Warrants
Identify/Generate the principle
Time: 30+ minutes
This activity tends to be a hit with students, who find the subject
matter vaguely racy, and who find themselves working with warrants
quite naturally.
To do:
On the board, draw a picture like this one, with four cabins, one
canoe, and a river in the middle. (Surely, yours will be prettier.)
..............................................~~~................................................
..............+ \_/.............................~~~....................+..................
.......Alex's cabin and canoe........~~~............Chris' cabin..
.......................................................~~~.......................................
...................................................~~~..<--.raging
river!.............
..............................................~~~................................................
............. +............................~~~.......................
+...................
.........Bobby's cabin.........~~~....................Dale's cabin.......
Tell this story: One day, Robin is on the side of the river where
Alex and Bobby live. Chris is expected by Robin that night; the
only way to cross the river is by boat. When Robin asks Alex to
borrow Alex's boat, Alex says, "If you sleep with me, you
can borrow the boat." Robin goes to Bobby, explains what has
happened, and asks Bobby for help convincing Alex to lend Robin
the boat. Bobby refuses. The next morning, Alex loans Robin the
boat. Robin goes to Chris and explains the late arrival. Chris
is furious and throws Robin out; Danny takes Robin in.
Then, put students into groups of 3; ask them to rank the characters
from least moral to most moral. After a few minutes, put the rankings
on the board, and ask students to explain their decisions in a
sentence or two. (You might use LRS language here: "So your
claim is that Bobby is the least moral; can you tell us one reason
why you think that?") If all of the groups have the same rankings,
put up an alternative.
Next, ask groups to try to persuade another group to change its
mind. The first step will be to identify their own warrants, and
the warrants that have motivated the other group (for example, "if
you refuse to help solve a problem/right a wrong, then you are
worse than the person who caused the problem.") The next step
is to try to generate reasons that work from the other group's
warrant, or from some third, shared warrant.
Share results; see if the groups can persuade one another.
Then, if no one has already done so, tease out alternative possibilities
to the story: Maybe when Alex says "sleep with," Alex
really means sleep, not sex (because Alex is lonely or it's cold
and the heater broke, or Alex has a spare bedroom). Maybe it's
just too dangerous to cross the river at night. Maybe Bobby won't
get involved because Bobby already knows that it's too dangerous
to cross at night. Maybe Chris is furious not because of sexual
jealousy, but because Robin needed to bring a business report across
the river so that it could be faxed to a client. Maybe Dale took
Robin in out of self-interest; Dale's competing firm wanted the
report.
See if anyone is swayed by these alternative explanations. If they
aren't, point out that our claims/arguments aren't always driven
by logic. We all make assumptions, even when we have relatively
little evidence, because we are driven by warrants about how the
world works (for example, "people are more likely to get upset
about disappointed romances than about business losses").
Until we can identify those warrants, and generate claims and reasons
on the basis of shared warrants, it's difficult to get people to
change their minds.
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