Logical Reasoning

PT144 · S2 · Q19 Politician: Union leaders argue that

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Politician: Union leaders argue that increases in multinational control of manufacturing have shifted labor to nations without strong worker protections, resulting in a corresponding global decrease in workers' average wages.

Conclusion

Legislators should reject this argument. (i.e. legislators should reject the pleas for strong worker protections that oppose increases in multinational control)

Evidence

The union leaders making the argument have a vested interest in seeing workers' wages remain high, so naturally they don't want multinational corporations to ship manufacturing jobs to nations w/o strong worker protections.

Evaluate

As soon as we see Flaw + Rebuttal + Vested Interest we might recognize one of the top 6 most common famous flaws, Ad Hominem, when an author rejects an argument because of its source, not its ideas.

Just because the union leaders have a vested interest in warning against multinational corporations outsourcing labor to countries where workers are paid less doesn't mean that union leaders are wrong to worry about this.

Shouldn't legislators be trying to keep as many manufacturing jobs as they can within the borders of their country?

The fact that someone has a vested interest (ulterior motive) doesn't mean their perspective is flawed or wrong. We need to engage with their reasoning and see if their logic makes sense.

Goal

Look for an answer calling out the Ad Hominem move, or an answer otherwise objecting that the legislators should be taking seriously the concern that multinationals are outsourcing manufacturing jobs to other countries.

Union leaders argue that there should be legislative resistance to multinational control over manufacturing, since multinational corporations are shifting labor to nations without strong worker protections.

19.

The reasoning in the politician's argument is flawed in that the argument

  1. treats the mere fact that

    Too Strong: mere fact / all viewpoints

    This argument treats the fact that certain people are union leaders as sufficient to cast doubt on their one viewpoint about multinational control of manufacturing. The argument doesn't say that "you should doubt all viewpoints expressed by any union member", as this answer alleges.

    5% picked this

  2. presumes, without providing justification, that

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: anyone Out of Scope: unreliable source of info It's not clear that union leaders have any political motivations, but I guess we could say within the internal politics of the union they lead, they would have a hard time being re-elected as union leader if wages went down on their watch. But the author hasn't made a sweeping claim like "EVERY SINGLE PERSON with clearly discernible political motivations is an unreliable source of info." The author may well believe that the leader of the Department of Defense is politically motivated to do certain things, but still consider him/her a reliable source of information to legislators. The union leaders aren't really even being discussed as a possible source of information. It's more about whether their arguments should be taken seriously than it is whether "their information should be considered reliable".

    16% picked this

  3. Correct

    treats circumstances potentially affecting the

    Why this is right

    The author cites the leaders' vested interest in seeing wages remain high. That could potentially affect their argument of opposing multinational control of manufacturing, since such control supposedly leads to lower average wages. Based only on this, the author moves into her conclusion of "reject this argument", which means she considers the argument sufficiently discredited.

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

    68% picked this

  4. presumes, without providing justification, that

    Too Strong: only

    We don't have anything to point to that allows us to say that the author was assuming that this is the only argument for their view. The conclusion is specifically saying we should reject this argument, not necessarily other arguments. Also, even if union leaders did have some other argument for their view, the author would dismiss it the same way (these leaders have a vested interest, so reject it). The author is ready to reject any argument the union leaders offers for this on the same (flawed) grounds that the union leaders are just biased by their own interests in this matter. What we need our answer choice to do is address this problematic idea the author has that she can reject any argument from the union leaders because of their vested interest.

    6% picked this

  5. presumes, without providing evidence, that

    Too Strong: all unions

    It doesn't seem clear that this argument is ever referring to the leaders of all unions. I interpret the union leaders being quoted as "some union leaders". However, even if we interpreted it as all union leaders, it wouldn't change anything about why we're yelling at the author. Whether she's shooting down a handful of union leaders or leaders of all unions, she's shooting them down for an invalid reason (vested interest).

    4% picked this

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