Logical Reasoning

PT7 · S4 · Q9 Student representative: Our university, in

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Student representative: Our university, in expelling a student who verbally harassed his roommate, has erred by penalizing the student for doing what he surely has a right to do: speak his mind!

Dean's Conclusion (implicit)

It was correct to expel that student for verbally harassing his roommate.

Dean's Evidence

Had we not expelled him, we'd be endorsing verbal harassment, but if we did that, it would threaten the free flow of ideas integral to university life.

Evaluate

Ideally we want to react to the Straw Man the dean starts with. The student never said that the university should endorse verbal harassment.

We could even construe this as the dean presenting a False Choice: either we expel the student for harassment or we endorse verbal harassment.

But isn't there a middle ground between those options? Couldn't the university condemn and even punish the harassing student without full-on expelling them?

Goal

Let's look for an answer calling out the way the dean misrepresents the student's statements or calling out the fact that there are other ways to punish/condemn besides expelling.

Which one of the following is a questionable technique that the dean of students uses in attempting to refute the student representative?

challenging the student representative’s knowledge
Out of Scope (process of expelling)
Neither speaker deals with the process by which the student was expelled. They both just make reference to the fact that the student was expelled. And the dean is never suggesting the student is ignorant of some fact about the process.
1% picked this
invoking a fallacious distinction between
Trap
Out of Scope (other sorts of behavior) The conversation is only about speech (i.e. verbal harassment). No other sorts of behavior are discussed.
12% picked this
Correct
misdescribing the student representative’s position,
Why this is right
This describes the idea of Straw Man: misrepresenting someone's view to make it sound dumb / extreme. The student said that the verbal harassment shouldn't have resulted in expulsion, not that the verbal harassment should have been officially celebrated by the university. Obviously nobody thinks a university should be endorsing verbal harassment. Straw Man involves making the first person's view sound dumb / unpopular / unlikable / anti-common sense. i.e. "I think we should raise the minimum wage to a living wage like $15 / hr." "But you're saying that people should get rich for flipping burgers?"
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
82% picked this
questioning the motives of the
Famous Flaw Bait
Famous Flaw Bait: Ad Hominem Out of Scope (questioning motives) This answer describes an Ad Hominem flaw where someone dismisses a view by talking about the SOURCE of the view rather than the view itself. That didn't happen here. The dean is talking about (a distorted version of) the view itself, not about the student.
6% picked this
relying on a position of
Famous Flaw Bait: Inappropriate Appeals
This describes an Inappropriate Appeal to Fear, in essence an argument that sounds like, "You better agree with me -- or else!" The dean didn't marshal any threats.
0% picked this

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