Posted: December 10th, 2014

argument reconstruction and critique

argument reconstruction and critique

Read through the following example of an argument reconstruction and critique, which
is based on the given passage. I’ve included some footnotes which discuss my reason-
ing behind the answers I’ve given. You should read these as well.
At the end you will find another passage. Your third essay assignment is to provide an
argument reconstruction and critique of your own for that passage. This assignment
will be turned in in hard copy.
1 Example reconstruction
Consider the following argument:
Billionaires get to be billionaires because they know to only invest in
things that profit them. What profits billionaires comes at the expense of
the working class and lower income taxpayers. Billionaires invest heavily
in the Republican Party, so the working class really ought not to vote for
the Republican Party.
1.1 Reconstructing and formalizing the argument
I want to assess and critique this argument. First I will reconstruct and formalize the
argument and try to give it a valid form. To be charitable, I will fill in any premises that
might be missing or hidden or assumed to ensure that the argument is valid.
The key phrases in the argument are the following (where I have tried to pare them
down to their essentials):

Billionaires only invest in things which profit them.
1

Things which profit billionaires harm the working class.

Billionaires invest in the Republican Party winning elections.

The working class should not vote for the Republican party.
1
Since it’s not obvious how to formalize these yet, I will rewrite them again in a form
closer to my standard logical forms. I also turn the universal (i.e. general) premises in
to ones specific to this argument.

If billionaires invest in the Republican Party winning the election then the Re-
publican Party winning the election will profit billionaires.

If the Republican Party winning the election profits billionaires then the Repub-
lican Party winning the election will harm the working class.

Billionaires invested in the Republican Party winning the election.

The Republican party winning the election will harm the working class.
I will use the following “glossary”:
A
= billionaires invest in the Repbulican Party winning the election
B
= the Republican Party winning the election will profit billionaires.
C
= the Republican Party winning the election will harm the working class.
And now my argument can be formalized:
1.
A

B
2.
B

C
3.
A
C
I can see that this argument is valid, but to verify that I will construct a truth table. I
have 3 variables, so my table will have 2 times 2 times 2 rows (i.e. 8 rows).
2
There is only one row in this table in which all the premises are true (the first row.) In
that row, the conclusion is also true. This argument is therefore valid. (A
SIDE
: in your
answer you will have to explain this further. Use the definition of validity.)
1
I notice that there aren’t any standard if-then statements, but some of them seem like they could be turned
in to if-then statements (the first two especially.) There also appears to be a normative gap here (a naturalistic
fallacy), because the conclusion is a ”should” statement, but there doesn’t seem to be any normative premise.
There is a statement about harm, though. I can probably connect that, using a premise, with the normative
2
A
B
C
A

B
B

C
A
C
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
F
T
F
T
T
T
F
T
F
T
T
T
T
F
F
F
T
T
T
F
T
T
T
T
F
T
F
T
F
T
F
F
F
F
F
T
T
T
F
T
F
F
F
T
T
F
F
Table 1: Truth table for validity test
1.2 Soundness
Having given a valid form of the argument, I will now comment on the premises in that
argument. There are three premises:

If billionaires invest in the Republican Party winning the election then the Re-
publican Party winning the election will profit billionaires.

If the Republican Party winning the election profits billionaires then the Repub-
lican Party winning the election will harm the working class.

Billionaires invested in the Republican Party winning the election.
The last one is well established, so I will set it aside. The first one also seems quite
plausible to me. The premise which is most debatable is the second. In fact, the
argument of Republicans and of billionaires is that what benefits them benefits all.
This is the premise that needs to be focused on. If this were the longer, final essay, I
would now consider arguments for and against this premise.
2 Your turn
Following the example above, reconstruct, formalize and comment on the following
passage.
conclusion. Something about ”people should not do things which harm themselves” would do the trick. On
the other hand, I may be able to rewrite it in such a way that the normative gap has been removed.
2
When constructing a truth table the first step is to figure out how many rows you will need. Count the
number of variables / letters you have, then multiply two together that many times, as I have done here. If
you have 1 variable you’ll have 2 rows; if you have two variables you will have 2 times 2 = 4 rows; etc.
This table has 8 rows and it’s very easy to fill in. For the columns under
A
and
C
I just copy them over.
For the conditionals I look for the rows which I know will be false and fill those in. The rest will be true.
3

PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT 🙂