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EXAMPLE 2
2. David Bernstein [in Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations, and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal, 2001] places labor laws at the center of the contemporary plight of black Americans.
Many of these ostensibly neutral laws (e.g., licensing laws, minimum-wage laws, and collective bargaining laws) were either directly aimed at stymieing black economic and social advancement or, if not so aimed, were quickly turned to that use. A huge swath of the American labor market was handed over to labor unions from which blacks, with few exceptions, were totally excluded. The now longstanding gap between black and white unemployment rates dates precisely from the moment of government intervention on labor’s behalf. In short (Bernstein argues) the victories of American labor were the undoing of American blacks.
—Ken I. Kirsch, “Blacks and Labor—the Untold Story,” The Public Interest, Summer 2002
Not explanation.
Premise: Many of these ostensibly neutral laws (e.g., licensing laws, minimum-wage laws, and collective bargaining laws) were either directly aimed at stymieing black economic and social advancement or, if not so aimed, were quickly turned to that use. A huge swath of the American labor market was handed over to labor unions from which blacks, with few exceptions, were totally excluded. The now longstanding gap between black and white unemployment rates dates precisely from the moment of government intervention on labor’s behalf.
Conclusion: The victories of American labor were the undoing of American blacks.
EXAMPLE 3
3. Animals born without traits that led to reproduction died out, whereas the ones that reproduced the most succeeded in conveying their genes to posterity. Crudely speaking, sex feels good because over evolutionary time the animals that liked having sex created more offspring than the animals that didn’t.
—R. Thornhill and C. T. Palmer, “Why Men Rape,” The Sciences, February 2000
Just explanation.
EXAMPLE 4
4. Changes are real. Now, changes are only possible in time, and therefore time must be something real.
—Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), “Transcendental Aesthetic,” section II
Not explanation.
Premise: Changes are real. Now, changes are only possible in time.
Conclusion: Time must be something real.
EXAMPLE 5
5. The nursing shortage in the United States has turned into a full-blown crisis. Because fewer young people go into nursing, one-third of registered nurses in the United States are now over 50 years of age, and that proportion is expected to rise to 40 percent over the next decade. Nurses currently practicing report high rates of job dissatisfaction, with one in five seriously considering leaving the profession within the next five years. . . . Hospitals routinely cancel or delay surgical cases because of a lack of nursing staff.
—Ronald Dworkin, “Where Have All the Nurses Gone?,” The Public Interest, Summer 2002
Premise: Because fewer young people go into nursing, one-third of registered nurses in the United States are now over 50 years of age, and that proportion is expected to rise to 40 percent over the next decade. Nurses currently practicing report high rates of job dissatisfaction, with one in five seriously considering leaving the profession within the next five years. . . . Hospitals routinely cancel or delay surgical cases because of a lack of nursing staff.
Conclusion: The nursing shortage in the United States has turned into a full-blown crisis.
EXAMPLE 6
6. To name causes for a state of affairs is not to excuse it. Things are justified or condemned by their consequences, not by their antecedents.
—John Dewey, “The Liberal College and Its Enemies,” The Independent, 1924
Premise: Things are justified or condemned by their consequences, not by their antecedents.
Conclusion: To name causes for a state of affairs is not to excuse it
EXAMPLE 7
7. One may be subject to laws made by another, but it is impossible to bind oneself in any matter which is the subject of one’s own free exercise of will. . . . It follows of necessity that the king cannot be subject to his own laws. For this reason [royal] edicts and ordinances conclude with the formula, “for such is our good pleasure.”
—Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, 1576
Just explanation.
EXAMPLE 8
8. I like Wagner’s music better than anybody’s. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Just explanation.
EXAMPLE 9
9. Three aspects of American society in recent decades make cheating more likely.
First, there is the rise of a market-drenched society, where monetary success is lauded above all else. Second, there is the decline of religious, communal, and family bonds and norms that encourage honesty. Finally, there is the absence of shame by those public figures who are caught in dishonest or immoral activities. No wonder so many young people see nothing wrong with cutting corners or worse.
—Howard Gardner, “More Likely to Cheat,” The New York Times, 9 October 2003
Premise: First, there is the rise of a market-drenched society, where monetary success is lauded above all else. Second, there is the decline of religious, communal, and family bonds and norms that encourage honesty. Finally, there is the absence of shame by those public figures who are caught in dishonest or immoral activities.
Conclusion: Three aspects of American society in recent decades make cheating more likely. No wonder so many young people see nothing wrong with cutting corners or worse.
EXAMPLE 10
10. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.
—William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, act 1, scene 1
Premise: Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.
Conclusion: And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.
EXAMPLE 11
11. An article in The New York Times, “Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways,” suggested that the fact that women have less body hair than men is somehow related to greater sexual selection pressure on women. A reader responded with the following letter:
Here is an elaboration for which I have no evidence but it is consistent with what we think we know: sexual selection has probably strongly influenced numerous traits of both sexes.
Youthful appearance is more important to men when selecting a mate than it is to women. The longer a woman can look young, the longer she will be sexually attractive and the more opportunities she will have to bear offspring with desirable men. Hairlessness advertises youth.
Hence a greater sexual selection pressure on women to lose body hair.
—T. Doyle, “Less Is More,” The New York Times, 26 August 2003
Premise: Youthful appearance is more important to men when selecting a mate than it is to women. The longer a woman can look young, the longer she will be sexually attractive and the more opportunities she will have to bear offspring with desirable men. Hairlessness advertises youth.
Conclusion: Hence a greater sexual selection pressure on women to lose body hair.
EXAMPLE 12
12. MAD, mutually assured destruction, was effective in deterring nuclear attack right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Mahmoud Ah-madinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that Iran’s leaders do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights.
—Bernard Lewis, quoted in Commentary, June 2007
Premise 1: Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind.
Conclusion 1: MAD, mutually assured destruction, was effective in deterring nuclear attack right through the cold war.
Premise 2: For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that Iran’s leaders do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers.
Conclusion 2: This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Mahmoud Ah-madinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran].
EXAMPLE 13
13. About a century ago, we discovered that planetary orbits are not stable in four or more dimensions, so if there were more than three space dimensions, planets would not orbit a sun long enough for life to originate. And in one or two space dimensions, neither blood flow nor large numbers of neuron connections can exist. Thus, interesting life can exist only in three dimensions.
—Gordon Kane, “Anthropic Questions,” Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Fall 2002
Just explanation.
EXAMPLE 14
14. Translators and interpreters who have helped United States troops and diplomats now want to resettle in the United States. They speak many strategically important languages of their region. The United States does not have an adequate number of interpreters and translators who are proficient in these languages. Therefore, we need them. Q.E.D.
—Oswald Werner, “Welcome the Translators,” The New York Times, 3 November 2007
Premise: Translators and interpreters who have helped United States troops and diplomats now want to resettle in the United States. They speak many strategically important languages of their region. The United States does not have an adequate number of interpreters and translators who are proficient in these languages.
Conclusion: we need them.
EXAMPLE 15
15. The Treasury Department’s failure to design and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired individuals violates Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which provides that no disabled person shall be “subjected to discrimination under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency.”
—Judge James Robertson, Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, American Council of the Blind v. Sec. of the Treasury, No. 02-0864 (2006)
Just explanation.
EXAMPLE 16
16. Rightness [that is, acting so as to fulfill one’s duty] never guarantees moral goodness. For an act may be the act which the agent thinks to be his duty, and yet be done from an indifferent or bad motive, and therefore be morally indifferent or bad.
—Sir W. David Ross, Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939)
Premise: For an act may be the act which the agent thinks to be his duty, and yet be done from an indifferent or bad motive, and therefore be morally indifferent or bad.
Conclusion: Rightness [that is, acting so as to fulfill one’s duty] never guarantees moral goodness.
EXAMPLE 17
17. Man did not invent the circle or the square or mathematics or the laws of physics. He discovered them. They are immutable and eternal laws that could only have been created by a supreme mind: God. And since we have the ability to make such discoveries, man’s mind must possess an innate particle of the mind of God. To believe in God is not “beyond reason.”
—J. Lenzi, “Darwin’s God,” The New York Times Magazine, 18 March 2007
Premise: Man did not invent the circle or the square or mathematics or the laws of physics. He discovered them. They are immutable and eternal laws that could only have been created by a supreme mind: God. And since we have the ability to make such discoveries, man’s mind must possess an innate particle of the mind of God.
Conclusion: To believe in God is not “beyond reason.”
EXAMPLE 18
18. Many of the celebratory rituals [of Christmas], as well as the timing of the holiday, have their origins outside of, and may predate, the Christian commemoration of the birth of Jesus. Those traditions, at their best, have much to do with celebrating human relationships and the enjoyment of the goods that this life has to offer. As an atheist I have no hesitation in embracing the holiday and joining with believers and nonbelievers alike to celebrate what we have in common.
—John Teehan, “A Holiday Season for Atheists, Too,” The New York Times, 24 December 2006
Just explanation.
EXAMPLE 19
19. All ethnic movements are two-edged swords. Beginning benignly, and sometimes necessary to repair injured collective psyches, they often end in tragedy, especially when they turn political, as illustrated by German history.
—Orlando Patterson, “A Meeting with Gerald Ford,” The New York Times, 6 January 2007
Premise: Beginning benignly, and sometimes necessary to repair injured collective psyches, they often end in tragedy, especially when they turn political, as illustrated by German history.
Conclusion: All ethnic movements are two-edged swords.
EXAMPLE 20
20. That all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not the capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.
—Samuel Johnson, in Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 1766
Premise: A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not the capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.
Conclusion: That all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true.
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