Logical Reasoning

PT101 · S3 · Q12 People in the tourist industry

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People in the tourist industry know that excessive development of seaside areas by the industry damages the environment.

Main Conclusion (thus)

There's nothing to fear from the tourist industry, when it comes to damage to the seaside environment.

Intermediate Conclusion (therefore)

People in the tourist industry would never knowingly damage the seaside environment.

Evidence

People in the tourist industry know that excessive development of the seaside areas would damage the environment, thereby hurting the tourist industry by making the areas unattractive to tourists.

Evaluate

Since we have an intermediate and a main conclusion, we can think about each of those two moves.

The move to the intermediate conclusion uses these two ideas: - Tourism people would never knowingly do anything to damage the tourism industry. - Tourism people know that excessive development would ultimately damage the tourism industry.

The correct conclusion to draw would be: - Tourism people would never knowingly do excessive development.

The actual intermediate conclusion:

- Tourism people would never knowingly damage the seaside environment.

Those aren't the same. The premises allow us to believe that tourism people might knowingly damage the seaside environment, as long as that damage wouldn't damage the tourism industry.

We were only told that excessive development would make seaside less attractive to tourists, which would hurt the industry. There might be other damage to the seaside environment that doesn't make it less attractive to tourists, and thus doesn't hurt the industry.

The final move from Intermediate to Main conclusion is saying,

This is sort of a Part vs. Whole flaw. Maybe the people in the tourism industry wouldn't damage the seaside, but the tourism industry could still damage the seaside because the tourists themselves damage the environment?

Goal

Look for an answer objecting, , or one objecting,

12.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds?

  1. No support is provided for

    Not a Reasoning Objection

    The authors don't need to provide support for their premises. Premises, by definition, are unsupported. We accept the legitimacy of the premises and object to the fact that even if they're true they wouldn't prove the conclusion.

    2% picked this

  2. That something is not the

    Bad Conclusion/Evidence Match

    "That X is true is used as evidence that Y" means that X is our evidence and Y is the conclusion. Was our conclusion saying "one thing never coexists with a problem"? Not really, it was saying that there's no reason to think the tourist industry will damage the seaside environment. We could try to stretch that to fit by saying, "tourist industry never coexists with damage to seaside environment", but that's a bit of a stretch. Were we to match it to our conclusion in that way, then this answer choice is saying that the evidence presented said, "The tourist industry is not the cause of damage to the seaside environment". That's actually a much closer match for the conclusion than the conclusion part of this answer was. This answer is describing an argument that sounds like this -- "Since running out of coffee is not what caused Maria's sadness, we can conclude that any time Maria is sad, she is not out of coffee." That would be arguing that since X is not the cause of problem Y, X never coexists with Y.

    11% picked this

  3. The argument shifts from applying

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes the famous Sampling flaw, in which the argument says, "Because it was true in these cases, it will be true in all cases." There isn't any sample in this argument, though. We talk about people in the tourist industry as an entire group the whole time. We're always speaking of them as a collective group, never as a few specific members of the group.

    7% picked this

  4. Correct

    The possibility that the tourist

    Why this is right

    The author establishes that people in the tourist industry would never knowingly do anything to hurt the seaside environment, but if they were to unknowingly harm the environment then, the author's conclusion would be wrong. Our author's conclusion is that "there's nothing to fear, when it comes to the tourist industry doing any damage to the seaside environment". This answer is objecting, "Maybe people in the tourist industry are unknowingly doing things to the seaside environment that people are concerned about. Maybe the loud music at the beach parties is sending low bass frequencies into the water and messing up manatees' communication. Just because the tourist industry doesn't think it's doing anything to damage the environment doesn't mean they definitely aren't doing any damage."

    Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    74% picked this

  5. The argument establishes that a

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes the semi-famous Probable vs. Certain flaw. It's saying that the premise said "X is likely" and the conclusion said, "Thus, X is definitely gonna happen." The evidence here had nothing to do with claiming a state of affairs was likely. It was a definite statement that people in the tourist industry would never knowingly damage the tourism industry / seaside environment. It's also weird to call the conclusion "a state of affair is inevitable", because the author isn't concluding that something is definitely going to happen, she's concluding that something is definitely not going to happen (the tourist industry is not going to damage the seaside environment).

    6% picked this

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