Weakening Questions

symphonyfbrown

Does anyone know how the exact strategy for weakening questions? I've listened to every approach but continue to get the the most easiest Weakening questions wrong.

nicholas.leon96

Hey Symphony!

The way I like to think about weakening questions is to imagine some tells me to my face the conclusion of the argument, then when I ask them "why?" they give me the premise(s) to support it. My job is to figure something out that gives me any reason to doubt their conclusion, even if their premises were 100% true.

A quick example broken down:

Conclusion: the US forestry service should suppress all wild fires no matter the size
Premise: Annually, wild fires cause $10 billion in damages.

If I wanted to weaken the argument, I might point out the fact that, total suppression of all wild fires no matter their size, makes it so lots of dead wood and other forest detritus builds up, so when wild fires do spark up they cause way more damage than if the forestry service allowed certain smaller fires to burn.

It is still true that annually, wild fires cause $10 billion in damages, but I have given a reason to doubt the conclusion that we should suppress all fires regardless of size.

I hope this helps at all!