Logical Reasoning

PT155 · S1 · Q14 Jones: A budget deficit is good

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Jones: A budget deficit is good for the country's finances; it discourages excessive government spending.

Jones's Conclusion

A budget deficit is good for the country's finances.

Jones's Premise

A budget deficit discourages excessive government spending.

Espinosa's Implicit Conclusion

A budget deficit is not good for a country's finances.

Espinosa's Evidence

Governments should be staying out of debt. Saying that debt discourages spending may be true, but it's still poor financial management. We wouldn't say that an individual who reaches their credit card limit has done a good thing for their finances, just because it will discourage excessive spending.

Evaluate

Our job is to characterize the type of evidence or reasoning move that the 2nd speaker used. The Big 8 answers on Method are - Analogy - (Counter)Example of a General Claim - Implications of Logic - raise an Alternate Explanation - Rule Out Competing Options - point out Dubious Assumption - raise an Overlooked Consideration - establish a definition / distinction

Here we'd be crazy to resist calling this an Analogy, since Espinosa says, "that would be like saying [analogous situation]".

Goal

Look for any answer that we can match up with Espinosa's response, probably one that emphasizes the analogy she used.

14.

The strategy Espinosa uses in responding to Jones's argument is to

Correct
provide an argument that is
Why this is right
Espinosa did indeed provide an analogous argument. Jones was talking about a government's debt level and Espinosa analogized it to an individual's debt level. How do we justify the "clearly fallacious" part of the answer? 1. Common Sense When we rebut someone by saying, "That would be like saying X is true", it's always implied that X is not true. 2. The rest of E's argument She establishes that in her analogous situation, it would be wrong to say that maxing out your credit cards is good for your finances, saying "it's poor financial management".
Skill tested: Method · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
85% picked this
demonstrate that Jones's position presupposes
Not Circular
The language of "premise restates the conclusion / premise assumes the conclusion / assumes what it sets out to prove / presupposes what is seeks to establish" is how we describe a Circular Argument, one in which there wasn't any premise. Espinosa definitely isn't accusing Jones of having made a circular argument. Jones' premise was about discouraging spending and Espinosa concedes the truth of that premise.
5% picked this
offer empirical evidence that undermines
Out of Scope: empirical evidence
Empirical evidence means measurable, observable data. Espinosa didn't use any data, like "Countries that have higher budget deficits have lower living standards". She just used a hypothetical analogy.
3% picked this
argue that Jones's reasoning about
No Personal Accusation
Espinosa never accuses Jones of poorly managing his own personal finances.
2% picked this
suggest that Jones's conclusion is
Out of Scope: overgeneralization
Espinosa isn't saying, "You're right, but only for a smaller subset of things. You're wrong to widen the applicability of this as far as you have." Espinosa is saying, "You're wrong. It's dumb to think that debt is good."
5% picked this

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