Logical Reasoning

PT23 · S3 · Q17 Magazine article: Punishment for

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Magazine article: Punishment for crimes is justified if it actually deters people from committing them.

Conclusion

Punishment is never justified.

Evidence

(if) = Left Side, sufficient condition

Punishment Punishment for deters ppl from → crimes is justified committing crimes

A lot of good data clearly shows that punishment is not a deterrent.

Evaluate

Any time we're doing Flaw and we see conditional logic, we should start thinking of the #1 famous flaw: Necessary vs. Sufficient

That's where an author presents a conditional rule, like X → Y , and then makes an illegal backwards or opposite argument:

ILLEGAL BACKWARDS ILLEGAL OPPOSITE Paul is Y. Paul is ~X. Thus, Paul is X. Thus, Paul is ~Y.

The "if" in the first sentence is where we have to recognize that we're being given a conditional rule. "If" conditions always go on the Left side of the arrow ("only if" conditions always go on the Right side of the arrow).

Deters → Justified

Our author then does an illegal opposite argument: Punishment does not deter. Thus, punishment is not justified.

This argument would be as silly as if we said:

More than one thing could make Sally happy. More than one thing could justify punishment (maybe it doesn't deter people from committing crime but it provides the public with some catharsis that our moral outrage has been expressed via punishment).

Goal

Look for an answer giving the formal objection that the author botched conditional logic (i.e. confused Necessary and Sufficient), or look for an answer making the conversational objection that .

17.

The reasoning in the magazine article’s argument is flawed because the argument

  1. depends on data that there

    Wrong Flaw Opposite

    This argument specifies that it's depending on data that is "a great deal of data points, carefully assembled, carefully analyzed, empirical (externally observable)". So, it's the opposite of the famous Sampling Flaw that this answer choice is describing.

    7% picked this

  2. mistakenly allows the key term

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes the famous Equivocation flaw, in which a certain term is used in two very different ways, but "punishment" was used consistently here. Two different ways would be like: "Man, that leg workout yesterday was tough! My thighs took some punishment" vs. "Man, that judge was tough! 6 months of community service for peeing in someone's mailbox is some punishment"

    3% picked this

  3. Correct

    mistakes being sufficient to justify

    Why this is right

    If we're familiar with our Famous Flaws (and especially the #1 most common / most important one), then we'll instantly see this answer as we scan for the words Necessary vs. Sufficient. If we're trying to figure out this language on the fly, the word "if" in the first sentence introduces a sufficient condition. If punishment actually then, punishment deters people from for crimes is justified committing crimes All the author needs to know is that the punishment deters people and he thinks that is enough (that is sufficient) to show that it's justified. When he starts acting like, "if it's not deterring, then it's never justified" he was switched to treating deterrence as the only (a required) way to justify punishment. It would be the same as if I went from saying, "Law school admissions will be impressed if you have a letter of recommendation from a famous judge who knows you. But Emily doesn't know any famous judges. So Emily will never be able to impress a law school admissions board." Whoa-whoa-whoa ... who said you need a letter of rec from RBG (RIP) to impress? Maybe you're a Rhodes Scholar or have performed at the Kennedy Center. When we go from saying "if it's true, you're good to go" to saying "if it's not there, you're screwed" we've gone from acting like something is Sufficient to acting like it's Necessary.

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

    83% picked this

  4. ignores the problem of mistakenly

    Not an Objection: punishing the innocent

    Since the author is concluding that punishment is never justified, his position wouldn't conflict at all with someone saying, "But what about the problem of mistakenly punishing the innocent?" He'd be like, "I'm with ya. We shouldn't punish anyone. It's never justified."

    1% picked this

  5. attempts to be more precise

    Opposite

    We would complain that this conclusion is broader than its evidence properly allows. The author has potentially proven that "Punishment cannot be justified on the basis of deterrence alone". But it's too broad for her to say that "Punishment can never be justified".

    6% picked this

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