Logical Reasoning

PT145 · S2 · Q22 Everyone should have access

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Everyone should have access to more than one newspaper, for there are at least two sides to every story.

Conclusion

Everyone should have access to more than one newspaper.

Intermediate Conclusion

Some important stories would not be adequately covered if there were only one newspaper.

Evidence

There are at least two sides to every story. All sides of an important story should be covered, and no newspaper adequately covers all sides of every one of its stories.

Evaluate

The opinion indicator "should" in the first sentence alerts us to the possibility that we have a First Sentence Conclusion. The "for" in the second half of that first sentence shows that we're supporting that initial opinion (F.A.B.S. are the four main support indicators: for, after all, because, since).

The "since" at the beginning of the the second sentence paired with the "and" that ropes in the 2nd claim of that sentence, means that the first two ideas of the final sentence are supporting the third idea in the final sentence, which makes that an Intermediate Conclusion.

All sides of important story some imp stories everyone should be covered stories would not should AND → be adequately → have No paper can covered with only access to cover all sides of one newspaper 2+ papers all of its stories

We can object to the move from the Premises to the Intermediate Conc, or to the move from the Intermediate to the Main Conc.

Let's start with that simpler move, from Intermediate to Main:

GIVEN THAT if you only had one paper, some important stories would not be adequately covered

HOW COULD WE SAY it's not the case that everyone should have access to more than one newspaper?

We could just say

How about the move from Premises to Intermediate Conclusion.

GIVEN THAT all sides of an important story should be covered, and that no newspaper can adequately cover all sides of all stories,

HOW COULD WE SAY it's possible that if there were only one newspaper, all important stories would be adequately covered?

Well, this one is tricky. We might not see the wiggle room until we read the answer choices and it gives us the hint, but the 2nd premise there isn't what it needs to be.

It needs to be saying: no newspaper can adequately cover all sides of all important stories.

Instead, it says that no paper can adequately cover all sides of all stories. Okay, that's fine. As long as the paper adequately covers all sides of the important stories, we don't care if they only cover one side of some of their unimportant stories.

So we've found a way to accept the premises but still argue that one newspaper could adequately cover all important stories.

Goal

Stay flexible. The answer might speak to this last objection (what if a newspaper were able to cover all sides of all the important stories?) or it might speak to the move to the Main Conclusion (who said that everyone needs to have access to adequate coverage of all important stories?)

22.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the reasoning of the argument?

  1. Correct

    The argument confuses the inability

    Why this is right

    This is addressing that last objection we discussed. If a newspaper is able to cover all sides of its important stories, then the author's Intermediate Conclusion in the last sentence is wrong — if there were only one newspaper, it's possible that the newspaper could adequately cover all the important stories. The author only established that one newspaper couldn't cover all sides of all stories, but she didn't establish that one newspaper would be unable to cover all sides of all the important stories (important stories might be a tiny subset of all stories, so it might be realistic to run multiple articles on the same big, important story in order to cover all sides).

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

    48% picked this

  2. The argument overlooks the possibility

    Not an Objection

    Would it hurt the argument if two papers were essentially duplicating the same blind spots? (i.e. they're both covering sides 1 and 2 of an important story and failing to cover sides 3 and 4) No, it doesn't hurt the author's argument, because the author was never promising (in sufficient terms) that "IF you do have access to more than one newspaper, then you will have all sides". She was just arguing that "if you don't have access to more than one newspaper, then you won't have all sides".

    48% picked this

  3. A conclusion about what newspapers

    Bad Conclusion Match

    Whenever we see an answer structured "a conclusion about X is inferred solely from statements about Y", we should check to see whether X matches the conclusion and whether Y matches the evidence. Do we have a conclusion about what newspapers should do? Nope. There's a conclusion about what people should have access to. That's not the same as "what newspapers should do". Let's stop reading and eliminate.

    1% picked this

  4. The argument takes for granted

    Too Strong: everyone / all

    Has our author committed herself to the crazy extreme notion that every person in the world has access to every newspaper in the world? Of course not. Flaw answers love to pair up assumption wording (takes for granted / presumes / fails to establish) with overly strong ideas. Our author would like everyone to have access to at least two papers. That's as far as she went in terms of talking about people's access to papers.

    1% picked this

  5. The argument is concerned only

    Not a Flaw

    This is descriptively true, seemingly. The argument is definitely focused more on important stories. But there's nothing inherently wrong or flawed with focusing on one subset of a group.

    2% picked this

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