While some essays are either completely inductive or completely deductive, it’s more common for an essay to combine these methods depending on the situation. Often, induction—a series of examples—is used to verify a minor premise, then that premise can become the foundation for deductive reasoning. Let’s take a look at a brief excerpt from a book by political philosophy professor and author Michael J. Sandel that does just that.
from Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?
Michael J. Sandel
Some philosophers who would tax the rich to help the poor argue in the name of utility; taking a hundred dollars from a rich person and giving it to a poor person will diminish the rich person’s happiness only slightly, they speculate, but greatly increase the happiness of the poor person. John Rawls also defends redistribution, but on the grounds of hypothetical consent. He argues that if we imagined a hypothetical social contract in an original position of equality, everyone would agree to a principle that would support some form of redistribution.
But there is a third, more important reason to worry about the growing inequality of American life: Too great a gap between rich and poor undermines the solidarity that democratic citizenship requires. Here’s how: as inequality deepens, rich and poor live increasingly separate lives. The affluent send their children to private schools (or to public schools in wealthy suburbs), leaving urban public schools to the children of families who have no alternative. A similar trend leads to the secession by the privileged from other public institutions and facilities. Private health clubs replace municipal recreation centers and swimming pools. Upscale residential communities hire private security guards and rely less on public police protection. A second or third car removes the need to rely on public transportation. And so on. The affluent secede from public places and services, leaving them to those who can’t afford anything else.
This has two bad effects, one fiscal, the other civic. First, public services deteriorate, as those who no longer use those services become less willing to support them with their taxes. Second, public institutions such as schools, parks, playgrounds, and community centers cease to be places where citizens from different walks of life encounter one another. Institutions that once gathered people together and served as informal schools of civic virtue become few and far between. The hollowing out of the public realm makes it difficult to cultivate the solidarity and sense of community on which democratic citizenship depends.
So, quite apart from its effects on utility or consent, inequality can be corrosive to civic virtue. Conservatives enamored of markets and liberals concerned with redistribution overlook this loss.
5
If the erosion of the public realm is the problem, what is the solution? A politics of the common good would take as one of its primary goals the reconstruction of the infrastructure of civic life. Rather than focus on redistribution for the sake of broadening access to private consumption, it would tax the affluent to rebuild public institutions and services so that rich and poor alike would want to take advantage of them.
(2009)
The argument of this passage can be distilled into this syllogism:
| major premise | Our democracy depends on a feeling of solidarity among all citizens. |
| minor premise | The gap between the rich and the poor is growing in America, producing greater inequality and reducing solidarity. (Supported inductively with evidence) |
| conclusion | To preserve democracy, we should work to close the gap. |
The major premise supplies the general principle on which the argument hinges, that a shared feeling of solidarity among all citizens is fundamental to the success of our democracy. While the argument follows the deductive path of the syllogism, the minor premise is supported inductively with evidence. Sandel says, “as inequality deepens, rich and poor live increasingly separate lives” (par. 2). He offers evidence about schooling, transportation, recreational facilities; he explains how “inequality can be corrosive to civic virtue” (par. 4); and he states that we should “rebuild public institutions and services so that rich and poor alike would want to take advantage of them” (par. 5). The evidence is convincing. Our democracy is in trouble; inequality is a major cause; we should close the wealth gap if we are to preserve democracy.