Select three of the scenarios in the Applications list 12.2 (a.-y.) at the end of Ch. 12 in The Art of Thinking.
Apply the following in 350 to 500 words for each scenario:
- Evaluate each argument, using the 4-step process described on p. 218, regarding soundness of reasoning (truth and validity).
- Explain your assessment and add alternative argumentation where necessary.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
Attached is the chapter 12 and information to do this paper.
Evaluate Your Argument on the Issue
In this chapter you will learn how to identify and overcome errors in reasoning. This is a special step that applies only to issues because resolving issues involves finding the most reasonable belief.
Two broad kinds of errors are examined—errors affecting the truth of your ideas and errors affecting the quality of your reasoning. A step-by-step approach to evaluate arguments is also included.
Because your main objective in addressing an issue is not to find the most effective action but to determine the most reasonable belief, your main task in refining an issue is to evaluate your argument to be sure that it is free of error. Two broad kinds of error must be considered. The first affects the truth of the argument’s premises or assertions. The second affects the argument’s validity—that is, the legitimacy of the reasoning by which the conclusion was reached. A sound argument is both true and valid.
Errors Affecting Truth
Errors affecting truth are found by testing the accuracy of the premises and the conclusion as individual statements. The first and most common error in this category is simple factual inaccuracy. If we have investigated the issue properly and have taken care to verify our evidence whenever possible, such errors should not be present. We will therefore limit our consideration to the more subtle and common errors:
· Either/or thinking
· Avoiding the issue
· Overgeneralizing
· Oversimplifying
· Double standard
· Shifting the burden of proof
· Irrational appeal
Either/Or Thinking
This error consists of believing that only two choices are possible in situations in which there are actually more than two choices. A common example of either/or thinking occurs in the creationism-versus-evolution debate. Both sides are often guilty of the error. “The biblical story of creation and scientific evolution cannot both be right,” they say. “It must be either one or the other.” They are mistaken. There is a third possibility: that there is a God who created everything but did so through evolution. Whether this position is the best one may, of course, be disputed. But it is an error to ignore its existence.
Either/or thinking undoubtedly occurs because, in controversy, the spotlight is usually on the most obvious positions, those most clearly in conflict. Any other position, especially a subtle one, is ignored. Such thinking is best overcome by conscientiously searching out all possible views before choosing one. If you find either/or thinking in your position on an issue, ask yourself, “Why must it be one view or the other? Why not both or neither?”
Avoiding the Issue
The attorney was just beginning to try the case in court when her associate learned that their key witness had changed his mind about testifying. The associate handed the attorney this note: “Have no case. Abuse the other side.” That is the form avoiding the issue often takes: deliberately attacking the person with the opposing view in the hope that the issue itself will be forgotten. It happens with lamentable frequency in politics. The issue being debated may be, for example, a particular proposal for tax reform. One candidate will say, “The reason my opponent supports this proposal is clear: it is a popular position to take. His record is filled with examples of jumping on the bandwagon to gain voter approval.” And so on. Of course, what the candidate says may be true of the opponent, and if it is, then it would surely be relevant to the issue of whether the opponent deserves to be elected. But it is not relevant to the issue at hand, the tax reform proposal.
Avoiding the issue may not necessarily be motivated by deceit, as the preceding examples are. It may occur because of unintentional misunderstanding or because of an unconscious slip to something irrelevant. But it is still error, regardless of its innocence. To check your reasoning, look closely at each issue, and ask whether your solution really responds to it. If it doesn’t, make it do so.
Overgeneralizing
Overgeneralizing means taking a valid idea and extending it beyond the limits of reasonableness. Here are some examples.
· Women who have abortions are poor and unmarried.
· Politicians are corrupt.
· Conservative Christians are intolerant.
· Men have trouble expressing their feelings.
Each of these statements could be true at times. That is, we could find examples of poor, unmarried women who have had abortions; corrupt politicians; and so on. Yet, in each case, we could also find examples that do not fit the assertion. That is what makes these statements overgeneralizations. (The fact that your overgeneralizations do not take the most extreme form—stereotypes, which we discussed in Chapter 3—should not make you complacent about correcting them. They still mar your arguments, usually significantly.)
To find overgeneralizations in your arguments, be alert to any idea in which all or none is stated or implied. (That is the case in each of the preceding four examples.) Occasionally, you will find a situation in which all or none is justified, but in the great majority of cases, critical evaluation will show that it is not. To correct overgeneralizations, decide what level of generalization is appropriate, and modify your statement accordingly. For example, in the four cases discussed, you would consider these possibilities:
Oversimplifying
There is nothing wrong with simplifying a complex reality to understand it better or to communicate it more clearly to others. Teachers simplify all the time, especially in grade school. Simplification is only a problem when it goes too far: when it goes beyond making complex matters clear and begins to distort them. At that point, it ceases to represent reality and misrepresents it. Such over-simplification is often found in reasoning about causes and effects. Here are three examples of this error.
· The cause of voter dissatisfaction in the 2010 election was high unemployment.
· The American Nazi Party has a beneficial effect on the intellectual life of the country. It reminds people of the constitutional rights of free speech and assembly.
· A return to public executions, shown on prime-time television, would make crime less glamorous and thus, in time, make us a less brutal, more civilized society.
These statements contain an element of truth. Yet they do not fairly or accurately represent the reality described. They focus on one cause or effect as if it were the only one. In fact, there are others, some of them significant.
To find oversimplifications in your arguments, ask what important aspects of the issue your statements ignore. To correct oversimplifications, decide what expression of the matter best reflects the reality without distorting it.
Double Standard
Applying a double standard means judging the same action or point of view differently depending on who performs the action or holds the point of view. It can often be recognized by the use of sharply contrasting terms of description or classification. Thus we may attack a government assistance program as a welfare handout if the money goes to people we don’t know or don’t identify with but defend it as a necessary subsidy if it goes to our friends. Similarly, if one country crosses another’s border with a military force, we may approve the action as a “securing of borders” or condemn it as “naked aggression,” depending on our feelings toward the countries involved.
Be careful not to confuse the double standard with the legitimate judgment of cases according to their circumstances. It is never an error to acknowledge real differences. Accordingly, if you find you have judged a particular case differently from other cases of the same kind, look closely at the circumstances. If they warrant different judgments, you have not been guilty of applying a double standard. However, if they do not warrant different judgments—if your reasoning shows partiality toward one side—you have committed the error and should revise your judgment to make it fair.
Shifting the Burden of Proof
This error consists of making an assertion and then demanding that the opposition prove it false. This is an unreasonable demand. The person making the assertion has the burden of supporting it. Though the opposing side may accept the challenge of disproving it, it has no obligation to do so. Suppose, for example, you said to a friend, “There was widespread voter fraud in the last election,” your friend disputed you, and you responded, “Unless you can disprove my claim, I am justified in believing it.” You have shifted the burden of proof. Having made the assertion about voter fraud, you have the obligation to support it. To overcome this error in your arguments, identify all the assertions you have made but not supported, and provide adequate support for them. If you find you cannot support an assertion, withdraw it.
Irrational Appeal
This error bases your position on an unreasonable appeal. The most common forms are the appeal to common practice (“Everyone does it”), the appeal to tradition (“We mustn’t change what is long established”), the appeal to fear (“Awful things could happen”), the appeal to moderation (“Let’s not offend anyone”), and the appeal to authority (“We have no business questioning the experts”). Of course, there is nothing necessarily wrong with defending common practice or tradition, warning about dangers, urging moderation, or supporting the views of experts. It is only when these appeals are used as a substitute for careful reasoning—when they aim at an audience’s emotions rather than their minds—that they are misused. To correct irrational appeals, refocus your argument on the specific merits of your ideas.
Errors Affecting Validity
Errors affecting validity do not occur within any individual premise or within the conclusion. They occur instead in the reasoning by which the conclusion is drawn from the premises. Therefore, to determine whether an argument is valid or invalid, we must examine the relationship between the premises and the conclusion. The logical principles governing validity are the substance of formal logic, the area of logic concerned with the various forms of argument. Since a detailed treatment of formal logic is beyond the scope of this book, we will focus on an essential error that commonly occurs in controversial issues: the illegitimate conclusion.
An illegitimate conclusion is one that does not follow logically from the premises preceding it. Before examining an illegitimate conclusion, let’s first look at a legitimate one.
Anything that shortens people’s attention span harms their concentration. Television commercials shorten people’s attention span. Therefore, television commercials harm people’s concentration.
This conclusion is legitimate because if anything that shortens people’s attention span harms concentration, and if television commercials do shorten that span, they therefore must harm people’s concentration. Commercials, after all, are a thing, so they fit in the anything specified in the first premise. When we are checking for the validity of the reasoning, remember, we are not checking for the truth of the premises or conclusion. That concern is a separate matter. Thus even a ludicrous argument could be technically valid. Here is an example.
Anything that gives people indigestion harms their concentration. Television commercials give people indigestion. Therefore, television commercials harm people’s concentration.
Let’s now look at some illegitimate conclusions and see what makes them so.
All people who take courses significantly above their level of competency will surely fail. Samantha is taking a course well within her level of competency. Therefore, Samantha will surely pass.
Even if it were true that all people who take courses well above their competency level necessarily fail, this would not eliminate the possibility of other reasons for failure, reasons that apply to the competent as well as the incompetent. In other words, the first premise does not imply that only the incompetent will fail. Samantha may be extraordinarily proficient and still fail because she cuts classes and does not submit the required work.
Here is another example of an illegitimate conclusion.
People who care about the environment will support the clean air bill now before Congress. Senator Boychik supports the clean air bill. Therefore, Senator Boychik cares about the environment.
The first premise of this argument says that people—all people*—who care about the environment will support the bill. However, it does not say that no one else will support the bill. Thus it leaves open the possibility that some who do not care will support it, perhaps for political reasons. Which group Boychik belongs to is unclear. Therefore, the conclusion is illegitimate.
*Though the premise says people, rather than all people, the sense of all is clearly conveyed. Usually, when no qualifying word or phrase—such as some, many, the citizens of Peoria—is present, we presume that the universal all is intended.
Illegitimate conclusions also occur in hypothetical (if-then) reasoning. Of course, not all hypothetical reasoning is faulty. Here is an example of a valid hypothetical argument:
If a person uses a gun in the commission of a crime, then he should be given an additional penalty. Simon used a gun in the commission of a crime. Therefore, Simon should be given an additional penalty.
The first premise sets forth the conditions under which the additional penalty should be applied. The second presents a case that fits those conditions. The conclusion that the penalty should apply in that case is legitimate.
Here, in contrast, is an illegitimate conclusion.
If a person uses a gun in the commission of a crime, then he should be given an additional penalty. Simon was given an additional penalty for his crime. Therefore, Simon used a gun in the commission of the crime.
Here the first premise sets forth one condition for an additional penalty. It does not exclude the possibility of other conditions carrying additional penalties. For this reason, we have no way of knowing whether Simon’s additional penalty was for using a gun or for some other reason.
The following is another example of an illegitimate conclusion.
If a person has great wealth, then he can get elected. Governor Mindless got elected. Therefore, Governor Mindless has great wealth.
