Logical Reasoning

PT110 · S2 · Q24 Lawyer: The defendant wanted to

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Lawyer: The defendant wanted to clear the snow off his car and in doing so knocked snow on the sidewalk.

Conclusion (we argue that)

The defendant maliciously harmed the plaintiff.

Evidence (because)

Malice is intention to cause harm.

The plaintiff intended to remove snow from his car and put it on the sidewalk, and unbeknownst to the defendant at the time, that snow would go on to freeze as ice and cause the plaintiff to slip and break her hip.

Evaluate

If we're this defendant's lawyer, how would we argue that the defendant did not intend to harm the plaintiff?

We could say,

This argument actually combines a Famous Flaw (self-contradiction) and a Semi-Famous Flaw (intent vs. result).

We know the author intended to clear snow off his car onto the sidewalk. As a result, it froze into ice and caused a woman to slip and hurt herself. But just because that action resulted from clearing snow off a car doesn't mean that the plaintiff intended to injure the woman.

That would have been enough, but then this lawyer went and self-contradicted himself. He actually acknowledged that the defendant didn't intend to injure the plaintiff, since it was "unbeknownst to the defendant at the time" that clearing the snow would cause the injury.

Goal

Let's look for an argument that deals with Intent vs. Result, Self-Contradiction, or both.

24.

The flawed reasoning in which one of the following is most similar to that in the lawyer's argument?

  1. Alice asked her sister to

    Not Flawed

    Since lying in court is illegal, and Alice asked her sister to lie in court, we can absolutely conclude that what Alice asked her sister to do was illegal. (We wouldn't be able to prove that Alice intended to ask her sister to do something illegal, because Alice may not have known it was illegal, but the conclusion as written is valid).

    3% picked this

  2. Correct

    Bruce wanted to eat the

    Why this is right

    This mostly gets at the Self-Contradiction part of the original. The argument establishes that Bruce did not know that the thing we wanted to eat was poisonous, but then it goes right on and acts like he intended to do the thing he was oblivious of. Just like in the original argument --- it establishes that the defendant did not know that the action of clearing the snow would cause a subsequent injury to the plaintiff, but then it goes right on and acts like he intended to injure the plaintiff.

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

    65% picked this

  3. Cheryl denigrated the wine. Cheryl’s

    Bad Evidence Match

    The original flaw revolves around the idea of claiming that someone intended to do X, even though we know they had no idea that what they were doing would lead to X. There's no way to judge Cheryl's intent here. It says "she may not have realized that she was indirectly insulting her sister" but she may have. We would need to know that Cheryl had no idea who picked out the wine, and then we'd need to conclude something like "Cheryl intended to indirectly insult her sister".

    18% picked this

  4. Deon had lunch with Ms.

    Barely/Differently Flawed

    Since Ms. Osgood is thought to be an industrial spy, and Deon had lunch with her, we could validly conclude that Deon had lunch with an industrial spy. The only flaw here is that Ms. Osgood isn't clearly an industrial spy, she's just "generally thought to be" an industrial spy. But that's a different flaw. This argument is assuming that "something generally thought to be true = actually true". The original argument was assuming that "someone who was oblivious to the fact that their action would lead to X = someone who was intending to do X".

    1% picked this

  5. Edwina bought a car from

    Not Flawed

    Since Mr. Yancy had stolen the car he sold to Edwina, and since Edwina later resold that car, we can validly conclude that Edwina sold a stolen car. If an argument is valid on Parallel Flaw, it can't possibly be the correct answer.

    13% picked this

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