ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some of the more sophisticated features of carrying out extended enquiries. Disputes concerning descriptive propositions' truth can be of great importance because such propositions can act as descriptive premises forming a bridge from moral principles to their application and in setting up disputes between moral principles. With a working definition, one is basically stipulating a meaning for all involved to simply go along with 'for the sake of argument' because one's interests in the enquiry lie elsewhere. With a conceptual premise, one is laying a conceptual relationship claim on the table as a hypothesis inviting challenge. Argument structures form six main types: simple, chained, joint rationale, independent rationale, joint conclusion and independent conclusion. Apart from developing independent rationales, there might also be good tactical point in bundling some independently weak rationales together to form a joint rationale. This is usually only worth doing if the tilt that results changes one's metacognitive thinking about the enquiry's direction.
