Writing Assignment
The argument made for the legalization of drugs makes some interesting points but also has some flaws that are hard to overlook. The flaws in the argument consist of questionable and unsupported premises. The lack of clear premises with strong support makes it difficult to accept the conclusion. The first weakness of this argument is the questionable premises. The support for the legalization of drugs is divided into two smaller arguments. The first argument discusses the morality of legalizing drugs. The premises used to provide support for this argument use words such as “morality” and “rights”. The use of these words is problematic because people may not generally agree on what is moral and what is a right. For example, the first premise,” As far as morality is concerned, the decision to use or not use drugs is a personal one that does not directly impinge upon the rights of others”, contains both of the problematic words. This premise is controversial because there is no universal agreement on what is moral and what is a right. Some people believe that a society decides what is moral so if that is true then an individual’s beliefs are not material to the issue of morality. This premise seems to state that the decision to use drugs is personal and morally acceptable as long as it doesn’t intrude on the rights of others. I do not believe that most people would accept this definition of morality. The use of the word “rights” is also problematic. Do you and I agree on what is a right. I might think I have the right to smoke inside a bar and you might believe you have the right to not breathe cigarette smoke while enjoying a drink at the bar. If we cannot agree on what constitutes a right then we will not interpret this premise in the same way. Therefore, I believe that this premise is questionable and does not give support to the conclusion that drugs should be legalized. The second issue with this argument involves the use of premises with broad generalizations. Two of the premises for the morality argument use the words “never” and “anything”. The use of broad generalizations makes the premise questionable. For instance, the premise, “the government should never forbid activities that do not impinge upon the rights of others,” is a questionable premise. The use of the word “never” makes the premise controversial. I do not think that most people could agree with this premise because they could most likely think of at least one exception to this statement. The use of the term “right” also makes this premise questionable. Another example of a questionable premise is the following, “you ought to forbid anything which is in the least bit dangerous.” This premise includes two broad generalizations. The use of the “anything” and “the least bit dangerous” make this premise questionable. People may be able to come to a consensus on what is dangerous but how do you define the “least bit dangerous”. Plus when you combine that with the idea that anything that is the least bit dangerous should be forbidden, it makes the premise controversial. Another weakness of the argument is the use of