Chapter 3



Chapter 3 Exercises 3.1A.1. Premise: There was a sound in the kitchen.Conclusion: There is a burglar in the kitchen.3. Premise: Childhood memories are often unreliable.Conclusion: I don’t honestly know if I had a happy childhood or not.5. Premise: There are tracks outside the victim’s room.Conclusion: The killer was wearing muddy workboots.7. Premise: The lawnmower is out of gas.Conclusion: The lawnmower isn’t going to start.9. Premise: The doctor told me I only have weeks to live.Conclusion: I only have weeks to live.11. Premise: I don’t remember closing the garage door.Conclusion: The garage door was left open.13. Premise: Trump has already won Florida, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.Conclusion: Trump is going to win.15. Premise: Violence simply begets more violence.Conclusion: We should all turn the other cheek. B.1. b.3. a. (b. is false. Perception provides knowledge, and it is distinct from memory).5. b.7. b.9. b. Note that a is not the contrapositive of b: b is written backwards (i.e., with the “if” in the middle of the sentence. C.1. Argument. Stated premise: Some tortoises live for centuries. Conclusion: Humans are not the most long-lived animals. Missing premise: Humans do not live for centuries.3. Plausibly not an argument. As noted elsewhere, we can often imagine some context in which we might construe a brief passage as an argument. We could do so here, but the most natural reading is that it is just someone expanding on the theme that getting older is a drag.5. Argument. Stated premise: Everyone I know likes that music. Conclusion: It is great music. Missing premise: If everyone I know likes some music, that music is great music.7. Argument. People with specialist knowledge are elitists.Professors have specialist knowledge.So, professors are elitists.Valid as it stands.9. You might construe this as an argument. However, it is naturally construed as a set of related sentences, none of which is being offered as evidence for the other. The statement that there are concerns about the patient’s mental health merely prefaces a list of those concerns; they need not be read as evidence for the claim that there are concerns.11. There’s an argument in here, along with a lot of information that does not contribute to the argument. The argument is:A coward would have lain down and died.I went on.I am not a coward.This is valid as it stands.Exercises 3.2A.1. Independent. (Each consideration by itself is some reason to belief the conclusion.)3. Independent.5. Linked. (Neither premise by itself is any reason at all to think you weren’t fired on a Friday.)7. Linked.9. Independent.Exercises 3.3A.1. Conditionalization: If most people who smoke casually become addicted, then for most people casual smoking is dangerous.More illuminating premise: Behavior that leads to addiction is dangerous.3. Conditionalization: If the career you choose will have a big impact on your day-to-day happiness, then you should think carefully about which career would suit you best.More illuminating premise: You should think carefully about decisions that will have a big impact on your day-to-day happiness.5. If Luke just found out that a terrible person he knows is his real father, then he’s going to be freaked out.Not much is gained by giving a more nuanced premise here.7. Conditionalization: If my client had neither the motive nor the means to commit the crime, it would be a mockery of justice if the jury found her guilty.This is adequate, although the argument is likely premised on the following general belief:Anyone who has neither the motive nor means to commit a crime cannot be justly found guilty.9. Conditionalization: If the doughnuts were here when we left, and your brother was the only person in the house while we were gone, then he must have eaten the doughnuts. Alternative missing premises:The doughnuts are no longer here.They can only have gone because someone in the house ate them. Again, there’s not much to choose here. The reasoning is sufficiently simple that neither reconstruction is less illuminating than the other. B.1. There’s no way to trade or have other profitable interactions with colonies that are literally light years away.MP: The only point of colonization is trade or profitable interaction.So, there’s no point in attempting to colonize other planetary systems. Given what we know, the first premise seems uncontroversial.The missing premise seems controversial. There might be other motivations for such colonization: exploration and the growth of knowledge; preserving the human species in the face of future catastrophes. 3. George is decisive.MP: We should elect a good president.MP: Being decisive is sufficient for being a good president.So, we should elect George as president.The second missing premise is highly suspect. Decisiveness may be a virtue for someone in an executive role, but there are other necessary virtues: good judgment for instance.5. Sure you can vote for Cardlen if you want, but you’re throwing away your vote.Cardlen’s running as an Independent.MP: An independent candidate can’t win.MP: There is no other net positive produced by voting for Cardlen.So, a vote for Cardlen is a wasted vote.How controversial these premises are will depend upon the context. In U.S. presidential politics, for instance, independent candidates are generally highly unlikely to win. So, the first missing premise should be uncontroversial. In other electoral contests, independents may have a healthy chance. So, such a premise might be plausible.How controversial the second missing premise is will also depend upon the context. Suppose you know that Cardlen can’t win. You might think it still makes sense to vote for Cardlen, if you thought it sent a message to a mainstream party or parties that might inform either policy or subsequent elections, and you thought there were no other deficits that would outweigh this e.g., voting for Cardlen would not tilt the election in favor of a highly unsuitable candidate.7. Your birthday is in July.I won’t be teaching in July.MP: I’ll be able to come if I’m not teaching.So, I’ll be able to come to your party.Barring unusual personal circumstances, and assuming the sincerity of the speaker, there’s nothing controversial here. 9. I only had a few beers.A few beers are not enough to impair my driving.MP: You can only blame the accident on me if my driving was impaired.So, you can’t blame the accident on my drinking.The second premise could be controversial. “A few beers” is a vague quantity and does not tell us the time period over which the beers were consumed. Also, we are ignorant of the body weight and the ability of the speaker to metabolize alcohol. So, that premise deserves scrutiny.How controversial the second premise is will depend upon the circumstances of the accident. While not being impaired removes one reason for blame, sober drivers do blameworthy things that lead to accidents all the time.11. Great art must be highly original.MP: You can’t teach someone to produce highly original work.So, you can’t teach someone to be a great artist. The first premise merits discussion. Someone’s work might arguably be the high point of a particular tradition, form, or style, without being highly original. Might that not count as great art?The missing premise also merits discussion. Can originality be taught (at least to some people)? Might it be possible to teach someone strategies that facilitate their thinking and creating in a highly original manner?Hard to know, offhand. Exercises 3.41. Since you insist on talking about it, yes, I am upset with you. I’m upset because you interrupted me all night at dinner and then ignored me as soon as we got home. Plausibly this is a fragment from a conversation where both parties know that the speaker is upset. So, the speaker is not trying to argue/prove that they are upset. Rather, they are explaining the particular things that caused them to be upset. 3. You shouldn’t drink unpasteurized milk, because it can make you very sick. In the absence of context, this might be read either way. This could be a response to a child who believes her parents that she should not drink unpasteurized milk, but who requests an explanation. It could also be an argument offered in response to a child who thinks she should be permitted to drink unpasteurized milk. The missing premise for such an argument is straightforward: You should not do things that make you sick. 5. I should be delighted to attend your wedding, for I have been your friend for many years! It’s hard to construe this as an argument. In a normal context, no-one needs to prove to a friend that they would be happy to attend their wedding. Although, you could certainly imagine strange contexts where it might be legitimately construed as an argument. 7. I don’t believe in ESP. If it exists, it must have evolved, but it couldn’t have evolved if it’s so weak that we can’t even measure it. Surely an unmeasurable skill is one that couldn’t have conferred any significant evolutionary advantage. This is an argument that ESP doesn’t exist. The speaker’s statement that she does not believe in ESP, followed by apparently compelling reasons that tell against its existence, resist any other interpretation. The missing premise is: skills only evolve if they confer a significant evolutionary advantage. That might be open to debate, but it is plausible that someone could believe it. 9. Since everyone now believes the story, there’s no point in denying it. Your best bet is just to make a big show of contrition—get on TV and apologize, and try to look sincere and humble while you’re doing it. This passage plausibly includes two arguments. The first has as conclusion that there is no point in denying the story. The relevant premise is that everyone believes the story already. The second argument takes the pointlessness of denial as a premise and has as conclusion that you should go on TV and apologize. In each case, we can supply reasonable premises that fill out the argument, respectively: there is no point in denying that everyone believes, and If there’s no point in denying it, then the best strategy is to apologize.Exercises 3.5. 1.3.As reconstructed above, it’s valid. It would also be reasonable to amend the missing premise so that the argument is inductive. In the absence of context, there’s not much to choose between the reconstructions. ................
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