Toulmin

Toulmin, poor guy, is a very uninteresting read.

The most notable thing is his seperation of practical and theoretical arguments. I don't think that a nation-state can be governed without some absolutism and generally accepted maxims, though. As much as I may like to disagree, it seems pretty obvious that humans generally don't like to think for themselves and prefer to have an absolute "truth" handed to them so they can refer to it rather than reason it out.

Case in point, when Toulmin gives his two type-cases (the premature infant and the terminally ill patient) none other than Terry Shiavo came to mind. She seems to be more a mixture of his two examples, though, since she has not been able to express her wish to die. I think a gross oversimplification of the situation would suggest it boils down to "someone has the right to die" and "All life is sacred."

I know in actuality there are a lot of other factors here, such as, if the Bush administration passes legislation to keep her alive they will be able to apply the legislation to other situations--such as abortion. This is the sort of value-based assumption Toulmin wants to avoid with theoretical arguments. It should be case sensitive.

Chances are, though, that a society that relies so heavily on basic fundamental "truths" (In God We Trust, "abortion is a sin," "gay people are going to Hell, etc.) will not be able to disregard value based maxims enough to appreciate his ideal of purely practical argumentation. I think it's only possible on individual levels.