Logical Reasoning

PT117 · S4 · Q10 Council member P: Alarmists are

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Council member P: Alarmists are those who see an instance of pollution and exaggerate its significance into a major character fault of society.

P's Claims

1. If you see an instance of pollution and inflate that into a criticism of our society, you're an alarmist.

2. These alarmists fail to distinguish between the [this specific pollution event and what caused it] and [the fact that people, overall, are inclined not to pollute].

Q's Responses

1. Disagrees. Q is making it seem like it's reasonable, not alarmist, to make that leap. Q spells out how a common sense principle of "follow the path of least resistance" allows us to think,

2. Disagrees partially. P is acting like alarmists fail to consider that people are predisposed not to pollute. Q seems to be challenging that supposition. Q is like, .

Evaluate

Wow, it took a lot of effort to see that Q kind of was disagreeing with at least part of each of P's claims. By directly interrogating yourself ... "Does Q disagree with P's 1st claim?!" you help your brain to see whether there's support for disagreement.

Since the disagreement isn't usually a match for the explicit wording, you want to look for the meaning of the disagree position. So take the original position, , and say the rebuttal position to yourself: No ... seeing one instance and freaking out about society doesn't make you an alarmist.

Then ask your brain whether you can support that Rebuttal position.

I initially thought that Q had no comment on either of P's claims until I started asking myself some more questions: e.g.,

Goal

Let's look for either of the two sentiments we think they disagree about: - is it alarmist or not to look at a single instance of pollution and then worry about society?

- are people predisposed to pollute or not pollute?

10.

Council members P and Q disagree over whether

  1. pollution should be considered a

    Unsupported Both

    We wouldn't be able to infer either person's position on whether or not pollution really is a problem. They would probably agree that pollution, where it exists, should be considered a problem. If this answer is intended to mean, "the contemporary world's pollution situation should be considered a problem", we'd have reason to think P disagrees, but no reason to think that Q agrees. Q is only speaking about human psychology and behavioral heuristics.

    5% picked this

  2. actions tend to follow the

    Unsupported 1st Speaker

    We know Q would agree, but P never speaks on the principle of "path of least resistance".

    6% picked this

  3. people are responsible for pollution

    Probably Agree

    Neither one of them are talking about actual events or reality. Both are discussing hypothetical moments of human psychology, related to pollution. So neither one of them has causally assessed the role of mankind in pollution. But if we took a common sense swing, they probably agree that people are responsible for pollution. Do we ever use the term pollution when we're not referring to people?

    8% picked this

  4. people can change their behavior

    Unsupported: change behavior

    Neither one of them speaks at all to whether people can change. The disagree position would be very dangerously strong: "People can never change their behavior and not pollute". There's no way we could accuse Q of thinking that.

    9% picked this

  5. Correct

    people are inclined to pollute

    Why this is right

    P disagrees, saying that alarmists fail to realize that even though a specific instance of pollution is terrible, what caused it is specific to that instance. It's not because society has a character fault. People have a disposition not to pollute. They're inclined to avoid polluting; it's their default preference. Q disagrees, saying that people have a disposition to do the easier thing, and polluting is easier than not polluting.

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

    72% picked this

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