Logical Reasoning

PT129 · S2 · Q4 Professor: A guest speaker recently

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Professor: A guest speaker recently delivered a talk entitled "The Functions of Democratic Governments" to a Political Ideologies class at this university.

Conclusion (this shows)

Universities these days do not foster fair-minded and tolerant intellectual debate.

Evidence

At one talk in a single Political Ideologies class at one university, two students taunted the speaker and several others applauded.

Evaluate

The conclusion is sweeping, about "universities these days" in general, but the evidence is one incident in one class at one university.

Even within that one talk, only "two students" did the taunting and only "several others" applauded; the rest of the audience is unaccounted for.

This sample size is way too small to establish a generalization about all universities. It couldn't even establish a generalization about this university, or even about the students who attended this talk (98% of them might have been fair-minded and tolerated intellectual debate).

Goal

This seems like a classic Sampling flaw, so let's see if we find an answer like that.

4.

The professor's reasoning is flawed in that it

  1. draws a conclusion based on

    Bad Description

    Is the conclusion based on the professor's own opinion? No, the conclusion says, "This incident shows that ..." The conclusion is based on that incident.

    3% picked this

  2. is inconsistent in advocating tolerance

    Self-Contradiction

    This answer invokes the very rarely seen Self-Contradiction flaw. Is the author ever advocating tolerance? We can't really point to any prescriptive / normative claims. The argument is mainly descriptive. The author doesn't say, "Colleges don't foster tolerance, and that's a bad thing!" She just descriptively states that they don't foster tolerance. Is she intolerant of the dissenting students? She describes their taunts as vicious and says that they were attempting to humiliate the speaker. WE may find that morally abhorrent and feel intolerant of the dissenting students, but where would we point to the author doing so? She doesn't conclude, "Thus, these students need to be expelled" or anything like that.

    3% picked this

  3. relies primarily on an emotional

    Inappropriate Appeals

    This invokes the rare Inappropriate Appeal to Emotion flaw, in which emotional manipulation is used to bypass reasoning. It's an argument where you argue, "You should believe me, or else I'll be sad" rather than, "You should believe me, because here is the evidence for that claim." The professor describes the incident in restrained language ("two students hurled vicious taunts," "several others applauded") and draws a conclusion. She has presented actual evidence for her claim. It's weak ass evidence but it's a descriptive anecdote. It's not just saying "you should believe me I'd be so upset if you didn't".

    2% picked this

  4. Correct

    draws a general conclusion based

    Why this is right

    Here's our Sampling flaw answer. The conclusion ("universities these days do not foster fair-minded and tolerant intellectual debate") is a generalization about universities broadly. The evidence is a single incident at one talk in one class at one university, and within that incident, only a handful of students misbehaved. The sample is far too small to support a conclusion about universities in general.

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

    87% picked this

  5. incorrectly focuses on the behavior

    Bad Objection

    Why would we be saying that the author should have focused on the reasons for the students' dissenting behavior? Authors can focus on whatever they want. We're just assessing whether their evidence proves their conclusion. I can have a valid argument such as: "At a recent art talk, everyone in the audience was polite. This incident shows that art talks do not require audience members to be rowdy." I talked about the audience's behavior, but I didn't focus on why they were polite. So what?! My conclusion was validly drawn on the basis of my evidence. When we describe flaws, we can't say that the author chose the wrong topic. We can only speak to why their evidence fails to guarantee their conclusion.

    4% picked this

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