Mission Critical Website

When I first went on the mission critical website it looked very overwhelming and I didn’t even really get what information the website was trying to supply us with. But then I started reading the different links that was on the main page and then I realized why it was called the mission “critical” website cause it was a brief guide to most of the ideas we have learned so fall in critical thinking.  T has the main sections of: The Basics, Part of an Argument and Basic Relations, Analysis of Arguments, Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion, and Other Common Fallacies. After looking at a few of the different sections I found that they were very helpful. The section that I liked the most was Emotional Appeals section.  It explained all the six differ appeals, fear, loyalty, pity, prejudice, spite, and vanity, it was going to be covering and helped explain them by using the same example but change it to work for each different appeal. The way they used those example and the way they described each appeal before made me have to chance to really understand each appeal. Overall, I really like the Mission Critical Website and I found it very useful.

Criteria for Cause and Effect Claims

Epstein gave us necessary criteria we could use to evaluate if a claim is a cause and effect claim.

Necessary criteria for cause and effect claims.

-The cause happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The effect happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The cause precedes the effect

-It is (nearly) impossible for the cause to happen (be true) and the effect not to happen (be false), given the normal conditions

-The cause makes a difference—if the cause had not happened (been true), the effect would not have happened (been true)

-There is no common cause

I decided to use these criteria to see if my example claim is indeed a cause and effect claim. My example claim was:

“Fear of being late to work causes me to leave early enough every morning to be on time”

Evaluation: The cause: fear of being late to work, the effect: leaving the house on time. In this claim the cause does precede the effect.  The effect of me getting up early enough for work is almost solely because of the cause of the fear of being late.  The cause does make a difference. Fear is a common cause but over all I would still consider this to be a cause and effect claim.

Cause and Effect Website

The Cause and Effect readings were very helpful. It gave a lot of useful information and gave you a many different ways to understand the idea of cause and effect. They gave you examples in which they walked you through step by step so you could see what the cause was and the effect was. The website also showed you how to evaluate how strong a cause and effect claim is:

The strength of a causal argument, then, relies on three factors:

1. how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is (for example, do we think that there is a basic similarlity in most respects between the circumstances of this accident and those of the many other times bicycles and cars have traveled on this street safely;
2. how likely the case for causation seems to be (for example, do we think that a bicycle swerving into an car's lane can cause an accident?);
3. how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is (for example, do we believe that the illegally parked truck is the only significant difference between this case and the many other times bicycles and cars went down that street without an accident?).

The used the example of a bike swerving because of a illegally parked car. I was helpful because it not only showed you how to write a cause and effect agreement but it also showed you how to make it strong.
            I was indifferent about the exercises portion of the website. Even though it was helpful to practice cause and effect problems to see if I understand the material, the website had a very confusing set up of the answers. I think there are many different ways they could have set up the answers to make the website more efficient and useful.

Different Types of Reasoning

This week we are learning about different types of reasoning.  This week we learned about seven different types of reasoning: reasoning by analogy, sign reasoning, causal reasoning, reasoning by criteria, reasoning by example, inductive reasoning, and deductive reasoning. Here is a few examples of each type of reasoning.

àReasoning by Analogy: Reasoning using analogy is a way to appeal to the reader by comparing two similar thoughts and ideas to form a logical statement that the reader can relate to. An example of reasoning by analogy is: “A boss of a company is like the Coach of a football team”. Even though they may not be in the game personally or always in the thick of things at work, without either the coach or boss, the team or company has a very good chance or falling apart.

à Sign Reasoning: This type of reasoning is used when something is stated using implied or obvious statements. An example of sign reasoning is: “Every class, my teacher always comes at least 5 minutes early. Since it is 15 minutes into the class and she is still not here, we conclude that she will not be showing up and that we don’t have class today”.

à Causal Reasoning: The act of casual reasoning is when you argue a claim through cause and effect. An example of casual reasoning is: “I am very low on gas but I am also running very late for work. But if I don’t stop for gas and my car breaks down, I will be extremely late or may not make it to work at all. So I am going to stop for gas before I go to work”.

à Reasoning by Criteria: When reasoning by criteria, you establish criteria that you can use to interpret your claim. An example of reasoning by criteria is: “Mandy’s favorite color is purple, so I got her a purple shirt for her birthday.”

à Reasoning by Example: Reasoning by example is when one uses examples such as story or a comparison that may be of a known person, known situation or something not directly known to the other person. An example of example by reasoning is: “When I took my HTRM class I only took it as a GE requirement, but she grades as if all of us are planning to be HTRM majors which made it very hard for to get a grade higher than a B on any of my papers. So unless you are an HTRM major, I wouldn’t take that class.”  

à Inductive Reasoning: Inductive reasoning is a form of inference producing propositions about unobserved objects or types, either specifically or generally, based on previous observations.  An example of inductive reasoning is: “The sun has risen in the east every morning up until now. The sun will also rise in the east tomorrow.”

à Deductive Reasoning:  In deductive reasoning, if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. An example of deductive reasoning is: “All Biology majors like science. Ashley is a biology major. So Ashley likes science.”

Judging Analogies

Analogies are really hard to analyze because unless the analogy is very clearly stated, we have to look at the similarities and guess the important ones in order to find a general principle that applies to both sides. These kinds of analogies are where you would say that one side of the analogy is like the other is too vague to use a premise.  Epstein gave us a set of question we could use to analyze and figure out analogies:

Questions you can use to help you when evaluating an analogy:

1. Is this an argument? What is a conclusion?

2. What is the comparison?

3. What are the premises? (one or both sides of the comparison)

4. What are the similarities?

5. Can we state that a similarity as premises and find a general principle that covers the two sides?

6. Does the general principle really apply to both sides? Do the differences matter?

7. Is the argument strong or valid? Is it good?

Now I am going to use the set of questions to evaluate an example analogy. An example of an analogy that Epstein gave us to analyze and understand is:

“Blaming soldiers for war is like blaming fireman for fires”.

For this analogy its argument is that neither soldiers start a war nor firemen start the fires. Its conclusion is that we should not be taking out our anger on the soldiers who are just there supporting our country in war but put it towards the people who actually initiated the war. The comparison is between fireman and soldiers job roles.  The premise is that we should not blame soldiers for the war. The similarities are that they both work to save people’s lives while putting themselves in danger to keep our country safe. The general principle of this analogy is that we should not judge people for their jobs just because you don’t agree with what there seem to be supporting. The general principle does apply to both sides the only difference is that firemen’s jobs of putting out fires don’t have the same controversy as the war does.  I would say that the argument is valid and strong because it makes people really stop and think about treat soldiers better and redirecting their complaints to higher powers. Overall I think this is a good argument.

Reasoning by example

Reasoning by example is when one uses examples such as story or a comparison that may be of a known person, known situation or something not directly known to the other person.  Now that I know the definition of reasoning by example, I’ve realized how much I use it in everyday life. An example that probably most college students can relate to is the example of when talking about different classes and their difficulty. When the time comes around again to choose classes for the next semester, and you ask other people how hard a class is or how hard the teachers teaching styles is.  Responses to these questions are usually reasoning by example.  This semester someone asked me if I liked the biology class I am taking this semester and if they should take it or if it is too hard. My response was that, “I really like the class because I have an amazing teacher who is really good at explaining things. But at the same time there is a crazy amount of information you have to know, because you have to turn in 10 papers over the semester and you have 3 exams and a final whose study guides end up being 30 to 40 pages long that take you about a week to do along with other little things, and the class overall is very time consuming. So my advice would be if you need the class and are willing to put in the effort I would take it.” This would be reasoning by example because I gave an example of my previous experiences and explained how for me it was time consuming because of all of the exams and theirs study guides along with all the other work in the class.    

#7

Appeal to patriotism is when people ask for support of a cause based on your love of your country.  An example of an appeal to patriotism is when there is an attack on our country or a war is going on army recruiters use the argument that “the best way you can help your country is by defending it and join the army”. Even though joining the army is a very obvious way to represent and help support your country, there are also many others ways one can help their country without joining the army.  Every time a person buys something that is made by their country, they are in turn supporting their country financially by giving money back through their purchase.  The reason that joining the army seems like a good option is because not only is the argument appealing to patriotism but it is also appeal to emotion. When a country gets attacked or war is occurring, it stirs up a lot of emotions which makes people sometimes change their mind to do something that they normally would not consider to do, which in this case would include joining the army.  So over all, I believe it is a good argument because no matter how people react to the claim it will still make people stop and think about their country and the situation it is in and how they could help, which after all, what the whole point of the claim in the first place.

Appeal to Pity

Appeal to pity is a fallacy in which someone tries to win support for an argument or idea by exploiting his or her opponent's feelings of pity or guilt.  Guilt and pity can be very strong emotions in used correctly. 

An example that probably a lot of people who watch a lot of TV have seen is the ASPCA Sarah Maclachlan commercial.  They use clips of abandoned and abused animals to get there organization heard. They use these clips to appeal to people by making them feel guilty if they don’t help the poor puppies and kitties. If the organization just had a speaker that said “we have a lot of abused and abandoned animals that need your help” without the clips and pictures, that would still be an example of appeal to pity, but a not as strong one.  For most of the organizations who ask you to devote your money or time, they usually physically show you who they are fighting for, because physically seeing who has been harmed or affected is a way stronger tactic of appealing to pity.

Appeal to Emotion

Epstein describes appeal to emotion by saying, “an appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way”.  When it comes appealing to emotion, there are many different aspects. Some of these aspects are: appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, two wrongs make a right, apple polishing, and appear to vanity. 

When looking at the different types of appeal to emotion, the one that strikes me the most is the appeal to fear.  It made me realize how often this type of fallacy is used in all aspects of life.  The form of this fallacy is:

Either P or Q is true.

Q is frightening.

Therefore, P is true.

An example of appeal to fear is, “If you don’t stop smoking, you will get lung cancer and die.”  In this example of appeal to emotion, I am scaring you quit smoking because it makes you consider if smoking is really worth killing yourself.  And if I am correct, most people don’t want to die, so the idea of not smoking maybe be very appealing after reading that claim.