#8 - Toddlers are not being malicious when they bite people

[cargopants]

I suppose if someone is preventing you from having a toy and E, biting them is an effective way to get what you want, doing harm can be the reason for the perceived effectiveness, meaning the intent is malicious and therefore E is wrong.

Whereas for A, if someone is preventing you from having a toy and you think a bite will solve the problem, then there is more potential for the bite to have utility other than the harm it causes in solving the problem? As in, they think the action of the bite itself will solve the problem, causing harm may not be in their intent? Is this correct? I still feel a bit unclear about it.

As for how to move through this more quickly in the future, does a prephrase work here? for example setting the prephase as "a toddler may have reasons other than causing harm for biting people" and "solving a problem" being a further removed from maliciousness than "getting what you want"?

[Adam Tyson]

The situation in the stimulus does not follow the principle laid out in answer E because there is no indication that biting is actually effective. We don't know if these toddlers ever get what they want! All we know is that they want the toy and that they bite the other kid. Maybe it's effective, maybe not. Maybe it's out of anger at being denied the toy, or maybe it's just a way to get the toy.

The answer has to support the claim that biting in this sort of case need not be malicious. Answer A does that by saying that it could be for some purpose other than just malice. Think of it this way:

Premise: A child wants a toy and bites the person who has that toy and is preventing them from having it.

Answer A: Sometimes biting is a way for toddlers to solve problems.

Conclusion: So they weren't necessarily being malicious.

It isn't nearly as good an argument if you instead insert answer E, like so:

Premise: A child wants a toy and bites the person who has that toy and is preventing them from having it.

Answer E: Sometimes biting is effective for toddlers.

Conclusion: So they weren't necessarily being malicious.

Notice how answer E doesn't tell us what the toddler was thinking or feeling? Even if they end up getting the toy, there is still no reason to believe the toddler bit because they were trying to get it. They still could have been acting maliciously, and they just got lucky.

E is very attractive, but A much more clearly links the premise to the conclusion that they were not being malicious, because it deals with their motive more directly, while E is focused on the outcome rather than the intention.