Reading through Premises and Conclusions

Topic 1 Reading Exercises from:
Copi, Irving M. Introduction to Logic, 14th Edition. Routledge.
Chapter 1
INSTRUCTIONS
Identify the premises and conclusions in the following passages. Some premises do support the conclusion; others do not. Note that premises may support conclusions directly or indirectly and that even simple passages may contain more than one argument.
Example Problem
A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
—The Constitution of the United States, Amendment 2
Example Solution
Premise: A well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state.Conclusion: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
PROBLEMS
5. Standardized tests have a disparate racial and ethnic impact; white andAsian students score, on average, markedly higher than their black andHispanic peers. This is true for fourth-grade tests, college entranceexams, and every other assessment on the books. If a racial gap is evidenceof discrimination, then all tests discriminate.
—Abigail Thernstrom, “Testing, the Easy Target,” The New York Times, 15 January 2000
Premise: 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.Conclusion: If a racial gap is evidence of discrimination, then all tests discriminate.
6. Good sense is, of all things in the world, the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks him so abundantly provided with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desiremore of it than they already possess.
—René Descartes, A Discourse on Method, 1637
Premise: “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
7. When Noah Webster proposed a Dictionary of the American Language, hisearly 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: 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 foreignConclusion: there is no such thing as the American language , there’s just bad English
8. The death penalty is too costly. In New York State alone taxpayers spentmore 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 ofdeath row inmates upon post-conviction investigation, including ten
New York inmates freed in the last 18 months from long sentences beingserved for murders or rapes they did not commit.
—L. Porter, “Costly, Flawed Justice,” The New York Times, 26 March 2007
Premise: In New York State alone taxpayers spent more than $200 million in our state’s failed death penalty experiment, with no one executed
Conclusion: The death penalty is too costly.
Premise: 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: In addition to being too costly, capital punishment is unfair in its application
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 onConclusion:  let use be preferred before uniformity.
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.Conclusion: The boycott weapon ought to be used sparingly, if for no other reason than the harm it can cause such bystanders.
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: 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.
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: For this reason a jury is one of the most important protections of a democracy.
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
—BiruteGaldikas, “The Vanishing Man of the Forest,” The New York Times, 6 January 2007
Premise:  They [orangutans] 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
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.
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 154
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
INSTRUCTIONS
Some of the following passages contain explanations, some contain arguments, and some may be interpreted as either an argument or an explanation. What is your judgment about the chief function of each passage? What would have to be the case for the passage in question to be an argument? To be an explanation? Where you find an argument, identify its premises and conclusion. Where you find an explanation, indicate what is being explained and what the explanation is.
Example Problem
Humans have varying skin colors as a consequence of the distance our ancestors lived from the Equator. It’s all about sun. Skin color is what regulates our body’s reaction to the sun and its rays. Dark skin evolved to protect the body from excessive sun rays. Light skin evolved when people migrated away from the Equator and needed to make vitamin D in their skin. To do that they had to lose pigment. Repeatedly over history, many people moved dark to light and light to dark. That shows that color is not a permanent trait
—Nina Jablonski, “The Story of Skin,” The New York Times, 9 January 2007
Example Solution
This is essentially an explanation. What is being explained is the fact that humans have varying skin colors. The explanation is that different skin colors evolved as humans came to live at different distances from the Equator and hence needed different degrees of protection from the rays of the sun. One might interpret the passage as an argument whose conclusion is that skin color is not a permanent trait of all humans. Under this interpretation, all the propositions preceding the final sentence of the passage serve as premises.
PROBLEMS
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 p...