Homework 1 - ANSWERS
1. What suppositions are necessary to make the following good arguments or at least in order to understand them as implying some sort of conclusion?
a. "This election is not an award for past performance; I’m not asking you to vote for me on the basis of the economy we have." - Al Gore, 9/3/00
A few presuppositions should leap out at you just from the grammar of the sentence:
• There is an election in the near future ("this election")
• Gore has done various things in government in the past
More subtle ones, but very important ones would include:
• Gore is a candidate in the present election
• The present state of our economy is worthy of praise or endorsement
• Handling the economy is a legitimate measure of elected officials
• We are entitled to assess Gore’s fitness and decide whether to vote for him
• Gore is soliciting our votes
• Gore is going to offer other reasons to convince us to vote for him
• Appealing to past performance (at least in this case) would be a suspect way of campaigning
• We should respect Gore for taking this step
You might have added more general ones, such as the fact that we have an economy and that we elect some governmental officials, but beyond that is unnecessary.
b. "In years past, forced overtime was not much of an issue. But the new reality of the work force is that mothers and fathers are both working." - Robert Reich, 9/3/00
First and foremost, you need think about the implication of these two sentences. It is that forced overtime if putting an unacceptable or undesirable burden on working families. Without that in mind, the appropriate suppositions will not be clear to you. Seeing your way to that point requires at least:
• The well being of a family, particularly children, is a matter of significance (perhaps we could even say moral significance)
• The amount of time parents can spend with their children (at least while they are young and live at home) affects the family’s well being
• Forced overtime cuts into the time a parent can spend with children
• In the past, it was less common for both parents to work
• If both parents are compelled to take forced overtime, that will severely cut into the time they can spend with their children
• Forced overtime cannot be refused without severe consequences (such as losing one’s job altogether)
• Many working parents are compelled to accept forced overtime
c. "By going right to choose Lieberman, Gore has boosted the odds that a significant number of leftists will choose to sacrifice this election, vote for Nader and thus scare the Democratic party straight." - Michael Kelly, 8/8/00.
The conclusion that Kelly wants to suggest here is that Gore has painted himself into a corner that will lose him the election by trying to play both sides of the fence - appealing to moderates and conservatives while trying to hold down his core constituencies as well. You would need at least the following:
• The political spectrum breaks down along ideological lines that we might call "right wing" and "left wing", with a spectrum of positions in between the far extremes
• The political parties tend to line up in different places on that political spectrum
• Gore’s Vice presidential running mate is a point that many voters will look at seriously in deciding their votes
• Gore’s choice should not alienate large groups of voters that he needs to win the election
• Gore needs the support of left wingers to win the election
• Lieberman is a right winger (or at least further right than Gore himself)
• Choosing a right winger will probably alienate many left wingers
• Left wingers have an alternative in Nader
• If left wingers feel alienated, they will be less likely to support Gore
• In some cases, an alienated political group may make its point or its displeasure known by choosing to abandon a candidate knowing that the election will be lost
d. "What the nation cannot afford [in this election] is to have its military used as a vehicle for demagoguery and the politics of fear, or to have its problems smothered in complacency." - Jim Hoagland, 8/24/00
This is clearly a passage that is trying to warn us of misguided election year politics. You probably couldn’t discern this from such a short quote, but Hoagland’s worry was that Bush was guilty of "demagoguery and the politics of fear" by presenting a catastrophic view of the state of the military and Gore preferred to paint a picture devoid of problems so as not to alarm voters. Hoagland sees the situation as somewhere in between - problems persist, but panic and drastic change would not serve us well. You should have brought up at least the following:
• We are presently facing an election
• The nation is served in certain ways by the military and its status is relevant to us
• The status of the military is particularly pressing at the moment and its problems must be addressed (this is implied by Hoagland’s emphasis on the present election cycle and his rejection of complacency, which would presumably forestall action
• The state of the military is a relevant issue in selecting a candidate
• Different candidates are offering different accounts of the state of the military
• Different candidates are using the issue to promote their own candidacies
• The misguided approaches he describes (demagoguery vs. complacency) will all fail to solve the problems at hand.
2. Walton lists six major informal fallacies ("many questions", "ignoring the issue", "appeal to force/pity/popular appeal", "ad hominem", "appeal to modesty", "post hoc fallacy"). Offer examples of each one from recent news articles. (Without passing judgment on any of the candidates in the race, political campaigns should provide you with ample material here. In the event of abject failure to find anything, write a short example of your own, but do make an effort.)
many questions - This was a difficult fallacy to find for many people, though most of you seemed to grasp what it actually involved. Where I saw people make mistakes was in thinking that asking multiple questions was a fallacy, e.g. "What is your Medicare plan and how do you propose to finance it?" In those cases, there are presuppositions being made, but they are not necessarily ones that the person being asked will feel trapped by acknowledging. The point to seeing where such a question is fallacious is seeing that it involves incidents of trying to force someone to accept something they would not want to by the phrasing of the question, e.g.
"My landlord recently asked the girls that live in the apartment below mine when they were going to stop leaving trash on their steps. By asking that, we was assuming that it was the 2 girls that were doing that rather than someone else."
ignoring the issue - People did fairly well with this fallacy, although some people were too quick to accuse someone of it. Remember that one is not guilty of ignoring the issue simply because one brings up a matter that was not mentioned in the question - that new point may actually explain someone’s view indirectly. A nice example:
"[Holocaust revisionist] Finkelstein argues that people who claim to be Holocaust survivors often did not legitimately suffer during World War II. He then states for proof that Henry Kissinger lived a posh life in Manhattan during World War II. This is ignoring the issue because Kissinger does not claim to be a Holocaust survivor."
appeal to force/pity/popular appeal - Again, people seemed to understand this idea, but were perhaps a little quick to accuse others of it. The classic example of it that comes to my mind was Bob Dole, who frequently used to preface or follow his views by saying, "I know it, you know it and the American people know it." The worry behind this fallacy is that nothing except the appeal backs up the claim, so you do not want to accuse someone of it just because their view is likely to be popular with people. Likewise for pity and force.
ad hominem - This fallacy seemed more difficult for many people to spot. Remember that this is a fallacy of avoiding an issue or not providing an argument by attacking someone’s character. So if I am asked about someone’s character or if their character is relevant, then criticizing it is not fallacious. If I am asked, "Can we trust him on this matter?" and I reply, "No, he’s shown a pattern of deception when it’s to his benefit" then that’s not an ad hominem attack. If you ask, "Will Gore’s health care plan solve our problems?" and I reply, "How can we even consider the proposals of a wooden, humorless drone who was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth and grew up in a hotel in Washington DC?" then I am guilty of an ad hominem attack.
appeal to modesty - People came up with a number of interesting appeals to scientific authority that were then taken as fact as a matter of deference, but remember that the fallacy involves something more than that. Appeal to modesty is not present in every case in which there is an authority such as scientific practice to which we appeal, but only in cases in which that appeal to modesty is about the very thing that is in question. So if I ask why my car slid and crashed on the icy road, appeal to the scientific authorities on the nature of ice and when water freezes is not illicit. But if I am asking how we can be sure that this really is the nature of water and what evidence supports this, appeal to the scientific authorities themselves is fallacious. Some examples:
"Seven out of ten dentists choose Crest."
"‘Tylenol is the pain reliever hospitals use most.’ What is generally not mentioned is that this is because Tylenol gives large amounts of its product to hospitals for free. Appealing to their choice, even though they are experts, does not show its superiority as an analgesic."
post hoc fallacy - Here, some people were simply confused about what the fallacy was, so read the relevant parts of Walton carefully. The nature of a post hoc fallacy is that we take two events after they have both happened and declare them causally related to one another, even though we have no way of explaining that relation and we have no body of evidence to support it beyond the range of cases we have already seen. A personal favorite example of this for me is a Simpsons episode that begins with a tiger escaping from the zoo, after which Springfield sets up a new "Tiger Patrol". (I think it’s tigers. The point remains…) Homer stands out on his front lawn and says, "Well, I don’t see any tigers. The Tiger Patrol must be doin’ its job!" One student found the URL included below, which includes the longest string of post hoc fallacies I have ever seen in one source. You might want to check it out. I warn you in advance that like many people who reason poorly, this group becomes really creepy vile at some point - other links on their page include things like a defense of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Proceed with caution and a critical eye.
"Fallacy of Post Hoc: this passage suggests without evidence that the rise of the divorce and murder rate, the decline of the dollar and SAT scores are direct results of the ratification of the 19th amendment which gives women the right to vote. http://members.easyspace.com/fathers/19threpeal.htm"