The Normal Conditions

One section fo chapter5 that I thought was useful for us to know is the Normal Conditions. According to the textbook, Normal Conditions are "for a causal claim, the normal conditions are the normal conditions  are the obvious and plausible unstated claims that are needed to establish that the relationship between purported causes and purported effect is valid or strong" (Epsetin 303). An example of normal conditions is
Bob was at home by himself when the thunderstorm struck.
The power turned off because of the thunderstorm at 7:30 pm.
Bob doesn't normally stay at home by himself at 7:30 pm at night
Bob was standing next to the lamp when the power went off.
There was nothing else unusual going on at the time..
This example could keep on going for as long as we like. According to the text, in arguments, we only mentions or put in parts that we think are significant to know. We normally do not state the obvious in arguments.

Mission Critical Website

I thought the mission critical website was much more useful than the cause and effect website because it talked about various topics. For example, I thought it was useful to know all the different types of sentences in arguments. Commands and exclamations are pretty rare in critical thinking arguments but they are the only sentences that cannot be considered true or false. These types of sentences are occur more frequently when you just got into a car accident or at a party. According to the wesbite, rhetorical questions occur more frequently in an argument. Rhetorical questions are questions that do not require or expect an answer. However rhetorical questions are used to make a point. For instance, an example of a rhetorical question is a television host asking it audience, "Who hasn't ever made a mistake?" This question is indicating that everybody makes mistakes. People automatically know its a rhetorical question. Most sentences in critical thinking are called statements or claims as well.

Cause and Effect Website

The cause and effect website gives an example of a bicyclist illegally moving into the traffic lane which causes a driver to slam on its break. The first car slamming on its break causes car behind it to rear end them. Using inductive reasoning, the arguments are that the bicyclist caused the accident or the first car caused the accident. All of these arguments have the form of an inductive argument. The website said that it is very likely for causation to occur in the real world. I thought it was useful to know the two rules of causation which are that "the cause must precede the effect in time" and "even a strong correlation is insufficient to prove causation." I also thought it was usefull to know that causal arguements use both difference  and commonality reasoning. In conlusion, even though we have already learned about cause and effect. This website helped to give more information on cause and effect. It is good to know more details about it in order to fully grasp the concept.

Analogies in the Law

According to the Epstein texbook, analogies in the law "are presented as detailed, carefully analyzed arguments, with the important similarities pointed out a general principle stated " (Epsetin 257).  We are reasoning  by analogy when we draw a conclusion from comparing subjects which suggest an argyment. In the law, similarites and differences must be pointed out. We use reasoning by analogy in the law because when judges rule cases, they have use reasoning by analogy. They compare their opinions on what should be the outcome of the case and with history's opinion on how the case should be ruled. Like the constution for example. Law officials have compare the rules of the constitution to present day beliesfs. For instance people these days use reasoning by analogy when discussing the controversial law, "don't ask don't tell." People go back and forth with the constitutions laws and present day beliefs.

Difficult to understand

The most difficult reasoning strategy for me to understand was Reasoning by Anology. So I decided to do some internet research on this particular type of reasoning. I found out that Reasoning by Analogy is a form of inductive reasoning. According to the website that I found, it said that "A is like B" or "X is similar to Y." I also found out that Reasoning by analogy tries to find similar and not so similar characteristics of one thing. For instance is "Is brown hair similar to blond hair and is blond hair similar to red hair." In this statement we can use Reasoning by Anology. When you use reasoning by anology, the similar characteristics of all these subjects that it is all human hair. Red, brown, or blond hair can either be curly, straight, frizzy, smooth, long short, medium-lenght, or even wavy. But all these subjects are different in their color. Red, brown, or blond hair can vary in different shades of colors as well. Like dark-brown or light brown.
quotes from :http://www4.samford.edu/schools/netlaw/dh2/logic/analogy.htm

Reasoning by example

Out of all the different types of reasoning, I chose to discuss reasoning by example because I find it to be the most effective when trying persuade someone to believe in your statements or opinions. Reasoning by example is when you use examples from your real life. This gives the person your talking to a reason why to believe in what your are saying. The example could possible be a short story. For instance, a good example of exampling by reasoning would be, "You should drink more cups of milk. My grandmother did not drink enough milk when she was growing up in Nicaragua and she ended up having some bone problems when she was elderly." This a good example of reasoning by example because I am giving an example of from my own life which makes my statement more convincing because  the person I am telling to drink milk to will think if they don't drink milk, they will have bone problems like my grandmother. The personing listening to someone give evidence of they should believe their statements will be more likely to be persuaded. Therefore reasoning by example is not only effective, but persuasive as well.

Objective #1

Out of the objectives, I chose to work on Objective #1, which is "Write a bad argument in favor of affirmative action who only premises appeal to pity." Appeal to pity is a type of appeal to emotion, when people triy to get sympathy or pity from the person they are talking to in an argument. After completing the social organizations project, I know a little about PETA's platform. An example of a bad argument would be if PETA said, "We should all try and protect animals from harm. Animals have rights too, how would you feel if you were forced to be used as entertainment? Or how would you feel if scientists would use you in experiments against your will? This is the kind of cruelty animals go through. You don't want animals to suffer right? Please donate some money or your time to help join the fight against animal cruelty." This is a bad argument because its only premises appeal to pity. The argument has to have more plausibly premises. If the argument gave more information about what PETA stood for, it would probably be a much better argument.

Appeal to Emotion

The Epstein textbook discusses Appeal to Emotion in chapter 10. According to the text, appeal to emotion is "an argument is just a premise that says, roughly you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way" (Epstein 191). There are several different kinds of appeals to emotion. For instance there are: appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, calls in your debts, A feel-good argument and wishful thinking. The appeal to emotion that most striked me was appeal to fear. I agree with what the textbook says about polticians trying to manipulate and scare American citizens into voting for them. For instance, in this past midterm election there were political ads by Jerry Brown that were against Meg Whitman. The ads showed Meg Whitman saying the exact same things former governor Arnold Swarchenegger said in his speeches. Jerry Brown was trying to scare Californians into believing that if they voted Meg Whitman for governor, nothing would change and if they voted for him, things will be different in a positive way. This ad which used appeal to emotion was obviously very effective because Jerry Brown was the position of Governor of California.