Logical Reasoning

PT117 · S4 · Q11 It is easy to see

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It is easy to see that the board of directors of the construction company is full of corruption and should be replaced.

Conclusion

The board of directors is full of corruption and should be replaced.

Evidence

Wagston is on the board of directors, and there are various persons on on his staff that committed well documented bribes that unduly influenced the awarding of government contracts.

Evaluation

Given the illicit acts of various persons on Wagston's staff, how could we argue that the board of directors is not full of corruption or shouldn't be replaced?

Well, we could just say,

This author seems to commit the famous Part vs. Whole flaw. Since Wagston's staff members are a Part of the board of directors (debatably), and they are corrupt, the author assumes the entire board is corrupt.

We could also think of this as Sampling. The author assumes that the corruption of some of Wagston's staff members is representative of the rest of the board's members and staff.

Goal

Look for an answer calling out the Part vs. Whole or Sampling flaw, or one that makes the objection that

11.

The argument's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that

  1. Correct

    the argument fails to show

    Why this is right

    When an answer says that an author "fails to establish / show _____ " it means that they needed to show that thing for their argument to be persuasive. It basically calls out a Necessary Assumption. Is our author assuming that corruption is not limited to W's staff? Definitely. She thinks that it extends to the whole board of directors, since she concludes that the board is full of corruption. If we negate this assumption, and say "Yo, author, the corruption is limited to W's staff", that would be a huge objection to the idea that whole board is corrupt and should be replaced.

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

    65% picked this

  2. the argument fails to show

    Not a Strong Objection

    If we were trying to argue that the board isn't full of corruption, can we say, "Hey, W's staff members only did one form of bribery!" That's not much of an objection. Sure fewer forms of bribery are less corrupt than more forms, but one form of bribery is still plenty corrupt. Plus there could be other forms of corruption in addition to bribery. We don't need to believe there are multiple cases of bribery in order to believe there's corruption on the board.

    1% picked this

  3. the argument fails to specify

    Not a Flaw

    We know that bribery is corrupt. We don't need that explained for us. That's not the reasoning problem: "Well you're assuming that bribery is corrupt!" (although in today's news universe, maybe we do need to state that)

    11% picked this

  4. the argument presumes without giving

    Too Strong: "all"

    We don't need the author to assume that every single person on W's staff is corrupt. If 99% of them are corrupt, that's still plenty corrupt. Also, the argument is more about whether the board is full of corruption than whether W's staff is full of corruption.

    18% picked this

  5. the argument attempts to deflect

    Not Ad Hominem

    The substantive issue here is the character of the board. This answer choice describes the famous flaw of Ad Hominem, but the author isn't invalidating someone's argument because they have an ulterior motive or because of their contrary past behavior. He's impugning the character of the board as his conclusion, and his evidence is about the character of some staff members of the board.

    4% picked this

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