The Values Debate We're Not Having

Background:

The following article is from the opinion column of the Washington Post. It was written by The Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New England Partnership for the Common Good. It concerns the topic of culture values being overlooked in the campaigns of the presidential candidates for next year’s, 2012, election. The presidential candidates are unanimously focused on one central issue- the economy; thus, it seemingly reflects to the religious U.S. citizens that the presidential candidates are neglecting other issues important in society, more specifically, family, culture, and religious values.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-values-debate-were-not-having/2011/11/02/gIQAaH3t9M_story.html

Analysis:

Throughout this article, Rev. Richard Cizik asserts the notion that the views of conservative Christians in the presidential campaign has been displaced, or outdated, by the views of the Tea Party or other social conservative leaders.

“The “compassionate conservatism” espoused by President George W. Bush and many prominent evangelical leaders has been supplanted by a Tea Party ideology that bears more resemblance to the anti-Christian philosophy of Ayn Rand than it does to the Gospel.”

He continues the article by also asserting that the political movement embraces radical individualism and rejects the ethic of collective responsibility, or in other words, rejects the Christian faith and morality and embraces the philosophical standpoints of radical politicians or not- so- conservative politicians.

“Tea Party activists and Republican leaders have consistently targeted for cutbacks vital government programs that protect the poor, the elderly, children and other vulnerable Americans. Yet calls for shared sacrifice and proposals to modestly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to fund investments and protections that promote the common good are derided as “class warfare” This is what passes for family values?”

According to Cizik, certain leaders have pushed for an election in which the economy is the top concern for voters.

Basically, the author feels as though the central values that were a prominent part of America have been overridden by the issue of money. Let’s formalize the argument:

Premise 1: The economy has overshadowed “culture war” issues in this campaign.

Premise 2: The political movement is embracing radical individualism and rejecting the ethic of collective responsibility.

However,

Premise 3: Polls consistently show that a majority of Christians care about a broad set of moral priorities.

And that,

Premise 5: Millions of religious Americans who believe in economic fairness, health care as a basic human right and justice for immigrants will vote in next year’s elections.

Thus,

Conclusion: Politicians should base their campaigns on culture values rather than solely on the economy.

This argument appears to be in good form, and even valid at first glance; however, it is a case of an argument from ad hominem abusive fallacy. Ad hominem abusive is a fallacy in which rather than criticizing some feature of the argument, the arguer poses verbal abuse on the person who made the argument. The fallacy is committed when Cizik states that the Conservative ideology has been downplayed by Tea Party which, he says, resembles more closely to the anti-Christian philosophy. There instead of pointing out the argument which the presidential candidates hold, he merely results to conclude that since their focus is more on economy, or money, then they must be less religious.

This argument also commits the fallacy of ad hominem tuqoque. Ad hominem tuqoque is a fallacy in which the arguer points out that his or her opponent is a hypocrite and concludes that therefore we can reject their argument. Rev. Cizik doesn’t directly imply that the presidential candidates are hypocrites, but instead points out that Republican and Tea Party leaders target steep cutbacks for government programs, but targets raising taxes, modestly, on the wealthy in order to fund investments and protections that promote the common good. In essence, from Rev. Cizik’s point of view, the presidential candidates’ aim to cut a large portion of the budget for governmental programs but slightly target taxing the wealthy in order to fund those same government programs doesn’t make sense.

My final diagnosis of the argument is moderate condition. If Cizik could actually cite these supposedly “anti-Christian” Tea Party leaders, or not assume that because their main focuses are on the economy that it means they’re “anti- Christian”, then the argument could be in healthy shape.