Legal & DebateNEUTRAL — Rhetoric

Burden of Rejoinder

What it is

The obligation, once an argument has been adequately made, for the other side to answer it — and the rule that a side which stops answering loses the point, whatever the ultimate burden of proof.

How it works

Argumentation theory distinguishes two burdens. The burden of proof belongs to whoever advances a claim and does not move. The burden of rejoinder — Freeley and Steinberg's term, with roots in Richard Whately's 1828 account of presumption — moves back and forth: once a side has met its burden with a prima facie case, the opponent must respond, and once that response is adequate the obligation returns. Pragma-dialectics encodes the same duty in its burden-of-proof rule: a party who advances a standpoint must defend it when asked, and a party who challenges the defense inherits the obligation to say what is wrong with it. This is what keeps argument from being a contest of assertion; without a duty to answer, the side that spoke last or loudest would prevail. The convention is legitimate, and its misuse takes two forms. One is pretending a burden has been met when a claim has merely been repeated, so that the opponent is now “failing to respond” to something never argued. The other is refusing to answer because “the burden of proof is on you,” when the question is not who must prove the claim but who must reply to the argument on the table.

Real-world examples

  • •In a policy round the affirmative presents a prima facie case; the negative must now answer it or lose. When the negative answers with a disadvantage, the affirmative inherits the burden of answering the disadvantage — and so on, speech by speech.
  • •Whately's illustration from law: the prosecution must make a case before the defense owes any reply, but once it has, an accused who offers nothing cannot complain that the presumption of innocence was ignored.
  • •Workplace: a proposal memo with data and a mechanism has met its burden; a reply of “I am just not convinced” has not met the rejoinder, and the proposer is entitled to ask what specifically is unconvincing.
  • •Online: “I do not have to prove anything, you made the claim” is correct when nothing has been argued and evasive when a documented argument has just been made and the reply owed is to that argument.

Ethical guidelines

  • ●Meet your own burden before invoking theirs: a claim becomes an argument that demands an answer only when it has a warrant and evidence.
  • ●Answer arguments as made. A reply that restates your position has not discharged the rejoinder.
  • ●Do not claim the other side “failed to respond” to a bare assertion; repetition does not create an obligation.
  • ●If you cannot answer an argument, say so; conceding a point honestly is worth more than pretending it was never made.

How to defend against it

  • ►Ask which burden is in play: “Are you saying I have not proved my claim, or that you have no reply to the argument I just made?” The two are different, and the second cannot hide behind the first.
  • ►When told the burden is yours, state what you have already offered — claim, warrant, evidence — and ask what in it fails. A specific defect is a rejoinder; “not convinced” is not.
  • ►When an opponent repeats rather than answers, name it: “That is your original claim again. The argument on the table is X; what is your answer to X?”
  • ►Keep a written record of which arguments have been answered and which have merely been re-asserted; the flow settles most disputes about who owes whom a reply.

References

  1. Freeley, A. J., & Steinberg, D. L. (2014). Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making (13th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning
    The burden of rejoinder as distinct from the burden of proof, and its movement through the round.
  2. Whately, R. (1828). Elements of Rhetoric. Ed. D. Ehninger, Southern Illinois University Press, 1963 (from the 7th ed., 1846; first ed. 1828), Part I, Chapter III
    The original account of presumption and the shifting obligation to reply in argument.
  3. van Eemeren, F. H., & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge University Press
    The burden-of-proof rule among the ten rules for critical discussion.
  4. Walton, D. N. (1988). Burden of Proof. Argumentation, 2(2), 233-254
    Analysis of how burdens shift between parties in the course of a dialogue.
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