, Dagwood muses, "he has a very persuasive sales approach" (pp. 
163-64). 

Walton thinks that the salesman's argument is not just an ad baculum, but an 
ad baculum fallacy.7 I agree that it's an ad baculum, but I doubt very strongly that 
it's fallacious. 

According to Walton, the Dagwood case 
has the following elements of the ad baculum fallacy. First, the salesman 
makes a direct threat. Second, the salesman is supposed to be engaged in a 
persuasive dialogue where he uses arguments to convince Dagwood that this 
window cleaner is something he should buy because it is a good or useful 
product. . , . And third, in this context of persuasive dialogue, the threat does 
not constitute a good reason for buying the window cleaner. 

A fourth element of the ad baculum fallacy may also be present, he thinks: 
The threat may also be a good prudential reason or argument basis for 
Dagwood's buying the window cleaner. 

However, although fallacious here, an argument of this sort "may be a good 
reason or argument in some contexts of dialogue." It might be in, for example, 

IV 

a negotiation dialogue, where both parties are threatening each other with 
sanctions. But it is not a good reason in the type of dialogue which the 
salesman is supposed to be engaged in with Dagwood-a persuasive dialogue. 
In this latter type of dialogue, it is an inappropriate move that interferes with or 
even prevents the dialogue from carrying on in a normal or reasonable manner 
toward its goals (p. 164). 

None of this seems correct. Take the first element. Even on Walton's own 
reading, his first element can't be a partial constituent of an ad baculum fallacy 



Knockdown Arguments 319 

independently of the other elements, for he admits that threats can be "a good 
reason or argument" in other cases, such as the lobbyist case discussed above. For 
similar reasons, the fourth element also can't be a partial constituent of an ad 
baculum fallacy independently of the other elements. The threat not just may be 
but is "a good prudential reason or argument" for doing what the threatening 
party wants done in the case of the lobbyist. 

The essence of the fallacy, then, must lie in the second and third factors.x 
The second is that the salesman isn't engaged in the type of dialogue he's 
supposed to be engaged in, namely persuasive dialogue. And the third factor is 
built on top of the second: threats aren't good reasons in the type of dialogue that 
the salesman is supposed to be engaged in, persuasive dialogue. 

The heart of Walton's analysis of the fallacy is thus this: the salesman isn't 
doing what he should be doing, and is doing what he shouldn't be doing. What he 
should be doing is engaging in persuasive dialogue and convincing Dagwood that 
he ought to buy the window cleaner because it's a good or useful product. What 
he is doing is changing the dialogue-type: initiating a negotiation dialogue and 
offering, within that type of dialogue, what may be a good reason but which is 
irrelevant within the dialogue-type that he should be engaged in. 

Put starkly like t\-}is, Walton's conception of the fallacy of ad baculum is, at 
base, and despite the disclaimers he issues, clearly ethical, or at least quasi-
ethical." In essence, the salesman's fallacy consists in threatening when he 
shouldn't be threatening, while the lobbyist commits no fallacy because there is 
no norm forbidding threatening in the type of dialogue he's engaged in. The 
difference here is analogous to that between someone who simply punches 
another person, and someone who punches his ring opponent. In one case, the 
norm 

One shouldn't punch people 

has been violated, but in the other it hasn't, because the norm isn't applicable, or 
the case of boxing has been built right into the norm as a legitimate exception to 
it. I don't see how the norm in either case could be anything except a 
straightforward moral one. In the Dagwood case, it's something like: 

One shouldn't threaten people in order to get them to do things, or 
agree to do things; 

or maybe, more specifically, 
One shouldn't threaten people in order to get them to buy things, or 
agree to buy things. 

Those are fine norms, but they have nothing to do with argument evaluation, with 
whether an argument is strong, weak, fallacious, or whatever. They may have a 
great deal to do with whether a certain argument should be advanced, or whether 
a certain kind of act should be performed. It certainly may be unethical to 
advance an argument like the Dagwood one. That's about as far as the matter 
goes, though. 



320 Michael Wreen 

My own analysis of the Dagwood case is that, properly reconstructed, the 
salesman's argument is: 

If you don't buy a bottle of window cleaner, I'll lay into you in no 
uncertain terms. 
My laying into you in no uncertain terms is a substantial disvalue you 
would suffer. 
So you ought, from the point of view of self-interest to buy a bottle 
of window cleaner. 

So interpreted, the argument is clearly a strong one, at least prima facie. No doubt 
the argument might be weaker than it appears, for it may not take all the relevant 
facts into consideration. Dagwood, for all we know, might be a veritable Brutus, 
and say to the salesman, "There is no terror, Mr. Amway, in your threats, for I am 
armed so strong in honesty that they pass by me as the idle wind, which I respect 
not." Giving the sandwich man the benefit of the doubt here, the second premise 
would then be false, and the argument much weaker. But as it stands, absent such 
factors, no fallacy is committed. Morally speaking, the salesman ought not to 
offer such an argument; but if he does, his fault is no fallacy but the moral 
transgression of bullying or petty extortion. 

Two final comments on the case. In specifying the second factor, the crucial 
one as far as commission of the fallacy of ad baculum is concerned, Walton 
writes that the salesman is supposed to be engaging in a persuasive dialogue, a 
dialogue in which he uses arguments to convince Dagwood that the "window 
cleaner is something he should buy because it is a good or useful product." But 
first, the "dialogue"-the salesman's remarks, really-is a persuasive one, if all 
that a persuasive dialogue is is a patch of speech, writing, gestures, or whatever 
that purports to offer persuasive reasons for a conclusion. The conclusion in 
question is simply that Dagwood ought, from the point of view of self-interest, to 
buy a bottle of window cleaner. 

Second, Walton's remark that the salesman ought to be convincing Dagwood 
that he should buy the window cleaner "because it is a good or useful product" is 
a curious one. After all, Walton agreed with me that Copi is wrong in charging the 
lobbyist with the commission of a fallacy, and he agreed with my criticism of 
Copl. Copi had said that a fallacy was committed because the considerations the 
lobbyist had brought up had "nothing to do with the merit [the goodness or 
usefulness] of the legislation [that] the lobbyist" was attempting to influence. I 
said that that did not a fallacy make. and in fact could be seen to be irrelevant 
when the actual argument of the lobbyist was spelled out. Yet in the salesman 
case, a case structurally, and we can assume epistemicalIy, identical to the 
lobbyist case, Walton argues in precisely the way that he earlier condemned in 
Copi: the salesman's threat has nothing to do with the goodness of his product, 
and so he commits a fallacy. The only difference between the two is moral. Thus. 
despite his protestations to the contrary, Walton seems committed to the view that 
fallacy theory is a branch of ethics. 



Knockdown Arguments 321 

v 

Another issue on which Walton and I are at odds is whether the presence of a 
threat is necessary for an argument to be an ad baculum. I say, No. In the long 
run, Walton agrees, but only because he thinks that if a threat isn't present, the 
instillation of fear is, or at least the attempt to instill fear is. What's essential to an 
ad baculum, he thinks, is that there's "an appeal directed to the fear or timidity" 
of the person to whom the argument is directed (p. 188). In effect, this is to 
subsume threats under the broader rubric of attempts to instill fear, and to define 
"ad baculum" in terms of such an attempt. I don't believe that either, but I'd like 
to argue against it in the course of rebutting Walton's objections to another case I 
had originally brought up. 

As an example of an ad baculum not involving force, the threat of force, or 
even threats at all, I had written of two people ("you" and ")") taking a walk, and 
one person ("you") accidentally walking into quicksand. Sinking fast, you scream 
for help, but I simply prattle on about how much I've always wanted that diamond 
ring you're wearing. Implicit though it is, the argument here is clear enough: 

If you don't give me your diamond ring, I won't help you and you'll 
soon be turning in the dinner paiL 

Exiting stage left this way is a great evil that you would suffer. 

Therefore, you ought, from the point of view of self-interest, to bung 
the ice in my direction. 

After bringing up the case, Walton first asks, seemingly in a critical tone: 
"but does [this] case constitute an instance of the ad baculum fallacy'?" (p. 151). 
His answer is a slightly guarded, No; but since I myself never say or suggest that 
the argument is fallacious, and since it's pretty clear that I think it isn't, I'm not 
sure that Walton thinks he's dogging my tail here. Iii All I claimed is that the 
argument's an ad baculum, and yet one in which no threat is present. 

Anyway, that aside, ) don't think that Walton's explanation of what's going 
on in the argument is correct. "I am trying to persuade you to make a deaL to offer 
the ring," he writes, "but I'm not trying to persuade you to accept some 
proposition as true or false, to take on a commitment respecting a point of view" 
(p. 151). But that's exactly what I am doing: trying to persuade you to take on a 
commitment respecting self-interest, a commitment which concerns what you 
ought to do from that point of view. You ought to come across with the sparkler. 
-That, in fact, is the proposition I'm trying "to persuade you to accept." Of 
course, I'm also trying to get you to fork over the ring-no doubt about it, and I 
wouldn't have offered the argument in the first place if that weren't my ultimate 
aim. My route to your action, however, is, as usual in an argumentative context, 
by way of convincing you that something is the case. 



322 Michael Wreen 

VI 

But Walton also questions whether the ring argument doesn't involve a threat. 
"What I say is threatening to you, and I know it," he rightly notes. 'Hence, 
indirectly I am, in effect, threatening you." 

The problem here is the "hence." The fact that what [ say is threatening to 
you (and I know it ) doesn't mean that I've threatened you. If [ tell a student on 
academic probation that he's just flunked an exam, what I say is threatening to 
him, but I don't threaten him. Many times when [ convey information of a 
negative sort respecting a person's own good, what I say is threatening to that 
person, but I don't threaten him. A fact or state of affairs (not necessarily "what I 
say" but certainly "what I can say") may even be threatening to a person without 
anyone else, a fortiori anyone else issuing threats, being present at all. The state 
of affairs may be the person's having incurable cancer-that's certainly 
threatening to him-or the fact may be that all of his supposedly secure financial 
resources have been embezzled. 

What the ring argument really is is a refusal to render aid unless something 
is given in return. Refusals to render aid unless something is given in return are as 
common as buying (or not buying) a blanket at the local department store, or 
receiving (or not receiving) medical treatment at the local hospital. As our 
intuitive judgment is that neither department stores nor hospitals threaten us, [ 
take it that I don't threaten you when I tell you that I won't help you unless you 
hand over the ring. Morally despicable [ certainly am; but threaten you I do not-
no more than someone who refuses hospital admittance to someone desperately in 
need of aid, or denies food to a starving person, or (a case obviously close to 
home here) watches another person drown rather than save him, or call for help. 

VII 

Moreover, I don't see that the ring case involves threatening someone on Walton's 
own analysis of threatening. According to him, in order for someone ("the 
speaker") to threaten someone else ("the hearer"), 

and 

The hearer has [to have] reason to believe that the speaker can bring about the 
event in question; without the intervention of the speaker, it is presumed by 
both the speaker and the hearer that the event will not occur, 

The speaker is making a commitment to see to it that the event will occur 
unless the hearer carries out the particular action designated by the speaker (p. 
163).11 

Both these conditions are violated in the ring case. I don't bring about your 
death if I don't save you, anymore than every hospital in town brings about the 
death of someone who goes untreated. And "intervention" here seems even more 
misplaced. In such a case, the only thing that would qualify as an intervention on 



Knockdown Arguments 323 

my part is saving you; and without such intervention, without my saving you, it's 
precisely that "the event" will occur: you'll die. 

The second condition fares no better. In taking advantage of the situation 
and refusing to render aid unless you give me the ring, I commit myself to 
nothing beyond that. In particular, I make no commitment "to see to it that" you 
die-and that's the untoward "event" in question in the ring case-unless you 
give me the ring. In the course of my babbling on, offering my argument, you 
might find some ingenious way of extricating yourself from the quicksand. The 
fact that I've offered the argument I have doesn't commit me to attempting to 
push your head under as you climb out of the muck. 

If, then, Walton's two conditions really are necessary for threatening, I don't 
threaten anyone in the ring case, and I also don't make "an appeal directed to the 
fear or timidity of the other participant," or, in my words, attempt to instill fear in 
the other person. He could be Fearless Fosdick for all I know or care. My 
argument is what it is, an appeal to self-interest, to a great disvalue that someone 
would suffer, irrespective of the fact that that person may well have forgot the 
taste of fears, and we may both know as much. The psychological constitution of 
that person has nothing to do with what sort of argument I've offered, with 
whether it's an ad baculum. 

(Actually, I doubt whether either of the two conditions Walton cites is 
necessary for threatening. I say that not just because languageless creatures can 
threaten and be threatened, though that's certainly a pertinent point: threatening 
needn't occur in the context of language- or even quasi-language-using creatures; 
afortiori, it needn't be conceptualized in terms of speech acts. The first clause of 
the first condition is falsified by threats which the hearer, but not the speaker, 
knows that the speaker can't carry out. Maybe, unbeknownst to the speaker, he's 
been slipped a Mickey which will soon take effect. Still, he's threatened the 
hearer. The second clause of the first condition [which says something altogether 
different from the first clause, incidentally] is falsified if the threatened bad effect 
is overdetermined in the circumstances, and the hearer, but not the speaker, knows 
as much; or the hearer knows as much and the speaker is unsure; or both are 
unsure. If the speaker doesn't set him on fire, the hearer might know, the 
backdraft will. Again, though, he could have been threatened by the speaker. 
Rather than offer counterexamples against the other condition, let me just remark 
that at the least, it should be accompanied with an explanation. Threats can be 
categorical-e.g., "I'm going to beat the living daylights out of you!"-as well as 
conditional-e.g., ''I'm going to beat the living daylights out of you unless you 
carry my books to school!" Walton's second condition, however, suggests that all 
threats are conditional. If the conditional "unless" is vacuously satisfied in cases 
of categorical threats, that fact should at least be duly noted and explained.) 



324 Michael Wreen 

VIII 

One last bone I'd like to pick '2 with Walton concerns whether ad baculum is 
necessarily a two- or more-person affair. Again, I say, No. This time, however, 
Walton's answer is an unequivocal, Yes. A related issue we disagree over is 
whether an ad baculum has to be offered with a particular intention in mind. As 
might be guessed, I voice the word ever-popular with two-year-olds the world 
over, and say, No. And Walton once again says, Yes. 

One, but only one, case I discussed in relation to these issues is a variant on 
one found in Copi. One of Jesus' Twelve Disciples says to him, "Jesus, if you 
don't get out of here, and quick, there'll be plenty big trouble for you. You'll 
probably be arrested, tried, convicted, and crucified." I commented that the 
Disciple might offer the argument intending to get Jesus to pack his bags, or he 
might not. He might be determining for himself whether, or re-confirming his 
belief that, Jesus is the man (or deity) he thinks he is, and not intending that Jesus 
be on the next train out of town. In fact, he might be firmly convinced that Jesus 
will stay put, and thereby, logically speaking, be incapable of forming the 
intention that Jesus get while the getting is good.1J Or the Disciple might have no 
strong beliefs respecting Jesus' determination to stay put in Jerusalem, and simply 
be apprizing Jesus of his current situation and suggesting what's best to do from 
the point of view of self-interest. In that case, he wouldn't have any intention to 
get Jesus on the bus, or to convince him to pay another month's rent. In fact, he 
might not even offer such an argument to Jesus himself, and but simply be 
ruminating away, or muttering to himself, thinking about what's up in the land of 
Herod, and drawing conclusions about the current state of affairs. 

Among the negative conclusions I draw from this case (and others as well) 
are that ad baculum needn't be a two-person affair, and that an arguer need not 
have any particular intention in mind when arguing ad baculum. 

Walton thinks I'm wrong on both counts. 
Consider the ... situation ... where the disciple does not want Jesus to leave 
town, but is only apprizing him of his predicament. On analysis, this is not a 
threat but only a warning. It is in fact an argument from negative 
consequences. The disciple is pointing out to Jesus that if he does not leave, 
bad consequences are likely to occur. . . . It is simply an argument from 
consequences. It is not even an ad baculum argument (p. 186). 

But since ad baculums are arguments from negative consequences, according to 
Walton, all he's really saying here is that Wreen's argument from negative 
consequences doesn"t count as an ad baculum because the Disciple isn't 
threatening Jesus. 

In responding to this objection, I don't want to bank exclusively on my 
earlier arguments that threatening isn't necessary for ad baculum, relevant though 
they are. What I'd like to do is note that Walton is simply declaring that the 
Disciple's apprizaJ argument isn't an ad baculum because no threat is present. 
That doesn't meet the point made: that two propositionally identical arguments 



Knockdown Arguments 325 

(arguments offered in identical epistemic situations, even) should be classified as 
the same argument (i.e., as two tokens of the same type). The way I individuate 
arguments is in terms of propositional content and inferential relation, and so an 
argument in which a threat is made, and an argument in which no threat is made, 
count as the same argument if and only if both have the same propositional 
content and inferential relation. And if they're the same argument, I don't know 
why one is an ad baculum and the other isn't. Same argument, same argument-
type, it certainly seems. Maybe Walton can show why that isn't so, and why a 
threat has to be present if an argument is to count as an ad baculum. In the 
meantime, though, his claims here seem to me to rest on nothing more than 
arbitrary stipulation, or, what's equivalent, the simple fact that what I say doesn't 
jibe with his theory. (Incidentally, my other critic. Alan Brinton, is very much 
alive to the challenge I've issued, and is at pains to meet it. See sections XIV-
XVII below.) 

Much the same holds for Walton's critiques of the case of the Disciple 
muttering-simply "talking out loud"-to himself. In that case, 

there is even less of a basis for thinking that there could be an ad baculum 
falJacy.[l4) ... Indeed, from all the information given in Wreen's description of 
the case, there is no good reason to think that the disciple is arguing at all. It is 
not an ad baculum argument. It is not even an argument, so far as one can 
reasonably tell. In these cases [this and the apprizal case), what Wreen cites as 
examples of ad baculum arguments do not even count as ad baculum 
arguments by the criteria [which Walton has laid down) (p. 187). 

But the reason for thinking that the Disciple is arguing is that the case is 
deliberately set up to be identical, propositionally and epistemically, to ones in 
which Jesus is threatened or warned. By hypothesis, the Disciple is rolling over 
the same considerations in his mind, or muttering them to himself, and drawing 
the same conclusion. If Walton wants to say that a person who does math proofs 
in his head, or goes around talking to himself, doing such proofs, isn't arguing, he 
can. Me, I'll stick with the intuitive view that he is, and is offering the same 
argument that he would if he were saying the same thing in a "persuasive 
dialogue" with his teacher. I; 

IX 

In some sense, I suppose, I must admit to having put him to it, but Alan Brinton is 
also nothing if not critical. Offering a systematic and comprehensive critique of 
my views on ad baculum, Brinton not only plots the errors of my ways, but offers 
a deep diagnosis of my problems and develops a partial counter-theory in 
response. Better still, his critique is presented in a thoroughly enjoyable form, 
with a wry and impish sense of humor gently spiking a polite and easy-driving 
critical exposition. His article l6 is thus fun and very different from standard 
journal fare-and merely considered in and of itself, that's a strong point in its 
favor. 17 In addition, Brinton gets me right on every single major point-no small 
thing-and has a very thorough understanding of what I'm up to, and why. 



326 Michael Wreen 

In fact, I even suspect that Brinton's brain is rather large, and that he 
consumes an appreciable quantity of fish. He agrees with me on a large number of 
points, in other words. He thinks, for instance, that I'm right in thinking that 

(1) ad baculum is inductive rather than deductive in nature (p. 86); 

(2) ad baculum and other so-called informal fallacies (ad hominem, ad 
ignorantiam, ad populum, and so on) should be considered "kinds of 
argument, rather than logical errors" (p. 90); 

(3) instances of the argument-type needn't concern causing positive harm, but 
"could just as easily involve allowing evils or depriving ... goods" (p. 86); 

(4) the harm in question in an ad baculum-more generally, the dis value in 
question, in whatever form it may take (allowing evils, depriving goods, etc.) 
-needn't be a disvalue suffered by the arguer's interlocutor (pp. 86,91); 

(5) the logical form of an ad baculum is as a two-premised argument: the first 
premise is a conditional statement describing two non-valuational states of 
affairs (one of which is an action); the other premise is categorical and 
valuational; and the conclusion is an "ought" statement whose subject is a 
person (or some other creature capable of action) whose content concerns the 
state of affairs not described in the second premise (pp. 86,88-89,89-90,91); 

(6) not just a prudential "ought" but any ofa variety of "ought"s-moral, legal, 
aesthetic, etc.--could figure in the conclusion of an (reconstructed) ad 
baculum (p. 86); 

(7) an ad baculum needn't be linguistic (p. 86); 

(8) the notion of fallaciousness shouldn't be built right into the very meaning 
of the term "ad baculum" (p. 86); 

(9) nor should the argument-type be defined in terms of sleaziness or any other 
moral quality (p. 90); 

(J 0) not all ad baculums are fallacious (p. 86); 

(11) most, in fact, are fairly strong; 

(12) "the trouble with ad baculums . .. is more often moral than logical" (p. 
90); 

(13) "exterminat[ting] the black-magical practice of naming innocent 
arguments into fallaciousness"-for example by simply identitying them as ad 
baculums or ad misericordiams-is a good thing" (p. 87).lg 

Well done, Professor Brinton! And you're on even solider ground when you 
praise me for my "detailed and methodologically self-conscious examination of a 
wide variety of examples" and my "attention to context, standards of evidence, 
and relevant background information" (p. 85). You neglect only to mention that 
I'm extremely handsome, filthy rich, and spend my days fighting off the 
impassioned advances of beautiful women. 

x 

With all the "Yes, yes, you're right, old buddy" in Brinton's article, you'd think 
he'd conclude the thing by suggesting that a monument be erected in my honor, 
or a national holiday named after me. But no. Perverse human nature reasserts 



Knockdown Arguments 327 

itself, and he spends most of the small space allotted him arguing against two of 
my claims. The flies in the ointment, according to him, are: 

(I) an ad baculum needn't be a two- (or more-) person affair; 

and, the pest that annoyed Walton so, 
(2) threatening isn't essential to an ad baculum. 

Let me defend the first claim, the more minor of the two, in this and the next 
section, and move on to the other in the remaining sections. 

I brought up two cases in support of (l). In the first, I walk into the kitchen 
only to see Fido with his snout in the garbage can once again. Quickly grabbing 
and rolling up a newspaper, I approach the little devil with determination and 
anger written all over my map. Not a word is said, but my alert companion, 
looking up and fully understanding the import of bulging eyeballs and steam 
being emitted from the ears, hightails it out of there faster than you can say "Milk 
Bone."'9 

Brinton agrees--or at least he seems to agree-that the argument is an ad 
baculum, but he claims that I haven't proven my point, that a second person isn't 
needed because a languageless creature will do. My faithful companion, he says, 
"becomes an arguee precisely by being personalized." "Only insofar as Wreen 
can persuade us that Fido ... [is] a recipient of reasons for action," he says, can 
he bring off the case as a genuine ad baculum (p. 86).2<1 

I think that this is partly right and partly wrong. It's true that I have to 
conceive of Man's Best Friend as something that has at least rudimentary 
reasoning abilities, else the example won't work at all. But if we grant that, and 
most of us do, then all that's really needed is present. For granting that dogs have 
elementary reasoning ability doesn't mean that we "personalize" our K-9 friend-
think of him as a person-much less conceptualize the situation in terms of two 
interlocutors, as a truly dialectical approach to argumentation requires." 

XI 

In the second example, I argue, to myself, "If I don't get those papers graded 
before I go home tonight, no dessert." Brinton agrees that this is an 
(unreconstructed) ad baculum, but he claims that its plausibility as an example 
depends 

upon casting oneself into both first and second person roles. (I) "I won't have 
dessert if I don't finish these papers" is not a clear case [of ad baculum]; it 
might or might not be an ad baculum. But (2) "Self, no dessert for you unless 
you finish these papers" is a clear case. The crucial difference between the two 
is that (2) is explicitly addressed to a second (even though the same) person; 
(I)'s plausibility as a case of ad baculum will depend upon its being construed 
as implicitly second-person. 

Adding, what I certainly agree with, that the burden of proof is on anyone who 
says that ad baculum isn't essentially dialectical, Brinton concludes that I've 



328 Michael Wreen 

failed to shoulder that burden, and thus we should stick with the standard view 
that it is. 

Not so fast, though. First of all, even if everything Brinton says is correct, 
I've proved my point, strictly speaking. Here, I say, is an ad baculum that doesn't 
involve two people, or even two reasoning creatures. With that, Brinton has no 
quarrel: the argument is an ad baculum, and only one person is involved. In some 
very fundamental sense, then, ad baculum isn't necessarily a two-person affair, a 
first-person!second-person affair, or a dialectical affair, as the standard view has 
it. 

But let me waive that point for the moment, since I'm not convinced by 
Brinton's argument even so. If I were to reconstruct Brinton's (1) in the most 
charitable way possible, though one true to my original argument, it would be as 

If I don't get those papers graded before I go home, I'll deny myself that 
luscious, rich, delectable, scrumptious, wonderful, ridiculously beautiful ... I'll 
withhold dessert from myself tonight; 

Denying myself that 0 so lovely, 0 so heavenly, 0 so wicked, 0 so delicious, 0 
so ... withholding dessert from myself would be depriving me of a, to say the 
least, great good I could enjoy; 

Therefore, I ought, from the point of view of self-interest, to get those papers 
graded before I leave. 

Call this argument H(A)." The argument he labels "(2)" I would reconstruct as: 
If you, Dear Self, don't get those papers graded before you go home, ['II deny 
you that gustatory explosion, that mind-numbing jolt of pure pleasure, that 
ecstasy in a spoon that, that, that ... tonight; 

Denying you the ineffable, holding back on the sensual substance par 
excellence, withholding paradise on a plate from you, Dear Self, would be 
depriving you of a great good you could enjoy; 

Therefore, you ought, from the point of view of self-interest, Dear Self. to get 
those papers graded before you leave. 

Call this argument "(B)." 

Strictly speaking, (A) and (B) are different arguments, since their 
propositional contents differ, however minutely. And I do want to emphasize that 
the difference is minute, for it amounts to nothing more than a partial replacement 
of first-person indexical elements in (A) with second-person ones in (B). The 
replacement can't be total, else the identification of "you" ("Dear Self') and "1" 
in the second argument would be lost, and (B) would be a different argument 
from Brinton's (2), and an argument which fails to correspond in any very close 
way to (1). In addition, indexical terms pick up a great deal of whatever 
conceptual content they contain from context, and "you," in this context, has little 
to draw upon except what is supplied by "I," in argument (A). So analyzed and 
understood, then, (A) and (B) are about as close to being identical as two 
arguments can be while still remaining two. 

That alone, I think, is a good reason for thinking that if one is an ad 
baculum, the other is as well. 



Knockdown Arguments 329 

Independently of that consideration, though, but related to what has just 
been said about (2), I'm also uneasy with the claim that (2) is a first-
person/second-person argument in anything more than a grammatical sense. Let 
me make myself clear. What ('m doubting is that the correct way to describe (2), 
logically speaking, is as a first-person/second-person argument. Rather, it would 
be more accurately described not in terms of who is offering and who is being 
offered the argument, as in terms of a single person considering himself both as 
agent and as patient, as do-er and as done-to. There is only one person present, 
after all, presumably a sane person, who therefore knows that he's the only one 
about. In the argument, in other words, one person, the arguer, represents himself 
under two aspects, and relates himself to himself under those aspects. Except 
grammatically, I see no reason to introduce a second party, even one identical to 
the first. 

The situation here isn't unique to ad baculum. A person ruminating about 
committing suicide reasons in a similar fashion, as does anyone otTering 
arguments about something as mundane as feeding himself, or tying his own 
shoes. Some small solace is also available me in this fact that when Brinton 
presents his own theory of ad baculum, he says that the argument-type 
"essentially involves an agent/patient relationship" (p. 90), a relationship that he, 
but not 1, identifies with the first-person/second-person relationship. 

XII 

But Brinton is even more concerned to rebut my claim that ad baculum needn't 
involve a threat. One argument I brought up in support of it invokes the Fido case 
discussed above. My argument, quite charitably and correctly reconstructed by 
Brinton, is: 

Threatening is a speech act; 

Speech acts are linguistic; 

Some ad baculums (such as the one directed at Fido} are non-
linguistic; 

Therefore, not all ad baclilums involve threatening. 

As I read Brinton, the chief difficulty here is that the first premise is t~llse: not all 
threats are linguistic. Our four-footed friend was surely threatened by me, even 
though I didn't say a thing. Thus I haven't shown that threats aren't essential to 
ad baculum, for a threat is present in the case of the canine cowering in the 
corner. 

This critique is 100% correct. On my own behalf, however, I'd like to add 
that I was well aware that the poor pooch was being threatened, and that my only 
objective in presenting the case was to take another shot at pragma-dialectical 
theories of argumentation. Such theories take arguments, argument-types, and 
fallacies-including the fallacy of threatening when you shouldn't be 
threatening-to be speech actsY It was them, and them alone, that I was drawing 
a bead on. 



330 Michael Wreen 

XIII 

More importantly, Brinton thinks that other cases I advanced in support of my 
negative thesis wouldn't do. Singled out, labelled, and briefly described by him 
are three-actually four---cases: 

and 

The Extortion Case (this is the ring case, already discussed above in sections 
V-VII); 

The Supermarket Case: a supermarket doesn't threaten me, but argues ad 
baculum in saying, in effect: either pay the price, or leave without the food 
(actually, this is very similar to the ring case: both essentially involve a refusal 
to render aid unless something is given in return); 

The Warning Case: I yell to my friend: "Move fast, or you'll be run over by a 
truck!"; or Anytus, speaking to Socrates about the dangers of speaking ill of 
people in Athens, might just as well be warning Socrates rather than 
threatening him, or even doing neither (see the comment in the next 
paragraph). 

Other examples of ad baculum not involving threats I had mentioned-third-
person cases, cases set in the distant past, and purely hypothetical cases-are also 
briefly mentioned by Brinton. But what do such cases prove, he asks. Only that 
we have a choice. We can accept any or all of the three (really, four) listed above 
as an ad baculum, thereby widening "our conception of the ad baculum," or we 
can reject them as examples of the argument-type, and thank Wreen for having 
brought them to our attention. And thanks are due to He of the Big Bean, for in 
calling our attention to them, he's challenged us to say where and why they fall 
short of being true ad baculums. Responding to that challenge will force us to get 
clearer about the argument-type, and maybe even clearer about informal logic in 
general. 

XIV 

Speaking in my own voice now, let me say that in the main, what we're faced 
with here is a theoretical divide. On the one hand, I present cases similar to 
textbook cases in many important respects-the Socrates case is right out of 
Copi, in fact, and the Jesus case discussed earlier is simply a variant of it-and, as 
Brinton notes, easily put them in what I've identified as the logical form of ad 
baculum. This is a form which Brinton himself accepts as the correct form of the 
argument-type. The cases, I say, are thus ad baculums, even if they don't involve 
threats, and even if some don't appear in logic texts. Their not appearing in logic 
texts might be due to any number of reasons that have nothing to do with their 
being or not being ad baculums, I argue-pedagogical clarity springs to mind as 
an obvious factor-so that fact doesn't bother me to any appreciable extent. 
Further, and contrary to what Brinton says, I don't regard what I'm doing as 
broadening the concept of ad baculum so much as discovering its true nature and 



Knockdown Arguments 331 

extension. No one else, after all, has even done much in the way of looking into 
the matter. 

Brinton, on the other hand, has a strong intuition that the cases aren't ad 
baculums, and thus that something in addition to being similar to textbook cases 
of the argument-type, and also in addition to being able to be rendered in the 
logical form that Wreen has (correctly) identified, must be necessary for an 
argument to be an ad baculum. What? Well, as I read him, the general answer is, 
Rhetorical factors. In essence, Brinton thinks that I've gotten the logical and 
epistemic story right, but that the entire rhetorical dimension of the argument-
type, a dimension that's essential to a complete and correct understanding of it 
(just as an appreciation of depth is essential to a complete and correct 
understanding of cubes), is woefully absent from the tale I tell. Hence, what's 
needed are rhetorical factors, such as two-person-ness and the presence of a 
threat. In Brinton's own words: 

In our logical youth, we knew what Copi and his accomplices were talking 
about [respecting ad baculum] as soon as we saw their examples. We knew 
from bitter experience what it was to be ad baculized. Now we had a name for 
it. We didn't like having it done to us, though on occasion we might have done 
it ourselves, or enjoyed seeing it done, to others (p. 89). 

That, in effect, is why his intuition isn't just an intuition, and why 
instead of taking Professor Wreen's examples as supports for his account of 
the ad baculum, we might take them to be a sort of reductio ad absurdum of 
his approach. . . . [Thus,] the reasonable conclusion is that an adequate 
characterization of the ad baculum will have to mention more than just its 
logical features. This will not mean that cases of ad baculum cannot be 
subjected to purely logical analysis and evaluation. It will just mean that what 
makes an ad baculum an ad baculum is more than just its logical features, and 
also that serious evaluation of ad baculums will require attention to whatever 
features distinguish them as a group from non-ad baclilums of their same 
logical form (pp. 89-90). 

Examine the textbook tradition, Brinton says, and we find an "ostensive 
definition" of the argument-type; and reflect on our own understanding of that 
tradition, and we can see why and how Wreen's examples fall short. The featmes 
missing from his account are, not surprisingly, two-person-ness and/or the 
presence of a threat. Neither a warning, nor a promise, nor anything else will do 
for an ad baculum. 

The textbook tradition, moreover, helps us to realize that "what really bugs 
us about offending ad baculums is that they are inappropriately c();!/'ciJle. The 
kind of agent/patient relationship they involve is a coercive one," with the 
coercion, the threat of force, being of two kinds. First, in many but not all cases, 
there is a threat of "some sort of 'forceful' action against the recipient of the 
argument" (p. 90). (On this point, of course, Brinton and I are in agreement.) 
Second and less obviously, but more importantly, an ad baculum "is itself a kind 
of forcing or coercion. What kind of coercion? Coercion by way of threats" (pp. 



332 Michael Wreen 

90·91). An ad baculum may not always be coercive in the first sense, but it 
always is in the second. Thus, 

successful use of the ad baculum presupposes a relationship of power; 
appropriate questions for its evaluation are typically questions about legitimacy 
in the exercise of power. The unjustly ad baculized person experiences a felt 
loss of autonomy and personal dignity. Such feelings, however, are not the test 
[for fallaciousness], since they may be incorrect or deserved (p. 91). 

This relationship of power and coercion is especially poignant in an ad baculum, 
for 

xv 

the arguer enters into the subject matter of the argument, into the content, in a 
quasi-performative way. The arguer imposes his or her own presence, thereby 
creating within the argument itself a reason for action. A relevant question 
about this aspect of the matter is about the appropriateness of the kind of 
reason thereby created relative to the question at hand. Another is about the 
authority of the arguer (p. 91). 

This is a well-thought-out and reasonable response, and one that nicely blends a 
concern for cases and the textbook tradition with the merits of theory. in 
particular rhetorical theory. Nevertheless, I have my doubts about it, many of 
which have already been aired in my replies to Walton. 

Briefly, then: the Extortion or ring case is discussed at length in sections V-
VII, and the Supermarket Case is structurally similar to it. differing only in our 
moral assessment of the person offering the argument or the act of offering the 
argument. The Socrates case is strictly analogous to the Jesus case discussed in 
section VIII, and the case of the errant truck - no, that's not a Perry Mason 
mystery-is covered by, as indeed are all these cases, what I earlier argued 
respecting the individuation of arguments. Brinton. like Walton, has to say that in 
certain contexts an argument is an ad baculum. while in others, the very same 
argument isn't. Argument strength. the evaluation of two tokens of the same 
argument-type, isn't in question here; only argument classification is. only 
whether one and the same argument is of the same kind in two different contexts. 
Indeed, the contexts themselves need differ only in the most minimal way 
possible, since they need differ only in whether the first premise of the 
(reconstructed) ad baculum is conveyed in a threat or in some other way, e.g., in a 
warning, or in a statement. or in a mere thought. My view remains what I, at least, 
take to be the intuitive one: that if one is classified as an ad haculum, the other 
one should be as well. 

As for drawing on the textbooks: that's where I begin, too. If the textbook 
tradition doesn't lead me to believe that threats are essential to ad haculums, 
that's because, for one thing, I don't see that all the textbooks or everyday-life 
examples of ad baculum have to be interpreted in terms of threats. But in 
addition, I don't see how the presence or absence of threats makes any logical 
difference, any difference in the content, structure, or strength of an argument, 



Knockdown Arguments 333 

and thus I don't see why it should be included as a defining feature of an 
argument-type. Only a difference that makes a difference should be included as a 
defining feature, it seems to me. By Brinton's own admission, an ad baculum and 
a non-ad baculum could have the same content and structure, could occur in the 
same epistemic situation, and could "be subjected to [the same] purely logical 
analysis and evaluation" (p. 90). Presumably, a purely logical analysis and 
evaluation would yield the same result in both cases. Why, then, should the 
presence of a threat be a defining feature of ad baculum, even on Brinton's own 
account of the argument-type? 

XVI 

For Brinton, this is virtually equivalent to the question, Why does a "serious 
evaluation of ad baculums . .. require attention to whatever features distinguish 
them .. from non-ad baculums of their same logical type" (p. 90)? His answer has 
to do with: 

(1) the "more significant agent/patient relationship" possible in an ad baculum 
but not its doppelganger (p. 90); 

(2) the fact that the ad baculum is prone to "peculiar kinds of sleaziness" 
(based on (1» that its doppelganger isn't (p. 90); 

(3) the coercion of one party by another, this coercion being, more than 
anything else, at the heart of ad baculum, since it's the ground for both the 
two-person-ness and the threat that are essential to its nature; 

(4) the fact that "the arguer enters into the subject matter of the argument, into 
the content, in a quasi-performative way ... and imposes his or her own 
presence" (p. 91); 

(5) the attempted exercise of power through the use of coercion (p. 91 J. 
Note that a certain sort of coercion is the key here. Threats are always 

present in a true ad baculum, not because a threat of force, in the most basic sense 
of the term, is always present, but because ad baculum has to be understood in 
terms of "coercion by way of threats" (p. 91). As I understand Brinton's 
somewhat dark remarks on this matter, what he's saying is that with a true ad 
baculum, the very issuing of that argument, by that person, in that set of 
circumstances constitutes a threat directed to the other party. This is a threat, 
moreover, in which the arguer, being who he is and having said (or done) what he 
did, "enters into" the content of the threat, imposes his presence-his power and 
position-and thus is himself an essential component of the argument and of the 
threat issued. Hence (Brinton concludes), ad baculum is essentially two-personed 
and essentially involves a threat. It's the coercive relationship, based upon the 
inequality of power between the two parties, that underpins the ad bw;u/um and 
makes possible the facts recorded in the last few sentences. It's certainly not 
something like a logical form that does or can do that. A logical form alone (even 
in the broad sense in which Wreen uses the term) can give an argument (partial) 
content and structure, but it can't give an argument a point or a place in human 



334 Michael Wreen 

discourse, and it thus can't explain what ad baculum is, or how it works-and 
that's true even if ad baculums all do have a certain logical form. 

XVII 

That, anyway, is my understanding of Brinton, and I do have a lot of sympathy 
with the philosophical cum rhetorical explanation of the workings of (at least 
many an) ad baculum that he's tendered. Still, I just don't see that my question 
has been answered: Why are the elements he's identified essential to ad 
baculum-an argument-type, after all-when they don't make any difference to 
argument content, structure, or evaluation? In other words, what I see is that the 
"serious evaluation" that requires consideration of more than logical (and I would 
add epistemic) features is rhetorical, ethical, and political in nature: to evaluate 
from that, or those, points of view, we need, in the sorts of cases that Brinton has 
in mind, to consider exactly the sorts of factors that he's drawn our attention to. 

But that doesn't mean that we should define the argument-type the way he 
indicates. A better alternative is to say that from the standpoint of logic or 
argument, an ad baculum is a certain kind of argument (indeed. that seems 
tautological), while from the standpoint of rhetorical theory, some ad baculums. 
and a particularly important bunch they are, form a distinctive sub-class. Indeed, 
there are dangers to not hewing to that line. for if we don't, we risk blurring or 
erasing the distinction between the logical/epistemic evaluation of an argument, 
and the political/ethical/rhetorical evaluation of it. Walton already disregards that 
distinction to an appreciable extent (despite his evident desire to honor it), and 
Brinton, with his five factors and his talk of the "loss of autonomy and personal 
dignity," the imposition of "presence," "the appropriateness of the kind of reason" 
offered, the "authority" of the arguer, and the evaluation of an ad haculum in 
terms of "legitimacy in the exercise of power" (p. 91 )-Brinton is in imminent 
danger of doing so as well. The correct definition of ad baculum. then. is not a 
merely verbal matter, nor an unimportant one. Something of some moment hangs 
on it. 

Notes 

I Douglas Walton. The Place o/Emotion in ,.jrgllment (University Park. Pi\: Pennsylvania State 
University Press. 1992). All parenthetically indicated quotations from Walton are from 
Chapter 5. "Argllmentllm ad BacIIIlIIII." of this book. This remark is from p. 144. 

1 My articles on ad baculum are: ··Yes. Virginia, There is a Santa Claus." In/ormal Logic 9 
(1987): 31-39: "Admit No Force But Argument." Informal Logic 10 (1988): 89-96: "May 
The Foree Be With You." Argumentation 2 (1988): 425-40: and "A Bolt of Fear," Philosophy 
and Rhetoric 22 (1989): 131-40. The remark of mine quoted by Walton is from "Yes." p. 37. 

) In fact. I've emphasized it on a number of occasions. in analyzing particular cases. See. 11.)r 
example, "Yes." op. cit. 



Knockdown Arguments 335 

• Prima facie, that is. Since the argument isn't deductive, relevant considerations could be 
added which would weaken the inference, perhaps to the point where the label "fallacious" is 
appropriate. 

S The term is my own, not Walton's, though I don't think he would object to it. I should also 
note that in this paper I use the term "token" in a broad sense, as roughly synonymous with 
"instance." 

6 However, in another paper, "Look, Ma! No Frans!," Pragmatics and Cognition 2( 1994): 285-
306, I critique the pragma-dialectical approach to the concept of a fallacy, an approach very 
similar to Walton's. Three other dialectical conceptions of a fallacy are also criticized in 
another paper of mine, "Look Before You Leap," in manuscript. I apologize if these footnotes 
are starting to sound like the self-advertisements that so many footnotes do. 

7 Another more minor difference between Walton and me is that I don't think that individual 
arguments or argument-tokens, such as the Dagwood argument, should be labelled 
"fallacies." The term seems wholly inappropriate, and even a "category mistake." since 
individual arguments aren't and couldn't be (identical with a certain kind of) argumt:ntative 
flaw or weakness. For two reasons, I'm even reluctant to use the label for argument-types. 
such as ad baculum or ad misericordiam. To label an argument-type a fallacy is, initially at 
least. to suggest that tokens of that type are fallacious, and fallacious just because they're 
tokens of that type. No (non-deductive) argument, however, is fallacious just because it 
instantiates a certain form, or is a token of a certain argument-type. And even if the 
suggestion just noted is muted, calling an argument-type a fallacy is to imply that, generally 
speaking, tokens of that type are fallacious. I certainly doubt that that's the case for ad 
baculum, and I also doubt it for most of the other argument-types usually labelled "informal 
fallacies. " 

8 "Factor" is my preferred term, but I don't think that Walton would object. 

9 And so, too, his conception of an argument and a fallacy in general. 

JU My thanks to Walter L. Weber for suggesting this expression. 
II I've interpolated "to have" here in order to underscore the fact that Walton takes these 

considerations to be necessary for threatening. 

12 Again, my thanks to Walter L. Weber for suggesting an apt expression. 

13 I'm assuming here that it's a necessary truth that if I intend to bring about Jesus' leaving 
town, I believe that I can bring about Jesus' leaving town. A person can't intend to bring 
about what he doesn't believe he can bring about. 

14 I don't think that the Disciple commits a fallacy in such a case. and despite what is suggested 
here, Walton recognizes that I don't. The real issues are whether an ad baculum need be a 
two- or more-person affair, and whether a person offering an ad baculum need have a 
particular purpose or intention in mind. 

\) One point on which Walton and I do agree, however, is that arguments aren't just semantic 
structures, consisting of propositions standing in certain relations to one another. It would be 
hard to explain a number of things, including why, tor example. arguments which beg the 
question are fallacious, if a strictly semantic (I prefer the term 'propositional') conception of 
argument were correct. What m:eds to be remembered is that, paradigmatically, arguments are 
justifactory structures. 

16 "The Ad Baculum Re-Clothed," Informal Logic 14( 1992): 85-92. 

\7 In my view. most journal articles are nat. colorless. unenjoyable. and staid. though there '5 no 
good reason for them to be that way--unless you count professional stuffiness, an absurd 
estimation of the importance of the issues discussed, and inflated but very delicate egos. 

IK Given the Hobbesian state of nature that prevails in the journals, life there being little more 
than a war of all men against all men. Brinton's agreement with me on so many points may be 



336 Michael Wreen 

well-nigh incomprehensible to many readers. However, it's actually very easily 
explained--and along Hobbesian lines. On p. 90, he says: "If Professor Wreen threatens to 
beat me up unless I agree with him .... " This keen insight respecting my character is probably 
due to Brinton '5 work on ethos and argument. 

19 Walter Weber originally brought this case to my attention. A dinner ofT-bone steak was his 
reward for this important contribution to philosophy. 

20 Incidentally, the example doesn't require that Rin Tin Tin and the pack he runs with be able 
to "evaluate inferences," as Brinton claims. All that it requires is that they be able to make 
them. 

21 Not that Brinton necessarily thinks of the situation in terms of two interlocutors. His main 
inspiration is classical rhetorical theory, not speech-act theory, much less the pragma-
dialectical theory of argumentation. Classical rhetorical theory, as I understand it, takes the 
concept of an audience as essential to argumentation, but not that of an interlocutor, strictly 
speaking. 

22 See, for instance Walton, The Place, op. cit., p. 163, where threatening is said to be a speech 
act. 

MICHAEL WREEN 
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY 

MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY 
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 53201-1881 

Q