Introduction to Logic solution – Identifying the premises and conclusions

1 EXAMPLE 2
2 EXAMPLE 3
3 EXAMPLE 4
4 EXAMPLE 5
5 EXAMPLE 6
6 EXAMPLE 7
7 EXAMPLE 8
8 EXAMPLE 9
9 EXAMPLE 10
10 EXAMPLE 11
11 EXAMPLE 12
12 EXAMPLE 13
13 EXAMPLE 14
14 EXAMPLE 15
15 Related Posts

EXAMPLE 2

What stops many people from photocopying a book and giving it to a pal is not integrity but logistics; it’s easier and inexpensive to buy your friend a paperback copy.

—Randy Cohen, The New York Times Magazine, 26 March 2000

Premise: It’s easier and inexpensive to buy your friend a paperback copy.

Conclusion: What stops many people from photocopying a book and giving it to a pal is not integrity but logistics.

EXAMPLE 3

Thomas Aquinas argued that human intelligence is a gift from God and therefore “to apply human intelligence to understand the world is not an affront to God, but is pleasing to him.”

—Recounted by Charles Murray in Human Accomplishment (New York: HarperCollins, 2003)

Premise: Human intelligence is a gift from God.

Conclusion: To apply human intelligence to understand the world is not an affront to God, but is pleasing to him.

EXAMPLE 4

Sir Edmund Hillary is a hero, not because he was the first to climb Mount Everest, but because he never forgot the Sherpas who helped him achieve this impossible feat. He dedicated his life to helping build schools and hospitals for them.

—Patre S. Rajashekhar, “Mount Everest,” National Geographic, September 2003

Premise: Not because he was the first to climb Mount Everest, but because he never forgot the Sherpas who helped him achieve this impossible feat. He dedicated his life to helping build schools and hospitals for them.

Conclusion: Sir Edmund Hillary is a hero

EXAMPLE 5

Standardized tests have a disparate racial and ethnic impact; white and Asian students score, on average, markedly higher than their black and Hispanic peers. This is true for fourth-grade tests, college entrance exams, and every other assessment on the books. If a racial gap is evidence of discrimination, then all tests discriminate.

—Abigail Thernstrom, “Testing, the Easy Target,” The New York Times, 15 January 2000

Premise: White and Asian students score, on average, markedly higher than their black and Hispanic peers. This is true for fourth-grade tests, college entrance exams, and every other assessment on the books. If a racial gap is evidence of discrimination, then all tests discriminate.

Conclusion: Standardized tests have a disparate racial and ethnic impact.

EXAMPLE 6

Good sense is, of all things in the world, the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desire more of it than they already possess.

—René Descartes, A Discourse on Method, 1637

Premise: For everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desire more of it than they already possess.

Conclusion: Good sense is, of all things in the world, the most equally distributed

EXAMPLE 7

When Noah Webster proposed a Dictionary of the American Language, his early 19th-century critics presented the following argument against it: “Because any words new to the United States are either stupid or foreign, there is no such thing as the American language; there’s just bad English.”

—Jill Lepore, “Noah’s Mark,” The New Yorker, 6 November 2006

Premise: Because any words new to the United States are either stupid or foreign.

Conclusion: There is no such thing as the American language; there’s just bad English.

EXAMPLE 8

The death penalty is too costly. In New York State alone taxpayers spent more than $200 million in our state’s failed death penalty experiment, with no one executed.
In addition to being too costly, capital punishment is unfair in its application. The strongest reason remains the epidemic of exonerations of death row inmates upon post-conviction investigation, including ten New York inmates freed in the last 18 months from long sentences being served for murders or rapes they did not commit.

—L. Porter, “Costly, Flawed Justice,” The New York Times, 26 March 2007

Premise 1: In New York State alone taxpayers spent more than $200 million in our state’s failed death penalty experiment, with no one executed.

Conclusion 1: The death penalty is too costly.

Premise 2: The strongest reason remains the epidemic of exonerations of death row inmates upon post-conviction investigation, including ten New York inmates freed in the last 18 months from long sentences being served for murders or rapes they did not commit.

Conclusion 2: Capital punishment is unfair in its application.

EXAMPLE 9

Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity.

—Francis Bacon, “Of Building,” in Essays, 1597

Premise: Houses are built to live in, not to look on.

Conclusion: Let use be preferred before uniformity.

EXAMPLE 10

To boycott a business or a city [as a protest] is not an act of violence, but it can cause economic harm to many people. The greater the economic impact of a boycott, the more impressive the statement it makes. At the same time, the economic consequences are likely to be shared by people who are innocent of any wrongdoing, and who can ill afford the loss of income: hotel workers, cab drivers, restaurateurs, and merchants. The boycott weapon ought to be used sparingly, if for no other reason than the harm it can cause such bystanders.

—Alan Wolfe, “The Risky Power of the Academic Boycott,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 March 2000

Premise: To boycott a business or a city [as a protest] is not an act of violence, but it can cause economic harm to many people. At the same time, the economic consequences are likely to be shared by people who are innocent of any wrongdoing, and who can ill afford the loss of income: hotel workers, cab drivers, restaurateurs, and merchants.

Conclusion: The boycott weapon ought to be used sparingly, if for no other reason than the harm it can cause such bystanders.

EXAMPLE 11

Ethnic cleansing was viewed not so long ago as a legitimate tool of foreign policy. In the early part of the 20th century forced population shifts were not uncommon; multicultural empires crumbled and nationalism drove the formation of new, ethnically homogenous countries.

—Belinda Cooper, “Trading Places,” The New York Times Book Review, 17 September 2006

Premise: In the early part of the 20th century forced population shifts were not uncommon; multicultural empires crumbled and nationalism drove the formation of new, ethnically homogenous countries.

Conclusion: Ethnic cleansing was viewed not so long ago as a legitimate tool of foreign policy.

EXAMPLE 12

If a jury is sufficiently unhappy with the government’s case or the government’s conduct, it can simply refuse to convict. This possibility puts powerful pressure on the state to behave properly. For this reason a jury is one of the most important protections of a democracy.

—Robert Precht, “Japan, the Jury,” The New York Times, 1 December 2006

Premise: If a jury is sufficiently unhappy with the government’s case or the government’s conduct, it can simply refuse to convict. This possibility puts powerful pressure on the state to behave properly.

Conclusion: A jury is one of the most important protections of a democracy.

EXAMPLE 13

Without forests, orangutans cannot survive. They spend more than 95 percent of their time in the trees, which, along with vines and termites, provide more than 99 percent of their food. Their only habitat is formed by the tropical rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra.

—Birute Galdikas, “The Vanishing Man of the Forest,” The New York Times, 6 January 2007

Premise: They spend more than 95 percent of their time in the trees, which, along with vines and termites, provide more than 99 percent of their food. Their only habitat is formed by the tropical rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra.

Conclusion: Without forests, orangutans cannot survive.

EXAMPLE 14

Omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.

—Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006)

Premise: If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.

Conclusion: Omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible.

EXAMPLE 15

Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

—Martin Luther, Last Sermon in Wittenberg, 17 January 1546

Premise: It never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

Conclusion: Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has.