Logical Reasoning

PT141 · S4 · Q25 Roberta is irritable only when

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Roberta is irritable only when she is tired, and loses things only when she is tired.

Conclusion

Roberta is almost certainly irritable.

Evidence (since)

Roberta has been yawning all day and has lost her keys.

She is irritable only when she is tired, and loses things only when she is tired.

Evaluate

Whenever we're doing Flaw and see any conditional logic in the premises, we immediately suspect that we're headed into the #1 most famous flaw, Necessary vs. Sufficient.

Here, the conditional logic is signified by "only when", which is the same as "only if", a necessary indicator (right side of the arrow). So here are the two rules:

Irritable → Tired Loses Things → Tired

Since Roberta has lost her keys, we know from the 2nd rule that she is definitely tired. The author mentions that she's been yawning all day, but we don't actually need that idea at all as a "premise" (we don't have to worry whether all-day yawning = tired, because the 2nd rule tells us that if she lost her keys, then she's tired).

The author is then moving from proving that Roberta is tired to concluding that she must be irritable. That, however, is an illegal reversal. The author is arguing like this:

if she's Tired, then she must be Irritable

But the conditional goes the other way: Irritable → Tired

Goal

Look for an answer complaining about the illegal reversal (aka 'confusing necessary with sufficient'). The author does soften the conclusion by saying almost-certainly, so the answer may reflect that. But the argument is failing to consider that Roberta might frequently be tired but not irritable.

25.

The reasoning above is flawed in that it

  1. infers from a correlation between

    Not Causal

    This answer describes one of the 10 famous flaws, Causal, in which the author overconfidently assumes a causal relationship between two things that were correlated in the premise. Whenever an answer says "infers from X that Y", then X should match evidence and Y should match a conclusion the author drew. Did the author conclude that "tiredness causes yawning"? Nope. There also wasn't a correlation between tiredness and yawning presented (that would have sounded like, "People who are frequently tired are more likely than those who aren't to yawn").

    17% picked this

  2. assumes the conclusion that it

    Not Circular

    This answer describes one of the 10 famous flaws, Circular Reasoning, in which the premise restates the conclusion or requires the truth of the conclusion. This answer is almost always wrong. The conclusion here is that Roberta is irritable, and none of the premises require that she is currently irritable.

    5% picked this

  3. generalizes on the basis of

    Not Sampling

    This answer describes one of the 10 famous flaws, Sampling, in which we critique the argument for using a sample that is too small, unrepresentative, or biased in some way. This argument doesn't use any sample at all.

    2% picked this

  4. takes a necessary condition for

    Not the Broken Conditional

    There were two conditionals but the author only interpreted one of them illegally, and it was the one about being "irritable" not about "losing things". The "losing things" conditional was: If R loses something, then she's tired The premise establishes that Roberta did lose something (her keys), and so according to this rule she is tired. There's nothing wrong with thinking that. The problem is that the author thinks, "If she's tired, she must be irritable".

    18% picked this

  5. Correct

    takes a necessary condition for

    Why this is right

    This points to the conditional that the author interpreted backwards. Because Roberta lost her keys, we know that she is tired. But her being tired doesn't prove she's almost certainly irritable. In order for Roberta to be irritable she has to be tired (it's necessary for her to be irritable). But being tired isn't sufficient to show she's irritable. She might be really good at being tired but not getting cranky.

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

    57% picked this

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