Oct. '11 Section 1, Q.16

[Chrismen30]

So I have been trying to understand why this answer is wrong for the past 20 min and still "nada."

There is a view which claims that:
Basically everyone is selfish which implies that government by consent is impossible.

Then there is a view by some social theorists that believe the mentioned view that:
Democracy is impossible. Their reasoning is that democracy is not possible without government consent.

I believe their argument is valid, right?

SI -> GCI (Selfish then govt. consent impossible)
ABGC -> ~DP (Absence of govt. then democracy not possible)

Conclusion of Social theorists: SI -> ~DP (Selfish then Democracy is impossible)

The only thing I could think that is "fishy," and only because its a Flaw question, so of course there is something wrong, would be inferring that Government consent impossible is the same as absence of government, but I don't really think thats to far fetched.

Usually typing out my reasoning reveals some type of insight, and still I am confused why its (A).

Please explain wrong answers why they are so, and the correct answer please. And thank you in advance for answering my question!

[Jon Denning]

Hey Chrismen,

Thanks for the question! The mistake here comes from the author holding a certain belief about the implications of a position (that self-interested people implies no government by consent), and then assuming, possibly incorrectly, that others who believe the first position (people are self-interested) will by default also believe what the author thinks is the outcome/implication (no government by consent).

Let me offer an alternative parallel case and see if I can illustrate this faulty reasoning a bit better. Imagine that I tell you that I think people generally want to be healthy, and the implication of that is that eating donuts for every meal is not possible. That's actually two beliefs: one about people, and the other about the consequences. The mistake comes if I then tell you that doctors who also believe people want to be healthy (they have the same initial belief as me) must definitely agree with my second belief as well (the consequence that eating only donuts won't happen). Just because someone starts at the same place as the author doesn't mean they'll absolutely accept the direction the author goes from there.

Me: I think that if A is true then you definitely get B.
You: Well I agree that A is true...
Me: So you believe you'll definitely get B, too!

See the problem?

And that's what answer choice (A) says: just because someone holds a similar belief (people are self-interested) doesn't guarantee they'll believe the same implications of that belief (no government by consent).

As for the others, (B) and (C) are both errors of composition/division, which doesn't occur here; (D) is a source argument where the attack is against the person rather than the person's reasoning (doesn't occur here); (E) describes an attack on an argument (attempting to show a conclusion is false), which also doesn't happen here.

I hope that helps!

[Chrismen30]

Thanks Jon! The diagram really help clarify. Now I can't believe I didn't get that, at the same time I was kinda running out of time.

One more question before we end.
What Flaw argument type does this fall under? I am taking the live course and trying to compare the flaw with the categories in our book, but still having trouble identifying the category.

Also, I think I found how this differs from a "Error of composition and Division" argument?
Please correct me if I am wrong!

IF it had said something like this: All who hold view A implies they believe X (govt. by consent impossible) to, here is a subset of people who believe A (Social theorists), they believe X to. Therefore, Social theorists believe X.

Then it would be a "Error of composition..." but since it brings in the view about "Democracy" thats when it can't be because its something that cannot be proven given the argument since its like:
~D -> ABGovt
and the argument is:
SI -> GovtCI
Say GovtCI is the same as ABGovt, if the conditional had been ABGovt -> ~D, then it would be an "error of composition..." Right?

[Jon Denning]

No problem!

I don't really see this as one of the common categories that we outline in the course, which is something that happens from time to time. The categories we describe are simply the most common types that appear--both as actual flaws and trap answers--so it pays to know them. But that doesn't mean every argument that is less than 100% valid will necessarily exhibit one of those mistakes. Conclusions can be questionable for all sorts of reasons, a truth that speaks to the value of practice and exposure.

I'm not really sure you can do much to turn this into a composition/division problem with the specifics given. Certainly you could change it around a lot if you wanted to force that error into it, saying something like "all social scientists believe X, therefor all scientists believe it," but in this case I don't find it to be particularly applicable or, for that matter, helpful. Just recognize that it's not that type of error and celebrate your ability to quickly kill two answers as a result