See this. Your code would be something like the following:
from django.db.models import Max
# Generates a "SELECT MAX..." query
Argument.objects.aggregate(Max('rating')) # {'rating__max': 5}
You can also use this on existing querysets:
from django.db.models import Max
args = Argument.objects.filter(name='foo') # or whatever arbitrary queryset
args.aggregate(Max('rating')) # {'rating__max': 5}
If you need the model instance that contains this max value, then the code you posted is probably the best way to do it:
arg = args.order_by('-rating')[0]
Note that this will error if the queryset is empty, i.e. if no arguments match the query (because the [0] part will raise an IndexError). If you want to avoid that behavior and instead simply return None in that case, use .first():
arg = args.order_by('-rating').first() # may return None