Logical Reasoning

PT109 · S4 · Q18 Coach: Our team has often been

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Coach: Our team has often been criticized for our enthusiasm in response to both our successes and our opponents’ failures.

Conclusion

Our team's behavior (enthusiastically celebrating our successes and our opponents' failures) is not unprofessional.

i.e. our team behaves professionally

Evidence

Some of the professionals in our sport are even more effusive in celebrating their success and taunting their opponents' failures.

Evaluate

This argument boils down do this Equivocation: because some Professional athletes do it, if we do it, we're acting Professionally

The argument is using two different senses of the word "professional / unprofessional".

The coach's players are being criticized for acting unprofessionally (immaturely, with poor standards of sportsmanship / decorum).

He defends the players' behavior by saying that it exists as well within the professional league (not amateur, paid to play).

We wouldn't say that Because these pro athletes are paid to play, they're by definition acting maturely, with good standards of sportsmanship and decorum.

Similarly, the author shouldn't be saying Because pro athletes are very effusive / expressive when they win, acting this way is very professional.

Goal

Find an answer calling out the famous Equivocation flaw, using two different meanings of "professional".

18.

The coach's argument is most vulnerable to the charge that it

  1. misleadingly equates enthusiasm with unethical

    Opposite

    The coach's argument is equating enthusiasm with professional play. (equating is too strong a word, but the author is acting like effusive, emotionally demonstrative victory celebrations are professional, not unethical)

    5% picked this

  2. Correct

    misinterprets the critics’ claim that

    Why this is right

    The coach is interpreting "unprofessional" to mean, "The professionals wouldn't do it." But the critics presumably meant "unprofessional", like, "This is not respectful".

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

    49% picked this

  3. too quickly generalizes from the

    Wrong Flaw

    "A hasty generalization" is another way of describing the famous Sampling flaw. The author is sampling, in the sense that he's thinking "If effusive victory dances are professional in professional sports, then they are professional in our amateur version of the sport". But our problem with the author's logic isn't that he compared the pros to the amateurs and assumed they were relevantly similar, when they might not be. Instead, our problem was that he thought we could say that "if professionals do it, then it's professional."

    26% picked this

  4. shifts the blame for the

    Out of Scope: "blame"

    We can't say that the coach is shifting the "blame", since the coach doesn't think his players are doing anything wrong. You wouldn't "blame" someone for acting professionally.

    19% picked this

  5. takes everyone on the team

    Wrong Argument

    This is potentially a flaw in the critics' argument. If they're saying "We saw a couple of your players raucously celebrating and jeering at their vanquished opponents. MAN, is your team unprofessional", then that would be taking the actions of a few to be indicative of everyone on the team. The coach isn't doing anything like that.

    1% picked this

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