Politician: My opponents argue that the future of our city depends on compromise—that unless the city’s leaders put aside their differences and work together toward common goals, the city will suffer.
Politician
People are saying the squabbling city's leaders should compromise, but the city's charter is based on some definite principles, and if we compromise those principles it would betray the city founders' goals. Thus these people are talking about betraying they goals of the founders.
Critic
Are the disagreements between the city's leaders about the principles? i.e., are some leaders saying we should adhere to the principles and others are saying we shouldn't? Or are they instead disagreeing about which actions to take, while agreeing about the underlying principles of the city's charter?
If the differences between the leaders aren't about these principles, then you're argument has a misleading usage of the term ______ .
Evaluate
If we assume that the city's leaders all agree about the founding principles and are just fighting over specific details / policies, then what word in the Politician's paragraph sounds misleading?
Honestly, I would probably say "betraying" is the word in the politician's argument that sounds unfair. When she says, , we would respond,
But "betray" isn't used in a misleading way. It's used consistently, we just object to the validity of saying .
Since the critic is talking about a misleading use of a term, it feels like he's calling out an Equivocation flaw, where the same term is being used in two different ways.
In this spirt, the term "compromise" seems to be the best pick, since it does get used two different ways.
1st sense of "compromise" -- to reach an agreement (compromise) with someone who disagrees with you ... each party making some sort of concession and meeting in the middle
2nd sense of "compromise" -- to compromise your ideals, to compromise your position, to compromise your principles means to abandon / degrade. When I eat a hamburger, I am compromising my ideals to not harm animals. When I'm hiding behind enemy lines and I accidentally shoot off a flare, my position has been compromised.
The politician was using an equivocation to say,
Goal
Go pick "compromise". :)