Tutorial # 6. Virtue Ethics. Discussion Questions

In light of the reaings you have done (especially Anscombe and "Virtue Theory" by Greg Pence linked in the previous post), try to think about this questions.

• The question virtue ethics try to answer is: "How should I live?". The answer is: "Flourish by cultivating your virtues!". But what is a virtue? Is it a feature of our character? Is it a disposition to act in a certain way in determinate situations? Is it something more complex?
• How can one cultivate \ educate his or her virtues?
• What is the relation between virtues and emotions? Can we educate our emotions? How can we get our emotions in harmony with our rational recognition of certain reasons for acting so and so in a given situation?
• How can we motivate that certain behaviour and emotions are appropriate in a certain context rather than in others?
• What is the role of the environment in one's attempt to "flourish"? How much do your circumstances (e.g. where you live, your family, your friends, your education, the time when you live etc) affect the posibility of your "flourishing"?
• Do virtues change over time and across cultures? If so, would this undermine virtue ethics? Can we identify universal virtues?
• Being willing to have lots of sexual partners may be regarded as a virtue (e.g. an example of openness) but also as a vice (say, lust) at the same time. Is there a principled way to argue that a certain character is intrinsically virtuous (or vicious)? Are we condemned to relativism?
• Benevolence, Courage, Chastity, Wisdom, Honesty can be considered as examples of virtues. Drunkenness, Caprice, Egoism, Laziness, Lust, Stupidity, Dishonesty as examples of vices. For which reasons are they considered virtues and vices? Is there any particular virtue indispensable for the pursuit of happiness?
• Consider Mandeville's poem. Is vice necessary for a wealthy, and happy society?
• Do virtues presuppose a certain moral view?

Specifically on Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy"

• "Modern Moral Philosophy” argues that virtues are the central concepts needed by moral thought. Do you agree? What is Anscombe’s main reason in support of her claim?
• Do we need a philosophy of psychology to do moral philosophy? Does our psychology need a concept such as duty? How can psychology help us to explain how an unjust man is a bad man?
• For Anscombe Mill is “stupid”, Sidgwick, “vulgar”, Butler “ignorant”, Hume “sophistical”, Kant “absurd”, and the proponent of “hideous fantasy”, while even her beloved Aristotle is sometimes reduced to “babble”. Consider her criticism to Kant. Do you find it convincing? Why?
• Is the notion “morally ought” meaningless, and even "harmful" without a (divine) “law”? When Anscombe says “where one does not think there is a judge or a law, the notion of a verdict may retain its psychological effect, but not its meaning”, is she claiming (with dostoevskij) that if God is dead everything is permitted?
• Mary Geach (Anscombe's daughter) says: "Anscombe wanted people who did not believe in God to stop asking questions like “Is this morally right?”, and to start asking questions like “Is this gluttonous?” or “Is this that kind of injustice which is called murder?”" How does that make difference?
• According to Anscombe, certain things are forbidden, whatever the consequences. Is a notion of duty necessary to justify this claim? And do you agree that certain things are forbidden simpliciter?
• Are there things that the virtuous person simply will not contemplate—he will not even talk about them?
• Regarding this last question, Anscombe's favourite example is procuring the judicial execution of the innocent. She writes (p.17) "But if someone really thinks, in advance, that it is open to question whether such an action as procuring the judicial execution of the innocent should be quite excluded from consideration-I do not want to argue with him; he shows a corrupt mind". Should we argue with "corrupted minds"???

Tutorial # 6. Virtue Ethics. Some Useful (and fun..) References

Some References you may find useful (and fun...)

- A good introduction to Virtue Ethics is Virtue Theory by Gregory Pence, Originally published in Peter Singer, A Companion to Ethics (Blackwell Publishing, 1991).

- An HTML copy of Ascombe (1958). "Modern Moral Philosophy", Philosophy, Vol. 33, No. 124 (Jan., 1958), pp. 1-19, is HERE.

- A (bitter) review of Anscombe by Simon Blackburn (Cambridge, Philosophy) is HERE

- A nice reconstruction of the spirited exchange followed from Blackburn's criticisism to Anscombe is Anscombe's Virtues: Simply Wrong? from Brian Leiter's Blog

Tutorial # 6. Virtue Ethics. Virtue and Vices A Moral from Mandeville

From http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_oct2003.htm

By Alex Voorhoeve

"Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) was a doctor and pamphleteer, whose works had a large impact on the course of eighteenth century social philosophy. Mandeville was born and educated in the Dutch Republic. After being implicated in a popular uprising in his native city of Rotterdam, he travelled Europe and settled in London.

Mandeville started a practice as a doctor and soon began to write. In 1705, he published a poem, The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turn'd Honest. It tells of a wealthy and powerful beehive whose inhabitants act only in pursuit of gain and esteem. Nevertheless, they espouse an ethic that condemns this behaviour and frequently lament that their society is full of sin. Irritated by their constant complaining, their god decides to make them all virtuous. In a flash, their society comes to a stop: commerce and industry are abandoned, and the bees leave their once flourishing hive and withdraw to live simply in the hollow of a tree. The moral is that virtue can only lead to a poor, ascetic society, whereas the vices are the necessary engines of a wealthy and powerful nation"

Here is the Moral of the poem

by Bernard de Mandeville (1670 – 1733)

The M O R A L.
THEN leave Complaints: Fools only striveTo make a Great an honest Hive. [410]T'enjoy the World's Conveniencies,Be famed in War, yet live in EaseWithout great Vices, is a vainEutopia seated in the Brain.Fraud, Luxury, and Pride must live; [415]Whilst we the Benefits receive.Hunger's a dreadful Plague no doubt,Yet who digests or thrives without?Do we not owe the Growth of WineTo the dry, crooked, shabby Vine? [420]Which, whist its shutes neglected stood,Choak'd other Plants, and ran to Wood;But blest us with his Noble Fruit;As soon as it was tied, and cut:So Vice is beneficial found, [425]When it's by Justice lopt and bound;Nay, where the People would be great,As necessary to the State,At Hunger is to make 'em eat.Bare Vertue can't make Nations live [430]In Splendour; they, that would reviveA Golden Age, must be as free,For Acorns, as for Honesty.

If you are curious, you can find all the poem Here

Tutorial # 5. Deontological Ethics. Disucssion Questions

Try to think about these questions in light of "The Good Will & The Categorical Principle" by Immanuel Kant (pp. 625 - 640 On our Feinberg&Landau textbook) .

Another very good reference is the "Deontological Ethics" entry on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/

• What should motivate moral action, according to Kant?
• What does Kant mean by the good will?
• Do you think the good will is something subjective? In what sense?
• Kant writes (Groundwork, in Feinberg&Landau p. 626): “… in a being that has reason and a will, if the proper end of nature were its preservation, its welfare, in a word its happiness then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to carry out its purpose. For all the actions that the creature has to perform for this purpose … would be marked out for it far more accurately by instinct”. Do you agree? Does instinct serves happiness better than reason?
• Kant (Groundwork, in Feinberg&Landau p. 627) argues that “the true vocation of reason must be to produce a will that is good in itself”. The premises of the argument are three: (I) “Reason is not sufficiently competent to guide the will with regards to its objects and the satisfaction of all our needs” (II) “Reason is nevertheless given to us as practical faculty, that is, as one that is to influence the will” (III) “Nature has everywhere else gone to work purposively in distributing its capacities”. Assess this argument.
• How do we know that an action is made not only in conformity with duty but also from duty?
• Can love be commanded?
• What is the difference between love as an inclination and love as a principle of action?
• How does the representation of the law determine the will? Is respect for the law a causal relation?
• “You shall not murder”, or “You shall not lie” are examples of categorical imperatives: That is, they are duties that all rational beings ought to respect (recall Kant’s “I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law”). Now, do you think we ought to respect a categorical imperative no matter what?
• Consider this maxim: “Steal when you are too poor to feed yourself”. Would it pass the universalizability test? Would it be a moral law?
• Does Kant give us a moral theory that we can follow?
• Would the universalizability test solve moral dilemmas? E.g. consider the following. A mental with a gun in her hand ask you where your best friend is because she wants to kill your friend. Should you tell the truth to the mental? Or should you lie in order to protect your friend?
• For Kant the consequences of an action don’t bear on the moral status of the action. Do you agree? Imagine, e.g., a baby-sitter who by acting from duty keeps a baby warm by putting it in the microwave. Do you think that an unintentional bad consequence of an action made from duty don’t bear on the moral status of that action?

Tutorial # 5. Deontological Ethics. Fun - Kant

Some funny stuff about Kant...

A Rant about Kant by Neven Sesardic

Kant Attack Ad

Tutorial # 5. Deontological Ethics. Some Anecdotes on Kant

From Andreas Teuber's webpages:
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/kantbio.html


"Years of living frugally, increases in his salary, and honoraria for his publications enabled Kant in 1783 to buy a house on Prinzessinstra and to hire a cook. (A few years previous he had employed as his footman Martin Lampe, a retired Prussian soldier remembered for his dullness). At this time Kant reorganized his daily routine, which changed little for the rest of his life. He subjected himself to the severest regimen to maintain his health, for he was a small, frail man with a delicate constitution. He arose punctually at five o'clock and drank a few cups of tea while he thought about the day's lectures. At seven he went downstairs to the room reserved as his classroom and taught until nine. Then he wrote until lunch, which always began precisely at one o'clock. He looked forward to this meal with keen anticipation, not only because it was the only one he permitted himself but because it was a social event. Since he thought conversation aided digestion, and he was gregarious by nature, there were always from three to nine guests--never fewer than the graces, never more than the muses, he explained. As he did not like to talk shop in his free time, he selected the guests from a variety of occupations--politicians, doctors, lawyers, officers, merchants, students, colleagues, or anyone who happened to be passing through town and wanted to see him. The food was plentiful, the wine flowed freely, the atmosphere was casual, the conversation was stimulating. Women were not invited. This exclusion, coupled with his lifelong bachelorhood, led to speculation that he disliked women. This notion is incorrect. He often said about himself that when he needed a wife he was too poor to feed one, and when he was at last able to feed one he did not need one anymore.
After lunch came the famous walk, which he took every day regardless of the weather. It lasted precisely one hour, and the route rarely varied. He always walked alone, convinced that breathing through the mouth, which conversation necessitates, was unhealthy. This ritual was not without problems during the summer, for perspiration disgusted him; at the slightest indication he would seek out a shady spot and stand perfectly still until he was dry again. He spent the evening reading or writing. At precisely ten o'clock he went to bed. Unlike the rest of the house, the bedroom was never heated, even during frigid weather. The window was never opened, and he refused to keep a candle in the room; if he had to get up during the night he felt his way along a rope running from the bed to the door. When he was ready to fall asleep he always pronounced the name "Cicero" a few times.

In 1802, Kant discharged the man (named Lampe) who had faithfully served him for many years. He proved unable, however, to dismiss Lampe from his mind. The troubled philosopher finally entered a memorandum in his notebook: "Remember," it read, "from now on the name of Lampe must be completely forgotten."

Tutorial # 5. Deontological Ethics. Kant's Ethics. A very short Primer

From http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/kantbio.html
Prof. Andreas Teuber's webpage

"In answering the question of what ought to be, Kant says that instead of our actions conforming to the facts--the situations in which we find ourselves or the inclinations we happen to have--they should conform to our principles. These principles are derived from reason. A true moral act, he says, depends on the motive of the action, not on the outcome. The only motive that is good in itself, without qualification, is the good will: that is, the desire to act according to duty. Duty is discovered by reason and is the same for everyone at all places and at all times. He formulates the moral law in his famous categorical imperative: "Handle, so da die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könnte" (Act in such a way that the principle of your will could at any time also become the principle of a universal law). In other words, if an action could not be made universal without contradicting itself, that action is immoral. Kant illustrates this principle with the example of the false promise.

To get himself out of a financial difficulty, a person proposes to borrow some money. He knows that he will never be able to pay the money back, but he also knows that he will not receive the loan unless he promises to repay the lender. Should he, then, falsely promise to pay the money back? A moment's reflection shows that if such an action were made universal--if everyone made false promises-the institution of promising would go out of existence, because no one would accept a promise anymore. Thus the false promise would, if made universal, negate or contradict itself; and self-contradiction is the epitome of irrationality. Immorality, then, is equivalent to irrationality"

Tutorial # 4 Why Be Moral? On Egoism. Discussion Questions

In light of the readings you have done, try to think about this questions.
The materials I have just uploaded are not compulsory, but highly recommended (and brief anyway).

• Does one always act with the exclusive intention of promoting one's own best
  interests?
• What is one’s own interest? Pleasure? Avoiding pain? Something else?
• Is it possible that one does not actually know what his or her best interest is?
• David Hume writes: "Love between the sexes begets a complacency and good-will, very distinct from the gratification of an appetite. Tenderness to their offspring, in all sensible beings, is commonly able alone to counter-balance the strongest motives of self-love, and has no manner of dependance on that affection. What interest can a fond mother have in view, who loses her health by assiduous attendance on her sick child, and afterwards languishes and dies of grief, when freed, by its death, from the slavery of that attendance?" (An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - Appendix II. Of Self-love, 1751).
  How could one argue that this mother’s intention is egoistic? Think about Stirner's argument.
• What would you reply to someone who argued that the Saints are egoists, since their acts are solely motivated by the expectation of a reward in a prospective after-life?
• Is egoism a fundamental feature of our psychology?
• What are the emotions underlying self-interest? How do they facilitate (or impede) our egoism?
• To what extent egoism is “innate”? To what extent is “learned”?
• Would egoists have an advantage in evolutionary terms (in terms of survival and reproduction)?
• What is in your opinion the best argument for (or against) psychological egoism? Why?
• Even if we are egoist, would it follow that we ought to be?
• Does rationality require anything other than that we pursue our own interests?
• Do we have a duty to help others?
• What are the differences between psyhological, ethical, and rational egoism?
  

The entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/ by Robert Shaver is a good background to sort out differences between psychological, ethical, and rational egoism.

Tutorial # 4 Why Be Moral? The Homo Economicus

When Does Economic Man dominate Social Behavior? Camerer C, Fehr E. Science 311 47-52 (2006)

This paper elaborates on the neoclassical economic concept of "Homo Economicus".
An "Economic Man" is perfectly rational in an instrumental sense, and is self-interest: He deploys his best endeavors upon accessibe information an capacity of reasoning, so as to maximise individual advantage. However, in the real world there seem to be very few economic men...

Tutorial # 4 Why Be Moral? Stirner on Egoism

From http://tmh.floonet.net/teaho/theego16.html#pp386

Max Stirner (1844)

Der Einzige und sein Eigentum ("The Ego and its Own")

love cuts no better figure than any other passion that I obey blindly. The ambitious man, who is carried away by ambition and remains deaf to every warning that a calm moment begets in him, has let this passion grow up into a despot against whom he abandons all power of dissolution: he has given up himself, because he cannot dissolve himself, and consequently cannot absolve himself from the passion: he is possessed. I love men too -- not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no "commandment of love."

Tutorial # 4 Why Be Moral? Hobbes on Egoism

From Project Gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/lvthn10.txt

Thomas Hobbes (1651)

Leviathan

The Fourth Law Of Nature, Gratitude

As Justice dependeth on Antecedent Covenant; so does Gratitude depend on Antecedent Grace; that is to say, Antecedent Free-gift: and is the fourth Law of Nature; which may be conceived in this Forme, "That a man which receiveth Benefit from another of meer Grace, Endeavour that he which giveth it, have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good will." For no man giveth, but with intention of Good to himselfe; because Gift is Voluntary; and of all Voluntary Acts, the Object is to every man his own Good; of which if men see they shall be frustrated, there will be no beginning of benevolence, or trust; nor consequently of mutuall help; nor of reconciliation of one man to another; and therefore they are to remain still in the condition of War; which is contrary to the first and Fundamentall Law of Nature, which commandeth men to Seek Peace. The breach of this Law, is called Ingratitude; and hath the same relation to Grace, that Injustice hath to Obligation by Covenant.

Botticelli vs Duchamp

Sandro Botticelli Primavera (1477-1490), Firenze - Uffizi

Marcel Duchamp Fountaine (1917)

-------

Minimal Further Readings - For Essays or Personal Interest

• N. Warburton, Philosophy, The Basics, 2nd ed., Routledge Chpt. 7
• Stanford Encyclopedia: "Art Definition". URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/
• Institute of Neuroestethics. URL: http://www.neuroesthetics.org/

Tutorial #3. What is Beauty? What is Art? Disucssion Questions

Think about these questions in light of the lectures and the readings materials provided (Voltaire, and Neuroestethics). Try to give critical answers.

• Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?


• When we say something is beautiful, are we recommending to others that they should take delight in it?


• Beauty may be intersubjective, but is it objective? Are there objective standards of beauty?


• Can we argue rationally about whether something is beautiful?


• What does it mean to say that art expresses emotion?


• Do beauty and happiness go together?


• What is the role of the experience of beauty in a good life?


• Is taste a function of education and economics? Or perhaps, is it more a "hard-wired" neurobiological function?


• Is natural beauty ever better than constructed beauty, like in art or music?


• Must art be beautiful to be great art?


• Does placing a work (any work) in a museum makes that work a work-of-art? Contrast Duchamp’s Fountain and Botticelli’s Primavera. They are both in museums. Are they both works of art? Why? Or why not?

Tutorial # 3. What is Beauty? What is Art? Neuroestethics

The Neural correlates of beauty S Zeki and H Kawabata Journal of Neurophysiology (J Neurophysiol 91: 1699-1705, 2004)

We will concern ourselves with the Introduction and the Discussion sections (that is, we can skip the methodological\experimental stuff) -
Try to focus on the philosophical consequences about the nature of beauty that this kind of experiments might have.

ps The pdf article is linked - click on the title.

Tutorial # 3. What is Beauty? What is Art? Voltaire On Beauty

From Project Gutenberg's:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18569/18569-h/18569-h.htm

Voltaire (1764)
Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary)

"Beauty"

Ask a toad what beauty is, the to kalon? He will answer you that it is his toad wife with two great round eyes issuing from her little head, a wide, flat mouth, a yellow belly, a brown back. Interrogate a Guinea negro, for him beauty is a black oily skin, deep-set eyes, a flat nose. Interrogate the devil; he will tell you that beauty is a pair of horns, four claws and a tail. Consult, lastly, the philosophers, they will answer you with gibberish: they have to have something conforming to the arch-type of beauty in essence, to the to kalon.
One day I was at a tragedy near by a philosopher. "How beautiful that is!" he said. "What do you find beautiful there?" I asked. "It is beautiful," he answered, "because the author has reached his goal." The following day he took some medicine which did him good. "The medicine has reached its goal," I said to him. "What a beautiful medicine!" He grasped that one cannot say a medicine is beautiful, and that to give the name of "beauty" to something, the thing must cause you to admire it and give you pleasure. He agreed that the tragedy had inspired these sentiments in him, and that there was the to kalon, beauty.
We journeyed to England: the same piece, perfectly translated, was played there; it made everybody in the audience yawn. "Ho, ho!" he said, "the to kalon is not the same for the English and the French." After much reflection he came to the conclusion that beauty is often very relative, just as what is decent in Japan is indecent in Rome,[Pg 54] and what is fashionable in Paris, is not fashionable in Pekin; and he saved himself the trouble of composing a long treatise on beauty.
There are actions which the whole world finds beautiful. Two of Cæsar's officers, mortal enemies, send each other a challenge, not as to who shall shed the other's blood with tierce and quarte behind a thicket as with us, but as to who shall best defend the Roman camp, which the Barbarians are about to attack. One of them, having repulsed the enemy, is near succumbing; the other rushes to his aid, saves his life, and completes the victory.
A friend sacrifices his life for his friend; a son for his father.... The Algonquin, the Frenchman, the Chinaman, will all say that that is very beautiful, that these actions give them pleasure, that they admire them.
They will say as much of the great moral maxims, of Zarathustra's—"In doubt if an action be just, abstain..."; of Confucius'—"Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses."
The negro with the round eyes and flat nose, who will not give the name of "beauties" to the ladies of our courts, will without hesitation give it to these actions and these maxims. The wicked man even will recognize the beauty of these virtues which he dare not imitate. The beauty which strikes the senses merely, the imagination, and that which is called "intelligence," is often uncertain therefore. The beauty which speaks to the heart is not that. You will find a host of people who will tell you that they have found nothing beautiful in three-quarters of the Iliad; but nobody will deny that Codrus' devotion to his people was very beautiful, supposing it to be true.
There are many other reasons which determine me not to write a treatise on beauty.

Tutorial # 2. Informal Reasoning. An Exercise

#Try to give a critical evaluation of the following article in light of Thomson (2002)'s Ch.5.
Take notes of the main points, and come to the tutorial with a one-page brief argument of your own either in favour of or against legalising soft drugs- give reasons, give evidence and examples.

Exercise 3 from Thomson (2002) Ch. 5.

Slippery slope of legalising drugs

By
Professor P. A. J. Waddington

The newly elected leader of the Liberal Democrats has stirred up a storm by suggesting the legalisation of soft drugs should be reviewed by a Royal Commission.
There is a strong argument for legalisation. It is demonstrable that outlawing these drugs has failed to stem, still less eliminate, their sale. All the indications are that the consumption of illicit drugs is now common-place – especially among the young. So, if we can’t beat it, perhaps we should try regulating it. This, after all was surely the lesson to be learned from the American experiment with Prohibition. Outlawing commodities that people want to buy simply encourages criminals to supply them, leading to gangsterism. It also leads otherwise law-abiding people into the clutches of those with a vested interest in ensuring that they become addicted to harder drugs.
Regulation not only eliminates criminal involvement, it can ensure product standards. When people buy illicit drugs they have no idea how strong the dose
will turn out to be, with the obvious risk of overdosing. And let me remind those who say ‘serves them right’, that the victim might easily be a member of their family. Distribution through legitimate retail outlets means the consumption of these drugs would also be controlled through the informal rules that surround any social activity. Pubs dispense a potentially lethal drug in ways that encourage moderate usage. It is hugely watered down, mixed with non-alcoholic beverages, and regarded as an accompaniment to sociability, rather than an end in itself. These are all more effective controls than the threat of police action. As advocates for the legalisation of cannabis are fond of telling us, the harm that cannabis does is far less than that done by alcohol. They are absolutely correct: the drug problem on university campuses nationwide is that of alcohol – not cannabis or amphetamines. However, this is precisely where I find the argument for legalisation unconvincing. The regulation of alcohol is held up as a model to emulate and Prohibition as a failure to be avoided. It seems strange to claim that a policy has been a ‘success’ when it evidently produces such mayhem. The country that has pursued policies of decriminalising soft drug consumption most avidly is, of course, the Netherlands. It has the highest crime rate in the western world in the recently published International Crime Survey. When my wife and I visited Amsterdam, we took the opportunity of revisiting the youth we never had and threw ourselves on the mercy of the proprietor who sold us a couple of cannabis chocolates. Apart from sending us both soundly and gigglingly to sleep, my experience was that taking dope was very different to consuming alcohol. It was an act of deliberately consuming a drug in order to experience the effect. This is not how I experience the consumption of alcohol, where the effect is almost an incidental by-product of the taste of the wine or beer and conviviality of the circumstances.
The suggestion that the adverse consequences of soft-drug use owes most to the fact that it is outlawed, also seems contrary to experience. In the 1970s and 1980s Scotland suffered particularly from heroin addiction. The path that addicts seem to have taken was via solvent abuse. Now, at that time the supply of solvents was both legal and abundant, and their abuse was not outlawed. Yet solvent abuse seemed to be the slippery slope down which many young people tragically slid into heroin addiction. The ‘slippery slope’ argument is revealing in another sense: advocates of legalisation insist that without the involvement of criminal suppliers cannabis use need not lead to addiction to harder drugs. Implicit in this argument (which some advocates are willing to make quite explicit) is the acceptance that hard drugs should remain illegal. Of course, this raises the whole thorny issue of where the line between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ should be drawn. It is predictable that having legalised cannabis, another campaign would commence to legalise cocaine and heroin.
I don’t know where this leaves us, but mine’s a pint.

(Police Review, 27 August 1999)

Tutorial # 2. Informal Reasoning. Exercising the skills of reasoning

From Anne Thomson (2002) Critical Reasoning, Chapter 5

Summary: Assessing an argument

Analysing

1 Identify conclusion and reasons:
• look for ‘conclusion indicators’,
• look for ‘reason indicators’ and/or
• ask ‘What is the passage trying to get me to accept or believe?’
• ask ‘What reasons/evidence is it using in order to get me to believe this?’

2 Identify unstated assumptions:
• assumptions supporting basic reasons,
• assumptions functioning as additional reasons, assumptions functioning as intermediate conclusions,
• assumptions concerning the meanings of words,
• assumptions about analogous or comparable situations,
• assumptions concerning the appropriateness of a given explanation.

Evaluating

3 Evaluate truth of reasons and assumptions:
• how would you seek further information in order to help you to do this?

4 Assess the reliability of any authorities on whom the reasoning depends.

5 Is there any additional evidence which strengthens or weakens the conclusion?
• anything which may be true?
• anything which you know to be true?

6 Assess the plausibility of any explanation you have identified.

7 Assess the appropriateness of any analogies or comparisons you have identified.

8 Can you draw any conclusions from the passåge? If so, do they suggest that the reasoning in the passage is faulty?

9 Is any of the reasoning in the passage parallel with reasoning which you know to be flawed?

10 Do any of the reasons or assumptions embody a general principle? If so, evaluate it.

11 Is the conclusion well supported by the reasoning? If not, can you state the way in which the move from the reasons to the conclusion is flawed? Use your answers to questions 5 to 10 to help you to do this.

Deduction and Induction

What is an Argument?

An argument is a set of statements. One statement is the conclusion of the argument. The others are the premises. The premises give support to the conclusion.
Deductive arguments and Inductive arguments are two types of logically correct arguments.

#What are the characteristics of a deductive argument?

A Deductive Argument is:

1. Non-Ampliative: In a valid deductive argument, all of the content of the conclusion is already present in the premises.

2. Valid arguments are necessarily truth preserving: If the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

3. Valid Arguments are Erosion proof. If new premises are added, the argument remains valid.

4. Deductive validity is an all-or-nothing issue: A deductive argument is either valid or invalid.

#What are the characteristics of an inductive argument?

An Inductive argument is:

1. Ampliative: The conclusion has content that goes beyond the content of the premises.

2. Inductive arguments are not necessarily truth preserving: A correct inductive argument may have true premises and a false conclusion.

3. Inductive arguments are not erosion proof: new premises may undermine the argument.

4. Inductie arguments have different degrees of strength. In some inductive arguments the premises support the conclusion more or less strongly than in other inductive arguments.


An Example of Deductive argument

(1) All Italians are beautiful
Matteo is an Italian
________________________
Matteo is beautiful

This argument is a valid deduction. It is nonampliative: when we say that all Italians are beautiful, we also say that Matteo is beautiful, given that he is Italian. It is necessarily truh-preserving: If the premises express something true, the conclusion must also express something true - given that the conclusion doesn't express anything which is not already expressed in the premises. Even if new premises are added, e.g. Ruth is Italian, the argument remains valid. The premises support totally, not up to a certain degree, the conclusion.


An Example of Inductive Argument:

(2) All observed Scots like beer­
=========================
All Scots like beer


This argument is ampliative: The premise is only about the Scots that have been observed so far. The conclusion is about all Scots (also those to be observed). It is not necessarily truth preserving. Possibly, there is, was, orwill be a Scot who dislikes beer. The argument is not erosion proof: it suffices to observe Andy, who is a Scot who dislikes beer, to undermine the argument. The strength of this argument is also a question of degree. If you have observed millions of Scots in different ages of history and places your argument would be stronger than an argument whose premise rely only on the observation of few Scots gathered at the pub one Saturday night.


NOTE

Deductive validity and Inductive correctedness only concern the logical relation between premises and conclusion. They enable us to give an answer to this question:
Does the conclusion of the argument really follow (deductively), or is supported (inductively), from the premises?

A separate issue is: Are the premises of the argument true and worthy of our belief?

A Valid Deduction may have true premises and true conclusion (in this case the deduction is sound):

(3) All humans have a brain.
Ruth is human.
­­­_______________________
Ruth has a brain.

BUT A Valid deduction may also have false premises and true conclusion:

(4) All soccer players are American
Obama is a soccer player­­­
________________________
Obama is American

... and a valid deduction may also have false premises and false conclusion:

(5) All Humans play soccer for Liverpool
Mickey Mouse is human
­­­________________________________
Mickey Mouse play soccer for Liverpool

- When we say that a valid deduction is necessariy truth preserving, we mean that there cannot be a valid deduction with true premises and a false conclusion.

- Instead when we say that an inductive argument is correct we mean that if the premises are true (and relevant to the conclusion), then the conclusion is probable.