Apply the following in 350 to 500 words for each scenario:
- Evaluate each argument, using the 4-step process, regarding soundness of reasoning (truth and validity).
- Explain your assessment and add alternative argumentation where necessary.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
Scenario 1.
The argument: The credit card habit promotes careless spending, particularly among young people. Therefore, credit card companies should not be permitted to issue credit cards to anyone under age 21.
Scenario 2.
Drug dealing should not be a crime because it does not directly
harm others or force them to harm themselves.
Scenario 3.
It’s ridiculous to think that there will be fewer deaths if we ban
handguns. Handguns don’t kill people; people kill people.
4-Step Process
1. State your argument fully, as clearly as you can. Be sure to identify any
hidden premises and, if the argument is complex, to express all parts of it.
2. Examine each part of your argument for errors affecting truth. (To be sure
your examination is not perfunctory, play devil’s advocate and challenge
the argument, asking pointed questions about it, taking nothing for granted.)
Note any instances of either/or thinking, avoiding the issue, overgeneralizing,
oversimplifying, double standard, shifting the burden of proof, or
irrational appeal. In addition, check to be sure that the argument reflects
the evidence found in your investigation (see Chapter 8) and is relevant
to the pro and con arguments and scenarios you produced earlier (see
Chapter 9).
3. Examine your argument for validity errors; that is, consider the reasoning
that links conclusions to premises. Determine whether your conclusion is
legitimate or illegitimate.
4. If you find one or more errors, revise your argument to eliminate them. The
changes you will have to make in your argument will depend on the kinds
of errors you find. Sometimes, only minor revision is called for—the adding
of a simple qualification, for example, or the substitution of a rational
appeal for an irrational one. Occasionally, however, the change required
is more dramatic. You may, for example, find your argument so flawed
that the only appropriate action is to abandon it altogether and embrace a
different argument. On those occasions, you may be tempted to pretend
your argument is sound and hope no one will notice the errors. Resist that
hope. It is foolish as well as dishonest to invest time in refining a view that
you know is unsound.
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