Logical Reasoning

PT147 · S1 · Q13 Weingarten claims that keeping animals

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Weingarten claims that keeping animals in zoos is unethical.

Conclusion (should)

Weingarten's claim should be rejected. rephrase: Keeping animals in zoos is not unethical.

Evidence

Weingarten thinks that zoos involve placing animals in unnatural environments merely for the sake of human amusement. But he sees nothing wrong with owning pets, which involves placing an animal in an unnatural environment merely for human amusement.

Evaluate

When we're doing Flaw and we see the argument has a Rebuttal structure, then a few famous flaws should pop on our radar: - Ad Hominem (dismissing someone's claim because they are biased or have conflicting behavior) - Unproven vs. Proven False (concluding the opposite of someone's claim, just because they failed to prove the claim) - Straw Man / Irrelevant Response (misrepresenting the original position or saying something irrelevant to it in the rebuttal)

This author points out Weingarten's potentially hypocritical premise and therefore concludes that his original claim should be rejected.

Did the author offer any positive evidence that "keeping animals in zoos is ethical"? Nope. She just argues,

Goal

It seems like this is a case of Unproven vs. Proven False or Ad Hominem. Maybe Weingarten's argument for zoos being unethical is weak (since he seems inconsistent in terms of objecting to placing animals in unnatural environments for human amusement). But that doesn't mean we've proven that zoos aren't unethical. Maybe there are better arguments to be made for that claim.

We could also say,

We could also chip away at the legitimacy of the comparison:

Since there are multiple attack strategies, we'll have to stay flexible as we judge these answers.

13.

The reasoning in the argument is flawed in that the argument

  1. takes for granted that Weingarten

    Not Assumed

    The author doesn't need Weingarten to own pets (and hasn't implied that Weingarten does). If we negated this and said, "Weingarten doesn't own any pets", that wouldn't hurt the argument. The author can still say that Weingarten is being inconsistent if he opposes zoos but doesn't oppose (other) people owning pets.

    0% picked this

  2. inappropriately generalizes from a particular

    Wrong Flaw: not Sampling

    This answer describes the famous Sampling flaw, in which an author presents a small sample and then concludes that what was true in the sample will be true for a much broader class of things. Is this conclusion a generalization? Nope. It's a specific rejection of Weingarten's claim. A sampling flaw would have sounded like this: "Look at this zoo in San Francisco that gives animals huge habitats and doesn't exploit them for park visitors. Since this zoo operates ethically, keeping animals in zoos is ethical."

    5% picked this

  3. misrepresents the conclusion of the

    Doesn't Misrepresent

    The conclusion of the opposing argument is that "keeping animals in zoos is unethical". Our author concludes that "this claim should be rejected". There's no way to call that a misrepresentation. If the opponent's conclusion had been "keeping animals in zoos is unethical" and then our author started making it seem like the conclusion was "all animals in zoos are tortured", that would be misrepresenting the conclusion.

    4% picked this

  4. takes a necessary condition for

    Wrong Flaw: not Necessary vs. Sufficient

    This answer describes the #1 famous flaw Necessary vs. Sufficient, in which an author presents a conditional logic premise and then tries to apply that rule in a backwards or opposite fashion. There was no conditional logic premise, unless we count "If keeping pets, then placing animal in unnatural environment for human amusement" as conditional logic. But even if we did, the rest of the argument would have then needed to sound like, Bob places animals in an unnatural environment for human amusement. Thus, he must keep pets. or sound like Bob doesn't keep pets. Thus, he must not place animals in an unnatural environment for human amusement.

    6% picked this

  5. Correct

    rejects a claim merely on

    Why this is right

    Does the author reject a claim? Yes, her conclusion is "his claim should be rejected". Does the author's evidence point out that the proponent of that claim holds another view inconsistent with the claim? Yes, the author is saying that Weingarten thinks zoos are unethical because they place animals in unnatural environments for human amusement, but has the inconsistent thought that keeping pets is ethical ("Weingarten sees nothing wrong with it") even though that also involves placing animals in unnatural environments for human amusement. This is a flaw because just because someone who believes X is true has a reason for believing it that would conflict with another of their beliefs doesn't prove that X is false. X might be true for other reasons. Or X might be true for the reason this person believes, and it's their other belief that's messed up.

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

    85% picked this

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