Logical Reasoning

PT142 · S2 · Q8 Marcia: Not all vegetarian diets

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Marcia: Not all vegetarian diets lead to nutritional deficiencies.

Marcia's Conclusion

Some vegetarian diets don't lead to nutritional deficiencies.

Marcia's Evidence

Research shows that vegetarians can get all the proteins/minerals they need from nonanimal foods.

Theodora's Conclusion

You're wrong to say vegetarianism can't lead to nutritional deficiencies (i.e. vegetarianism can lead to nutritional deficiencies)

Theodora's Evidence

If most people went veggie, some people in the meat industry would lose their jobs, fall into poverty, and hence not be able to afford a nutritionally adequate diet.

Evaluation

Where to begin, Theodora? First and foremost, out of the gate you accused Marcia of something she never said. Marcia said that some veggie diets aren't nutritionally deficient. She never said that if you're on a vegetarian diet, it's impossible have a nutritional deficiency.

This type of inappropriate response is a somewhat recurring flaw we might call Irrelevant Response or Straw Man, in which an author is responding in a way that feels totally inappropriate to the original position.

We might also critique Theodora's use of indirect causation to prove direct causation. She is trying to argue that vegetarian diets can lead to nutritional deficiencies. We would commonly understand that conversation to be about whether the ingredients of a vegetarian diet lead to nutritional deficiencies for the person on that diet, whereas Theodora is stretching that conversation to include the eventual economic consequences that could affect people who might not be vegetarian.

This is an Equivocation based on the idea of "lead to". In Marcia's sense of it, she meant would the consequences of a world in which more people ate vegetarian result in anyone having a nutritional deficiency"?

Goal

Either look for an answer describing Theodora's false charge against what Marcia supposedly claimed, or an answer calling out Theodora's abuse of stretching the concept of "this diet leads to nutritional deficiencies".

8.

Theodora's reply to Marcia's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that her reply

  1. Correct

    is directed toward disproving a

    Why this is right

    Marcia said that some veggie diets can avoid nutritional deficiency, and Theodora accused her of saying that all veggie diets cannot lead to nutritional deficiency.

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

    81% picked this

  2. ignores the results of the

    Not a Flaw

    It's true that Theodora doesn't acknowledge the research Marcia mentioned, but that's not part of Theodora's logic problems. Say that you were trying to prove that "X leads to Y" and cited some research supporting that. I am trying to prove that "at least once, X doesn't lead to Y". I don't need to deal with your research to prove my point. I just have to supply a counterexample in which X didn't lead to Y (the research you presented doesn't look like a good source for counterexamples, so my argument wouldn't have any reason to bring it up). Since Theodora is just trying to find a counterexample to the idea that "veggie diets cannot lead to nutritional deficiencies", she wouldn't have any need or motivation to discuss the research Marcia cited.

    6% picked this

  3. takes for granted that no

    Too Strong: "none ... unless" Negated Logic

    Theodora poses a hypothetical in which most people become vegetarians and some meat industry jobs are lost. She never commits herself to the extreme assumption that this is the only way the meat industry would ever be harmed. This is just performing an illegal opposite. Our author was saying this: most people go veggie ? some meat jobs collapse And this answer is saying this: ~most people go veggie ? ~some meat jobs collapse

    4% picked this

  4. uses the word "diet" in

    Used Consistently

    In both cases, "diet" is used in the sense of "a person's typical regimen of food". The equivocation in Theodora's argument was not "diet", but the sense of how a diet "leads to" nutritional deficiencies.

    4% picked this

  5. takes for granted that people

    Out Of Scope

    Out Of Scope: "fired people become vegetarians" The author doesn't indicate whether she believes that the people who lose these jobs are vegetarians or not to begin with, nor whether they would switch to that diet (if they weren't already on it) when they lost their jobs.

    4% picked this

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