Questions and essay responses

¶ … sound or unsound. One may speak about an invalid argument when the conclusion does not respect the logical structure of the premises. It is very important to understand that the conclusion of an invalid argument is false or wrong. In the case of an invalid argument, the reader has no reasons to accept the conclusions based on the presented premises.

The valid argument on the other hand are those in the case of which the premises lead to the conclusion in a logical manner. The valid arguments can be sound or unsound. However, it is important to underline that even if the logical road from the premises to the conclusions is a correct one, this does not imply that the conclusion is true. An unsound argument is one in which one or more premises are false. An example of an unsound argument is the following one: 1. all the apples are sweet, 2. all the lemons are sour, thus no lemons are apples. It is an unsound argument because even if the conclusion is true, there are sour apples and thus, one of the premises is false. An example of an invalid argument is the following one: 1. If you don't come, you must be busy. 2. You don't come. Conclusion: You must be busy. The argument is invalid because, even if both the premises are true, one might still not accept the conclusion. I prefer not to use invalid and unsound arguments, but if the situation can not be avoided I would rather use an unsound argument, because I think it is important to use just true premises, and not start from a false hypothesis.

As a reader I am more receptive to information which claims to represent all the cases under discussion and not just some of them. My preference is orientated like this because "some" of the casesmeans that the interpretation is not complete and the exceptions may be very important. This means I have to do further research in order to have a complete view of the topic.

One of the arguments that I have used in the research paper refers to the fact that controversial ads are at the end good for business. The premises were that controversy means media coverage and that people forget the negative or positive character of the information they receive, remaining just with the awareness of the general information after a while. The conclusion was that that, since people forget the character of the information and only remember some of the factual data, controversial television advertising is good for business from a long-term perspective, since it increases brand awareness. I consider the argument to be good since the analysis of the subject can be made from this point-of-view as well. In addition I consider it strong, especially that I use the concrete example of the Benetton advertisements in order to support my argument. Both the premises are proven to be true (yet the second one is not presented as being valid for all the cases of this nature). The conclusion derives logically from the premises and it is true. Therefore, the argument is valid.

In the article Needles benefit society one of the premises is that the distribution of clean needles diminishes the rate of infection with AIDS. The second one is that there was no evidence found to prove that the distribution of clean needles contributes to the development of addiction. The conclusion was that clean needles are a benefic aspect for society. The premises are both true and support the conclusion, however, one of the premises is not strong enough, since the fact that no evidence has been found so far, this doesn't mean that there is no connection whatsoever between the distribution of clean needles and the addiction to drugs. The article "Programs don't make sense" has the following premises: the distribution of clean needles to drug addicts does nothing but support their addiction and that while trying to avoid the problem of AIDS, this problem intensifies the problem of drug addiction. The conclusion is that the program is not benefic for society and it does not make sense, since it intensifies a problem. The premises support the conclusion but the value of truth of the second premise is not proven. Thus, one might choose not to agree with the conclusion.

The moral values influence the manner in which one perceives and interprets a text. Logical reading is influenced by moral reasoning. If the moral aspects have a stronger impact and a larger importance on a reader he may accept weak arguments, just because they respond to the his needs of seeing his moral beliefs confirmed.

From a moral point-of-view, the Dear Aby columnist was right when she called the police. The right thing to do in the described circumstances was to protect the possible victims of the man. The problem is that the privacy of the man should have been respected. Nevertheless, she had to take into consideration two wrongs and chose the weaker one. Under these circumstances it was more important to protect children from becoming victims of the man, than respecting one of the man's rights. However, it must be considered that there was no evidence the man was going to act in the direction of his desires. My moral principles also include the preference to protect children from becoming victims of sexual abuse. Thus, under the presented circumstances I reached the conclusion that the columnist did the right thing.