Logical Reasoning

PT130 · S3 · Q4 Politician: Suppose censorship is wrong

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Politician: Suppose censorship is wrong in itself, as modern liberals tend to believe.

Evidence

Suppose censorship is wrong in itself, as modern liberals tend to believe. Then an actor's refusing a part in a film because the film glamorizes a point of view abhorrent to the actor would be morally wrong.

But this conclusion is absurd.

Conclusion

It follows that censorship is not, after all, wrong in itself.

Evaluate

There are two reasoning structures at play in this argument. The conditional reasoning takes the form of a contrapositive, which is used properly. The second is the comparison made between an actor refusing a part and censorship. On this second issue, the argument assumes the two issues are comparable.

4.

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

  1. presumes, without providing justification, that

    Out of Scope

    The argument neither assumes nor concludes that actors adhere to tenets of modern liberalism. That censorship is wrong is a tenet of modern liberalism, but the actors in the argument are not adhering to that tenet, but rather used as an example to challenge that tenet.

    2% picked this

  2. uses the term "liberal" in

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes an attack on the proponent of a claim without evidence to challenge their position, but in this argument evidence is offered to undermine the tenet often held by modern liberals that censorship is wrong.

    1% picked this

  3. takes for granted that there

    Contradiction

    The argument suggests that it would not be morally wrong for an actor to refuse a part.

    4% picked this

  4. draws a conclusion that is

    Wrong Flaw

    The argument reasons by contrapositive, not be contradiction.

    16% picked this

  5. Correct

    presumes, without providing justification, that

    Why this is right

    This connects an actor refusing a part with censorship thereby linking the counterexample to the argument’s main line of reasoning.

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

    78% picked this

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