CCC8011 Term 2 2024-2025

Assignment 3

Question 1: Argument Maps [6 points]

Consider the following complex argument.

“18-month-old toddlers can have knowledge since they can know, for example, that the television set is on. However, if someone doesn’t understand the word ‘know’, then they cannot know what they know. Therefore, it is possible for someone to have knowledge without knowing what they know.’

a)   Assign a number to each of the statements in the argument.

b)   Use your numbering from (a) to write down, for each premise in the argument, whether it is a co-premise or an independent premise, and to write down, for each conclusion in  the argument, whether it is the main conclusion or an intermediate conclusion.

c)   Draw an argument map for the argument, reflecting your judgments in part (b).

Question 2: Hidden Premises [4 points]

Suppose that someone offers you the following argument.

An 18-month-old toddler doesn’t understand the word ‘responsibility’ .

No 18-month-old toddler can be held responsible for their actions.

a)   Propose a hidden premise that would make the argument valid if it were added to the above argument’s premises.

b)   Explain why your proposed hidden premise is in line with the Holding Hands rule and the Rabbit rule.

Question 3: Inductive Arguments [4 points]

Consider the following inductive argument.

At 3pm, Joe rolled a standard six-sided die in a fair way.

Joe’s roll of the die at 3pm resulted in it landing with an even-numbered side facing up.

(Remember, the sides of a standard six-sided die are each marked with one number from 1 to 6, and each number from 1 to 6 appears on some side.)

a)   The above argument is not inductively strong. Is it inductively weak, inductively irrelevant, or inductively bad? Explain your answer.

b)   Propose an extra premise that would make the above argument inductively weaker if that premise were added to the argument.

c)   Propose an extra premise that would make the above argument inductively strong (but not valid!) if that premise were added to the argument.

(When adding premises, it is helpful to think of it like this: imagine that we have learnt some new information about what happened when Joe rolled the die and you’ve added a further premise that describes this new information.)

Question 4: Common Fallacies [6 points]

For each of the following bad arguments, identify the common fallacy that best describes the mistake in that argument. You don’t need to provide justification for your answer. In each case, you must select a fallacy from the list discussed in lecture: equivocation, denying the antecedent, affirming the consequent, hasty generalization, begging the question, false dilemma, irrelevant appeal to popularity, argument ad hominem, attacking a strawman, wishful thinking, accepting a contradiction.

a)   Introducing the death penalty would result in a dramatic reduction in violent crime,

since adding capital punishment to the law would ensure that there is far less violence of a criminal nature.

b)   If Jane is the best doctor in town, then we can trust her advice. But Jane isn’t the best doctor in town. So, we can’t trust her advice.

c)   If Jane is the best doctor in town, then we can trust her advice. We can definitely trust Jane’s advice. So, she is the best doctor in town.

d)   Most forms of gambling are currently illegal in Hong Kong. But gambling is an

unavoidable part of life because we gamble every time that we cross a busy road, get married, or start a new career. So, Hong Kong’s laws on gambling should change.

e)   My sociology lecturer says that there is no evidence that atheists are more likely to

become criminals than people that belong to established religions. However, we should reject what she says, since she is herself one of the misguided people that embrace atheism.

f)    Either a person has taken a critical thinking course, or they are incapable of reasoning well. So, we can ignore all of Mary’s arguments, since she has never taken a critical thinking course.