Logical Reasoning

PT106 · S3 · Q26 It is common to respond to a person

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It is common to respond to a person who is exhorting us to change our behavior by drawing attention to that person’s own behavior.

Conclusion

It's irrational to respond to someone who is imploring us to change our behavior by drawing attention to that person's behavior.

Evidence

Whether or not someone heeds their own advice is irrelevant to whether or not we should heed their advice.

Evaluate

This doesn't seem like an argument that will lend itself well to writing an algebraic recipe, but if we tried it might look something like this:

Background: It's common 3when people want us to do X for us to do Y. Premise: But Y is irrelevant to whether or not we should do X. Conclusion: So this response is irrational.

In a more general sense, we could say that the argument is saying .

If the biggest drunk in town is telling you that you drink too much, don't say, "Oh, yeah? Well you drink even more!" Instead, just assess whether it's really true that you drink too much.

Goal

Let's look for an argument saying that our typical response to X is inappropriate/irrational, because our response is technically irrelevant to how we should respond to X.

26.

Which one of the following arguments is most similar in its reasoning to the argument above?

Other countries argue that if
Word-Bait Bad Premise Match
We should be a little nervous that the conclusion here uses identical wording (this is irrational). It's possible the correct answer will do that; but more often they use verbatim word repetition or similar topics in their trap answers. The matching version of this argument would say, "It is common for countries to respond to suggestions that they disarm by pointing out that the countries calling on them to disarm haven't themselves disarmed. This is irrational though, because whether or not a country should disarm has nothing to do with whether some other country disarms". The original argument thought it was bad that we turned the argument back on the source of the criticism. This argument is suggesting that we turn the argument back on the source.
13% picked this
My neighbor urges me to
Bad Conclusion Match
The conclusion here is, "I see no reason to exercise". We want a conclusion that is saying, "This response is inappropriate / irrational / beside the point".
5% picked this
When one country accuses another
Opposite Advice
Like (A), this argument is suggesting that we respond to criticism by critiquing the source. The original argument was saying the opposite. It was arguing that it's an irrational / irrelevant response to respond to criticism by critiquing the source.
3% picked this
Correct
One should not dismiss the
Why this is right
This has a weak Conclusion match. We wanted something like, "This response is irrational / beside the point / irrelevant". Here we're getting, "One should not respond this way". Those are certainly somewhat different types of claims, but they are cousins in terms of the sentiment they convey. This is our best available match for the gist of the original argument: - when someone advises you X, you shouldn't turn the conversation back on their behavior. after all, whether or not you should accept their idea has nothing to do with their behavior This answer is saying that we should not respond to a philosopher's comments about matter by turning the discussion back to the philosopher's behavior. Focus on the philosopher's ideas/arguments, not the philosopher's actions/behavior. "People's actions have no effect on the strength of their arguments" is similar to saying "whether someone heeds their own advice is irrelevant to whether their advice should be heeded". This is like when we initially evaluated that the argument was saying we should "focus on the substance of the criticism, not the source of the criticism".
Skill tested: Parallel · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
73% picked this
We should not be too
Bad Conclusion/Evidence Match Word-Bait: irrational
This conclusion is saying, "we shouldn't be too severe in condemnation". That's miles away from, "We shouldn't respond by turning the conversation back to the other person's actions". And the evidence isn't saying, "after all, the other person's actions are irrelevant to whether their ideas have merit". It's saying, "we shouldn't condemn people too hard for stuff we all do".
5% picked this

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