Two Mistakes in Evaluating Cause and Effect

I found the section of Chapter 15 that discussed the two mistakes in evaluating cause and effect to be both interesting and useful. The first mistake that this section discusses is, "Reversing Cause and Effect." The example that was given showed how Tom reversed cause and effect in the statements that he made. The second example that was given also helped me to better understand this concept. The second example showed how Suzy reversed cause and effect. The next concept that was discussed in this section was titled "Looking too hard for a cause." I found this concept to be very interesting. "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" was also discussed. This means "after this, therefore because of this." This tends to occur when people overlook a possible cause. There can definitely be more than one cause for many events, so it is not right to jump to a conclusion so quickly. This section explained that we look for causes because we want to understand things, which makes sense. Another thing I found interesting was that for many things we will not be able to figure out a cause because we do not know enough.

Mission Critical Website

The Mission Critical Website was very useful. This website was helpful for me because it contained many links to a variety of different concepts. Under "The Basics" heading of this website, I found the links to be very informative. I especially found the page about Universal Statements to be useful. The Conjunctions and Disjunctions page also helped me get a better understanding of the concept. There were also many informative links under the "Analysis of Arguments" heading. One of the links that I found very useful was Deductive arguments because the concepts were explained in great detail and the exercises were helpful. The "Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion" heading also contained some interesting links. The fallacy review exercises and the quiz were extremely helpful as well. The Misdirected Appeals and Emotional Appeals sub-headings were very useful. Overall, this website was definitely useful to me and it helped me better understand many concepts.

Cause and Effect Website

I found the cause and effect website to be very helpful and interesting. The first example that was on the website was very interesting. When I first read the example, I immediately thought that the truck was at fault for the accident. The explanation of the differences in the arguments that the website gave was helpful to me. It was helpful that the difference between a causal and inductive argument was explained. The two rules of causation were explained very well and they helped me grasp the concept better. The explanations of post hoc, reverse causation and common cause were also extremely helpful. It was very helpful that this webpage focused on one example and throughly analyzed it. I think if there was more than one example I would have not understood this concept a fully. The three factors that were at the bottom of the webpage also help out. I also completed the exercises and they definitely helped me understand this concept.

Analogies in the Law

I found the section about Analogies in the Law in Chapter 12 to be very interesting. According to the textbook, analogies in the law are presented as "detailed and carefully analyzed arguments" that have the "important similarities pointed out and a general principal stated." Many of the laws that we have are not very specific. It is very important that all of the laws we have be applied consistently. In most instances, judges usually make their ruling based on a previous case or cases that were similar. One example of a case when a judge said all past rulings were incorrect was Brown vs. the Board of Education. This case dealt with segregation in schools. Another example of this is the Roe vs. Wade case, which dealt with abortion. When a judge is in a situation in which he does not know what to decide, he will look for differences between the current case and previous cases.

Reasoning by Analogy

I felt that I needed to further research reasoning by analogy because it was difficult for me to understand. One website that I came across was helpful and explained this concept clearly. This website defined an analogy as: "a statement of logical relationship between two similar things that are compared with each other." This definition helped be better understand what an analogy really is. The site also explained that an argument by analogy can be: "A is like B" or "X is similar to Y." I found another website that was also helpful. This site explained that there are four steps to take when you reason by analogy. The first step is that you must identify the analogy by recognizing the similarities between objects and situations. The second step is to state the purpose of the analogy. The third step is to access the source of the analogy. The fourth and final step is to evaluate the ambiguities, dissimilarities, and false attributions that may weaken or break the analogy. This additional research helped me better understand reasoning by analogy.

Reasoning Examples

Example of Reasoning by Analogy:
"Spot is a dog and Spot barks.
Max is a dog.
Max will bark."
Example of Sign Reasoning:
"When its winter season, it must be cold outside."
Example of Causal Reasoning:
"My grade is poor because my teacher does not like me."
Example of Reasoning by Criteria:
"This car has all of the features that you were looking for. Are you interested in buying it." "You need to buy this car, it's sick."
Example of Reasoning by Example:
"You should come to the gym with me. One of my friends doesn't
go to the gym and he is unhealthy."
Example of Inductive Reasoning:
Premise: "My teacher has showed up to class every day this semester."
Conclusion: "My teacher will show up to class tomorrow."
Example of Deductive Reasoning:
"All cats are lazy. Jinx is a cat. Jinx is lazy."

Overall, I felt this exercise was very helpful and helped me better understand these examples of different types of reasoning.

Appeal to Vanity

According to the textbook, a feel good argument is one that appeals to our wanting to feel good about ourselves. Appeal to vanity is a fallacy in which one uses compliments to make another person feel good to convince or persuade them. This type of fallacy is also referred to as apple polishing. An example of appeal to vanity would be: "Dad, I know that I disobeyed you and made a huge mistake by going out past my curfew, but you sure prepared a delicious meal for dinner tonight." This would be considered an appeal to vanity because the speaker is trying to make their dad feel good by complimenting his meal. Apple polishing is usually much more effective if the compliment that the person makes is closely related to the issue. In the previous example, the compliment that the speaker gave their dad was not related to the issue that they were dealing with and was therefore not very convincing.

Objective 6

According to chapter 10 of the textbook, "Appeal to spite, the hope of revenge, is invariably rejected as bad by some people on moral grounds." In appeal to spite, spite is substituted for evidence when an argument is made against a claim. Appeals to spite can very often be found in political speeches and also in every day conversation. One example of appeal to spite that I found was: "If you decide to vote in favor of this tax cut, the wealthy will just have more money, while middle class citizens like us will continue to struggle to get by." The argument here is that, "you should not vote in favor of the tax cut because it will just let the wealthy keep more money." This statement would not be considered a good argument as is. The premise needed to make this argument strong is "you should not vote in favor of something that does not benefit you."

Appeal to Emotion

According to the textbook, emotions definitely influence our reasoning. Our emotions influence almost all decisions that we make on a daily basis. In chapter 10 of the textbook, it states that: "An appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way." Even though this is dealing with the premise, most of the time the entire argument is called an appeal to emotion. One of the aspects of appeal to emotion that caught my attention was appealing to fear. Appeal to fear happens when a claim is used to create fear. I found this aspect of appeals to emotion to be very interesting because of all of the political campaigning that has been going on. Appeal to fear can be easily found in many campaign advertisements for politicians. This aspect of appeal to emotion is also extremely common in marketing. Appeal to fear is considered bad if one legitimate concern is substituted for all others. On the other hand, appeal to fear is good if it is the only factor in making a decision.