Structural Fallacies

Fallacy is just a bad argument that is agree on to be unrepairable. There are some argument that is bad because of how they are structured, these are called structural fallacies. The form alone can give a lot of information about a person's argument regardless of what is the subject matter. There are 7 fallacy type:

Affirmative the consequence: If A, then B. B. Therefore A
Example: If all mammals have hair to cover their whole bodies, then birds are mammals. Birds have feathers to     cover their whole bodies. Therefore, birds are mammals.  

Denying the antecedent: If A, then B. not A. Therefore, not B.
Example: If all mammals have have hair to cover their whole bodies, then sharks are not mammals. Sharks do not have fur to cover their bodies. Therefore, sharks are not mammals.

Arguing backwards with all: All S are P. a is P. Therefore, a is S.
Example: All vegetable are green. Green apples are green. Therefore, green apples are vegetable.

Reasoning in a chain with some: Some S are P. Some P are Q. Therefore, some S are Q.
Example: Some mammals are very small. Some small animals are cold blood animals. Therefore, some mammals are  cold blood animals.

Arguing backward with no: All S are P. No Q is S. Therefore, no Q is P.
Example: All things with seed are consider to be fruit. Seedless grapes have so seeds. Therefore, seedless grapes are not fruits.

arguing backward with almost all: Almost all S are P. a is P. Therefore, a is S.
Example: Almost all aquatic animals are not mammals. Whales are aquatic animals. Therefore, whales are not mammals.

Reasoning in a chain with almost all: Almost all S are P. Almost all P are Q. Therefore, almost all S are Q.
Example: Almost all fruits are edible raw food. Almost all edible raw food are full with dangerous bacterias. Therefore, almost all fruits are full with dangerous bacterias.    

Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion

Violating the principle of rational discussion is when someone who does not understand what is rational discussion or purposely trying to mislead the discussion. Here are some examples of how this occurs.

Begging the question:  The argument that begging for question when the premises are questionable and implausible.
Strawman: The technique is to knock down someone's argument if the person misrepresent the argument, putting words in to other people's mouth.
Shifting the burden of proof: By trying to disproof other people claim instead of proving his or her own discussion.
Relevance: When the premises are so weak that they do not help to support the conclusion or the claim at all.
Slanters: Usage of misleading language to conceal the dubious claims.
Ridicule: Making a joke out of someone's claim to discredit the claim.

For example, in politics when a politician lose an argument. The losing politician will tried to discredit the opponent by making fun of the opponent's idea or tried to put some kind of words into the opponent's mouth. 

Exercise on the Structure of Argument

Number 3:
Las Vegas has too many people. 1 There's not enough water in the desert to support more than a million people. 2 And  the infrastructure of the city can't handle more than a million: The streets are overcrowded, and traffic is always congested; the schools are overcrowded, and new ones can't be built fast enough. 4 We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in  the city and county. 5


Argument: Yes.
Conclusion: There should be strong zoning law from the city and county to stop people from moving into the city.
            Additional premises needed? If the resources and the infrastructure of the city cannot support more than      
            a million people, then there should not be more than a million people in the city. a
            If there are more than a million people in the city. There are too many people. b
Identify any subargument: Sentence 1, 2, 3, and 4 are independent and support the sentence number 1.
Good argument? The argument seem pretty strong if all the premises are true.

This is exercise is useful. It help me break down an argument and analyze if its a good argument. Also look for what is the strong point of the argument and what are the weaknesses and see what the argument need to be a stronger argument. 

Different Types of Leadership.

There are 4 types of leadership:
Authoritarian: this kind of leadership is more controlling, the leader have most of the power. Usually in this kind of leadership, the leader make decision without others' opinions. After the decision was made by the leader, that decision is than told to the other members to follow it.

Consultative: usually the decisions that were made in this kind of group are based on everyone's opinion. The leader will ask the group members for their opinions and ideas. However, the decision is still make by the leader alone, but all the opinions and ideas from the members are taking into consideration. The leader will likely to make this kind of decision when the leader is lack of information to make the good decision by his/herself. Ever thought in this kind of leadership style, the leader will ask the members for their opinions. The members usually find it very frustrated. Since only little part of their ideas will come through to the final decision.

Participative: in this kind of leadership, the leader will work along with the other members to achieve their goal. The leader will help to guide the group but have no influence above other members on the final decision. This kind of leadership usually take longer to achieve the final conclusion, but it prove to be more effective and efficient.

Laissez-Faire: this style of leadership usually involve the very minimum leadership influence, if not at all. The leader will usually have very little to say to the other member and most likely to stay away from the group. The other group members will just follow their tasks. If there are any problem, it will be very difficult to resolve it or contract the leader.   

A Strong vs. Valid Argument

A valid argument is the an argument that when the premises are true the conclusion is true. However, it does not mean that a valid argument is a good argument or a strong argument. For example the argument can be; all cell phones are black, so your cell phone is black color. This is a valid argument because given that all the cellphones are made to be black color, than your cellphone have to be in black color too. It might not be a good argument because we all know that not all cellphones are black, but it is a valid argument.

A strong argument is different from valid argument. Strong argument is an argument that when the premises are true but the conclusion may be fault, but it is extremely unlikely to happen. For an example; all living organism that everyone I know has ever heard of or read about need oxygen to live. Therefore, all the living organism on this planet need oxygen to live. All the research that have done prove that this is true. However, there still is a possibility that there might be some kind of mutated organism that might not need oxygen, but the chances are extremely rare and unlikely to happen.       

Test for an Argument

Example argument: Babies cannot talk. As the result, they cried when they feel uncomfortable. So when a baby cried, he is uncomfortable.

Analysis: The premises of this argument is plausible. Babies cannot talk, so the only way they can communicate and get adults' attention is by yelling or crying. So, it is possible that the baby feel uncomfortable and need to be taken care of by the adults. Are the premises more plausible than the conclusion? Can we think of other reasons why the baby will cry? The baby can cry because of the favorite toy got taken away or when the parents leave the baby with the care taker. Since the babies cannot talk at all, adults cannot just assume that the babies cry because they feel uncomfortable. The premise does not say that the babies only cry when they feel uncomfortable. Therefore, the babies can cry when they feel sad, upset, hungry, or even frustration. So the argument is week, which make a bad argument.

Descriptive And Prescriptive Claims

  The different between descriptive and prescriptive claims are that descriptive claim is about how thing is and the prescriptive claim is about how thing should be. For most of the time prescriptive claims will appear to be moral or judgement claims. The claim will most likely to contain the word "good," "better," "bad," "worse," or some other words that are value judgement. However, sometime a prescriptive claim can sound similar to the descriptive claim. For example, a friend might say that sitting down for a long period of  time is bad for you. This is actually a prescriptive claim since the sentence carries the assumption that we should not sit for a long time. Some might agree with the speaker but no one know that what standard the speaker has in mind. The phase "long period of time" can varies by a lot from 2 hours till 10 hours or even more. Until the listeners know what is the speaker's standard of "long period of time" is, we cannot assume what the speaker is trying to say.

Vague Sentence

The vague sentence is the kind of sentence that have open ended. This kind of sentence has so many ways that it can be understand. Most of the time the listeners can not settle on just one meaning without some kind of explanation. If we think about our daily life, it usually fill with vague sentences. Even on TV or radio program. Especially in commercials, there are a lot of vague sentences. For example, it might say that this car insurance can help you save money for at least 15 percents or more. However, the commercial did not tell you how it can help you save the 15 percents if you switch from the insurance you currently have. At the same time it can mean that you can save the 15 percents if you switch from one insurance company in particular, not every company. So as we can see that vague sentence can be interpreted into many ways. One cannot decide on one meaning without a clear explanation from the speaker.