Jenkins maintains that the movie

Answer choices

1. A

   Not Ad Hominem Bad Evidence Match1% picked this

   rejects an argument on the grounds that it was offered by a person

   This refers to the famous Ad Hominem flaw, in which someone dismisses a point of view because the source of the view has a biased interest (or because the source has some conflicting past behavior). This author does reject an argument, in her conclusion. But the grounds on which she does so (i.e. the evidence) isn't a claim about the bias of Jenkins. Rather, the evidence is a claim that "many who've seen this movie were caused to act antisocially".

   1%
2. B

   Trap15% picked this

   concludes from a mere correlation between certain phenomena that those phenomena

   Not Correlation vs. Causation Bad Evidence Match This refers to the famous Causal Overconfidence flaw, in which an author overconfidently concludes one possible causal explanation for something, without ruling out other possible explanations. Any time a Flaw answer is structured concludes from X that Y then we can ask ourselves if X matches the evidence and Y matches the conclusion. Was the evidence "a mere correlation between phenomena"? No, the evidence was "the movie has clearly produced antisocial behavior among many who have seen it". That verb 'produced' makes this a causal statement, not a correlation. We could also say that the conclusion is not a causal claim; it's just saying that "the movie was intended to provoke antisocial behavior". That's talking about whether or not a certain motive existed; it's not claiming that Thing 1 caused Thing 2.

   15%
3. C

   Trap3% picked this

   infers that something is true of a whole solely on the grounds that it is true of a

   Not Part vs. Whole Bad Evidence Match This refers to the famous Part vs. Whole flaw, in which an author assumes that a trait that applies to a collective group also applies to each member within the group (or vice versa). Any time a Flaw answer is structured infers that Y solely on the grounds that X then we can ask ourselves if X matches the evidence and Y matches the conclusion. Was the evidence saying some trait is true of a part of a whole? Not really, but if we really wanted to stretch we could say that saying "the movie has clearly produced antisocial behavior among many who have seen it" is saying that part of the audience has "antisocial behavior" as a trait. For this answer to be right, the conclusion would then have to be saying, "Therefore, the audience as a whole for this movie behaves antisocially". But in reality the conclusion says, "Therefore, this movie was intended to provoke antisocial behavior".

   3%
4. D

   Not an Objection4% picked this

   overlooks the possibility that people can act in a way that is contrary to

   Whenever a Flaw answer begins with fails to consider / overlooks the possibility, we can ask ourselves whether the idea that follows would weaken. Can it hurt the argument to say that, "Hey, author -- sometimes people can act in a way that is contrary to their expressed interest?" No, that would actually strengthen. Jenkins had concluded that Firepower wasn't intended to provoke antisocial since that would have been contrary to the director's interest for such behavior to result. This would be an objection to Jenkins' reasoning. We would say, "But Jenkins -- just because X is against the director's interests doesn't show that the director wasn't doing X. Sometimes people act in ways that are contrary to their interest." If we're objecting to Jenkins, then we're strengthening this author's argument.

   4%
5. E

   Correct77% picked this

   concludes from the mere fact that an action had a certain effect that the effect was intended by the

   Why this is right

   Any time a Flaw answer is structured concludes from X that Y then we can ask ourselves if X matches the evidence and Y matches the conclusion. Was the evidence saying that "an action had an effect"? Yes, the evidence was "the movie has clearly produced antisocial behavior among many who have seen it". So the action of 'making this movie' had the effect of 'producing antisocial behavior'. Is the conclusion saying "the effect was intended by the person performing the action"? Yes, it's saying that the director who made this movie intended to produce that antisocial behavior. Admittedly, part of this answer is weird, because the conclusion is technically "the movie was intended to provoke antisocial behavior", not "the director intended to provoke antisocial behavior", but this is still our best available choice and speaks to the Intent vs. Result flaw.

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

   77%