Response to Toulmin

Stephen Toulmin was, unawares, a leading source of teachers and students of rhertorical theory for some time before discovering that the type of argument he defended in his work, thinking it was lost, was being promoted under the title "rhetoric." (119)
Toulmin claims that we spend too much time utilizing analytical or theoretical arguments, which are founded upon absolutes and are idealistic, when we should focus on developing the more effective substantial or practical arguments, which are based on probability and can be applied to particular, everyday problems and circumstances. (120-121)
Two extremes constituting erroneous, unconvincing argument - namely, absolutism and relativism - are avoided by adopting Toulmin's median model, the practical argument (125-126). Today, it is evident that the two extreme models maintain much unresolved conflict. An example is the debate over the legitimacy of sex before marriage. One group asserting the act is wrong based on what they hold as absolute truth tries unsuccessfully to convince another group who believes that there are no absolutes and that truth varies individually. It is established as an important principle today that one cannot impose their morals, beliefs, or values on anyone else; yet I contend that by doing so we eliminate the method of argumentation. How can someone try to convince someone else that they are more correct while asserting that each is entitled to his own opinion? Then, too, how can laws be imposed? If not all are agreed, isn't it just the imposition of the convictions of a few on others who may disagree? Toulmin believes that his method of practical argumentation provides the middle ground.
The practical argument bases claims upon the sense of duty or the moral code of a community. Thus, it appeals only to the absolutes established in agreement by groups of people living together. The absolutes, or ethics, bolstering the argument are established based on the consequences of the action in question. So, the practical argument is successful by way of justification (129).
Toulmin proposes that in most cases the absolutes are developed for individual situations based on the force (strength/power of claim) and criteria (standards used to justify adequacy of claim) for each. This disallows absolutes to be applied to every case, although some may have similar or the same force and criteria (130). "Practical arguments are contextualized" (132). Although I largely agree with Toulmin on this point, I also believe that there exist some absolutes which can and must be applied in arguments of any type and topic.
I had never heard of the practice of "casuistry" before reading this text. This mode seems to be summarized in the explanation that "moral experience does not lie in a mastery of general rules and theoretical principles, however sound and well reasoned those principles may appear" (138). It is adopting practical argumentation to solve daily conflicts instead of relying on the theoretical argument.
Stephen Toulmin's contribution to the discipline of rhetoric, though initially unintentional, is evidently substantial. It applies directly to modern errors of argumentation which pursue extremes.