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207 appendix I Answers to Exercises Exercise 1A: Answers Empirical: What Is Your Evidence? Mixture Nonempirical: What Are Your Reasons? 1. Sex without commitment is wrong. X 2. Photo radar doesn’t work. X 3.  If your friend has a serious drug addiction, you should tell his or her parents. X 4. Smoking causes cancer. This claim is so embedded in “common knowledge” that it would be odd to ask for evidence, even though it is empirical. X 5.  Toddlers who spend most of their time in day care end up being more independent than their peers. One could set up an experiment to test out this hypothesis. It is somewhat of a mixture in that one could try to reason its conclusion if there was no evidence available. However, one must always be prepared to admit that, ultimately, empirical evidence is always the deciding factor for empirical claims. X 208 appendix I Exercise 2A: Answers Vague Precise Enough 1. Children should take more responsibility doing chores at home. X R. So do you think that primary schoolchildren should do all the cooking and cleaning? 2. All prospective parents should be required to take parenting courses. X R. What kind of courses? The kind that tell you when it is OK to feed baby solid food or the kind that will help parents ensure that their kids have a healthy measure of self-esteem? If the latter, what would those courses look like? This is also vague as it is not obvious how this would be enforced, although one might suggest a tax credit for every parent who took the course. 3. Our city should have more parks. X R. Oh, really? Does anyone know any square inch of any city that is not already owned and used? Should we start tearing down skyscrapers in order to make way for parks? 4. The government should ensure that all pets are treated humanely. X R. How are we going to do that—have cameras in homes and gardens? Note: This person may very well have a precise problem in mind—e.g., not securing dogs that ride in the back of trucks. If so, then this response may prompt the individual to be more precise. 5. Our city should build a comprehensive mass transit system. X R. And how is the government going to pay for it? Shall we double the tax on gas? Exercise 4A: Answers 1. You have just committed the fallacy of an illegitimate ad hominem attack. John presented an argument. The assumption in rational discourse is that all arguments should be judged on their own merit. The fact that John is a member of the Ku Klux Klan has no bearing on the merit of the argument. So what do you think of his argument that immigration levels should be curtailed until unemployment levels are down? 2. It seems to me that that is a faulty analogy. The point of opening “shooting galleries” is to save the lives of addicts by decreasing overdoses, the use of contaminated drugs, and the dangerous practice of sharing needles. Opening shooting galleries, in other words, has a number of highly positive benefits; letting kids loose in a candy store has few. I think your analogy decreases our understanding of the intent of opening shooting galleries rather than enhancing our understanding. 3. Your reasoning begs the question. What is at issue is whether or not criminal offenders under the age of eighteen should receive special protection under the law. Simply saying they should not is not the same as providing a reason explaining why they should not. The reason that you offer (i.e., they should not receive special treatment) is just a rewording of the conclusion. The argument, therefore, is circular. 4. You are being paralyzed by a false dilemma. Going to the police or doing nothing are not the only options that are open to you. You might, for example, decide that the best course of action is to try and persuade your friend to turn himself in. If he refuses, you might decide that he was not the friend you thought he was in the first place, and hence may not deserve your loyalty. 5. Sofia’s reasoning is an example of a post hoc fallacy. On the basis of a ten-day trial, Sofia has jumped to the conclusion that the mixture of lemon juice and Rindgold’s Rosewater caused her blemishes to disappear. How- 209 answers to...

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