Joel Best, Social Problems

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Worsening situation. 

Very often, claims insist that the problem is getting worse. Words like epidemic and crime wave convey a sense of urgency: the problem is spreading, and--unless something is done--it may soon spiral out of control.

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　Most claims identify categories of people involved in the troubling condition, and explain how their involvement should be understood (Loseke, 2003). Among

the most common person categories are victims (those harmed by the problem, who may be characterized as bearing no responsibility for their plight, and therefore meriting society's support and sympathy) and villains (those responsible for the problem, usually depicted as deserving blame and punishment). Typifying examples often illustrate the principal categories of people involved in the troubling condition (such as an innocent, abused child and an abusive parent).

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 Familiar type of problem. 

Claims often categorize a problem as being of a recognizable type, such as a crime or a disease. These types are characterized by familiar patterns: we think of crime as being perpetrated by a criminal who intentionally preys on an innocent victim, and diseases as striking vulnerable individuals who should not be considered responsible for getting sick. When a claim classifies the new problem as belonging to a particular type, the claim's audience immediately has a sense of how to think about the problem.

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Range of people affected. 

Another popular ground for claims is the suggestion that the problem affects a broad range of people--rich and poor, white and black, and so on. Sometimes it is argued that the problem strikes "randomly" (J. Best, 1999). Of course, if a problem strikes at random, then it might affect anyone, including anyone listening to the claim. Such randomness suggests that each person who hears the claim has a personal interest in doing something to deal with the problem--before it affects him or her.

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Challenge to older interpretations: Claims also may challenge existing or alternative interpretations of the social problem. For instance, students who don't do well in school traditionally were held responsible for their poor performance, which was attributed to their inattention, lack of discipline or effort, and so on.　But recent decades have featured claims about learning disabilities, arguing that many  students should not be blamed because their poor performance is due to biologically based learning disabilities that deserve accommodation (Conrad, 2007). Such claims challenge older, more familiar constructions. These challenges may be quite explicit; claims may list-and debunk--what they describe as "myths," widely held beliefs about the problem that the claim dismisses as wrong. For example, claims that seek to reconstruct the problem of rape criticize "rape myths" for distorting people's thinking about that crime (Suarez & Gadalla,2010).

 Again, these are just a few of the many kinds of grounds statements found in claims. Taken together, a claim's grounds give a sense of the problem--its nature, scope, and future prospects. Effective grounds convince listeners that the condition is real, thereby setting the stage for the claim's warrants.

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Warrants

  A claim's warrants justify doing something about the troubling condition, they explain why something ought to be done. Warrants invoke values and emotions. That is, warrants argue that the condition identified in the grounds is inconsistent with what we value, and therefore we need to do something about it. Thus, claims suggest that the troubling condition violates our sense of justice, fairness, equality, or other values, in turn, we may experience anger, pity, or other emotional reactions. 

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 Values tend to be expressed as vague principles that most--if not all--people can endorse. Most Americans can be expected to hold freedom, justice, equality, protecting the vulnerable, and humanitarianism as cherished values. But what does this mean in practice? it is not always clear how abstract values apply in real-world situations. It is not unusual for opponents in debates over social issues to endorse the same values, even as they support opposing policies. Thus, both those who favor and those who oppose restricting access to abortion tend to invoke rights: pro-life abortion opponents speak of the "unborn child's right to life," while pro-choice abortion advocates speak of a "woman's right to choose." Similarly, those who favor affirmative action argue that affirmative action programs foster equality by giving advantages to those who have been disadvantaged, yet affirmative action opponents insist that the programs subvert equality because they don't treat everyone evenhandedly. Although virtually all Americans can be expected to affirm their beliefs in rights or equality, obviously they can disagree over how those abstract values should be translated into practical policies.

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 Values tend to be expressed as vague principles that most--if not all--people can endorse. Most Americans can be expected to hold freedom, justice, equality, protecting the vulnerable, and humanitarianism as cherished values. But what does this mean in practice? it is not always clear how abstract values apply in real-world situations. It is not unusual for opponents in debates over social issues to endorse the same values, even as they support opposing policies. Thus, both those who favor and those who oppose restricting access to abortion tend to invoke rights: pro-life abortion opponents speak of the "unborn child's right to life," while pro-choice abortion advocates speak of a "woman's right to choose." Similarly, those who favor affirmative action argue that affirmative action programs foster equality by giving advantages to those who have been disadvantaged, yet affirmative action opponents insist that the programs subvert equality because they don't treat everyone evenhandedly. Although virtually all Americans can be expected to affirm their beliefs in rights or equality, obviously they can disagree over how those abstract values should be translated into practical policies.

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 Warrants rise and fall in popularity. Sometimes new warrants--new ways of justifying claims--emerge, and change how social problems are characterized, For example, in recent years the rising costs of medical care have inspired a new warrant: arguments that some troubling conditions need to be addressed because they create costly health care burdens for the larger society. For instance, laws requiring motorcycle riders to wear protective helmets have been justified by the high costs of providing long-term medical care to head injury patients, just as campaigns to restrict smoking and reduce obesity have emphasized how those conditions add many millions of dollars to the nation's medical costs.

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  Warrants based on medical costs seem to have emerged to counter arguments that defended motorcycle riding and other risky activities using another, older warrant: personal freedom. That is, motorcycle riders, smokers, and overweight individuals have long argued that they ought to have the freedom to make their own choices, even if those choices involve risks. American culture generally considers freedom an important warrant, particularly if the person taking the risks is not harming others. Using medical costs as a warrant tries to counter this older defense based on individual liberty by arguing that helmetless motorcycle riders and other risk takers are not just endangering themselves, but are also harming everyone else, in that their risky behavior raises health care costs across the board, and society has a right to try to discourage people from taking such costly risks.

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 Because people can be strongly attached to particular values, and because claims need to be compelling, claims warrants often inspire powerful emotional reactions, such as outrage, shock, sadness, or guilt. Effective claims move people to take action. While it may be possible to assemble a claim that relies on bloodless cost-benefit reasoning to convince people that it is in their best interest to respond to a social problem, it is often more effective to arouse emotional reactions, to make them feel that something must be done right away. This is why claims favor melodramatic typifying examples: it is harder to ignore the plight of innocent victims or of those who are especially deserving. Claims can make use of a wide range of emotional appeals (see Box 2.2). 

 Because clams can invoke many different values and emotions, and because those values are abstract and subject to conflicting interpretations, claims often feature multiple warrants so different people may agree that something needs to be done about a troubling condition even though they disagree on the reasons for taking action. 

クレイムは、多くの異なる価値観や感情を呼び起こすことができ、またそれらの価値観は抽象的で矛盾する解釈の対象となるため、クレイムはしばしば複数の論拠を特徴とする。そのため、たとえ行動を起こす理由について意見が一致しなくても、問題のある状況について何かをする必要があると、異なる人々が同意する可能性がある。←訳し直して！

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Conclusions

 Every claim, then, offers a justification for taking action: the grounds identify a troubling condition, and the warrants explain why something should be done about it. Thus, all claims lead to conclusions, statements that specify what should be done, what action should be taken to address this social problem. The nature of the conclusions is shaped by the grounds and warrants. If a claim's grounds have depicted a condition that causes terrible suffering, and the warrams speak to humanitarian concerns about the need to alleviate suffering, then the conclusions are likely to focus on ways to help the afflicted. On the other hand, if the grounds emphasize the terrible nature of a particular crime, and if the warrants focus on society's need to protect its members from such evils, then the conclusions will probably advocate cracking down on this crime.

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Often conclusions include both short-range and long-range goals. Within the short term, claimsmakers may be trying to arouse concern to make others aware of the problem, to get people to join their campaign, or to encourage the media to cover the issue. Longer-range goals typically seek policy changes by arguing that policymakers need to pass a new law, fund a program, or otherwise deal with the troubling condition in a new, more effective way. Usually the short-range goals are seen as steps toward making these long-range changes possible.

 Conclusions range from vague endorsements of change to extensive, detailed agendas for action. Early in the social problems process, when claimsmakers' primary aim is to raise awareness of the troubling condition, grounds and warrants tend to receive more emphasis. At later stages in the process, when concern about the problem has become widespread, policy choices become a more central focus, and conclusions are likely to receive greater, more detailed attention.

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 Summary

 Grounds, warrants, and conclusions, then, are standard elements in most arguments (Toulmin, 1958). In the case of social problems claims, this rhetorical structure explains what is wrong, why it is wrong, and what should be done about it. But who hears these claims? Which audiences are these claims meant to persuade, and how do they respond?