Arguments analyzing

Directions: select one of the three arguments below to analyze. Identify the argument you are analyzing, copy it into your assignment, perform a bracket analysis on the text, and then provide a diagram of the argument (a scan of a handwritten diagram is certainly acceptable). You might want to consult the full version of the text online to get a sense of argumentative context. Also, be aware that not everything included is a statement, and that some sentences need to be modified. For each passage, the conclusion is explicitly provided. Rubric [200 points possible] Is the bracket analysis correct? [50 points] Is the diagram correct? [50 points] Argument #1: Gary Gutting, “Who Needs a Gun?” https://archive(dot)nytimes(dot)com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/who-needs-a-gun/ Conclusion of the selected passage: “Most of us don’t have a good reason to keep guns in our homes.” Text: Unless you live in (or frequent) dangerous neighborhoods or have family or friends likely to threaten you, it’s very unlikely that you’ll need a gun for self-defense. Further, counterbalancing any such need is the fact that guns are dangerous. If I have one loaded and readily accessible in an emergency (and what good is it if I don’t?), then there’s a non-negligible chance that it will lead to great harm. A gun at hand can easily push a family quarrel, a wave of depression or a child’s curiosity in a fatal direction. Even when a gun makes sense in principle as a means of self-defense, it may do more harm than good if I’m not trained to use it well. I may panic and shoot a family member coming home late, fumble around and allow an unarmed burglar to take my gun, have a cleaning or loading accident. The N.R.A. rightly sets high standards for gun safety. … Guns do have uses other than defense against attackers. There may, for example, still be a few people who actually need to hunt to feed their families. But most hunting now is recreational and does not require keeping weapons at home. Hunters and their families would be much safer if the guns and ammunition were securely stored away from their homes and available only to those with licenses during the appropriate season. Target shooting, likewise, does not require keeping guns at home. Finally, there’s the idea that citizens need guns so they can, if need be, oppose the force of a repressive government. Those who think there are current (or likely future) government actions in this country that would require armed resistance are living a paranoid fantasy. The idea that armed American citizens could stand up to our military is beyond fantasy. Argument #2: Christine Overall, “Think Before You Breed” https://archive(dot)nytimes(dot)com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/think-before-you-breed/ Conclusion of the selected passage: “The choice to procreate is not merely an expression of personal taste but is a choice with ethical importance.” Text: It’s a tough decision because you can’t know ahead of time what sort of child you will have or what it will be like to be a parent. You can’t understand what is good or what is hard about the process of creating and rearing until after you have the child. And the choice to have a child is a decision to change your life forever. It’s irreversible, and therefore, compared to reversible life choices about education, work, geographical location or romance, it has much greater ethical importance. … We are fortunate that procreation is more and more a matter of choice. Not always, of course — not everyone has access to effective contraception and accessible abortion, and some women are subjected to enforced pregnancy. But the growing availability of reproductive choice makes it clear that procreation cannot be merely an expression of personal taste. The question whether to have children is of course prudential in part; it’s concerned about what is or is not in one’s own interests. But it is also an ethical question, for it is about whether to bring a person (in some cases more than one person) into existence — and that person cannot, by the very nature of the situation, give consent to being brought into existence. Such a question also profoundly affects the well-being of existing people (the potential parents, siblings if any, and grandparents). And it has effects beyond the family on the broader society, which is inevitably changed by the cumulative impact — on things like education, health care, employment, agriculture, community growth and design, and the availability and distribution of resources — of individual decisions about whether to procreate. Argument #3: Laurie Shrage, “Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?” https://archive(dot)nytimes(dot)com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/is-forced-fatherhood-fair/ Conclusion of the selected passage: “We should oppose policies that punish men, in the form of compulsory financial support, for accidental pregnancies.” Text: The political philosopher Elizabeth Brake has argued that our policies should give men who accidentally impregnate a woman more options, and that feminists should oppose policies that make fatherhood compulsory. In a 2005 article in the Journal of Applied Philosophy she wrote, “if women’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a fetus, then men’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a resulting child.” At most, according to Brake, men should be responsible for helping with the medical expenses and other costs of a pregnancy for which they are partly responsible. … Feminists have long held that women should not be penalized for being sexually active by taking away their options when an accidental pregnancy occurs. Do our policies now aim to punish and shame men for their sexual promiscuity? Many of my male students (in Miami where I teach), who come from low-income immigrant communities, believe that our punitive paternity policies are aimed at controlling their sexual behavior. Moreover, the asymmetrical options that men and women now have when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy set up power imbalances in their sexual relationships that my male students find hugely unfair to them. Rather than punish men (or women) for their apparent reproductive irresponsibility by coercing legal paternity (or maternity), the government has other options, such as mandatory sex education, family planning counseling, or community service. … just as court-ordered child support does not make sense when a woman goes to a sperm bank and obtains sperm from a donor who has not agreed to father the resulting child, it does not make sense when a woman is impregnated (accidentally or possibly by her choice) from sex with a partner who has not agreed to father a child with her. In consenting to sex, neither a man nor a woman gives consent to become a parent, just as in consenting to any activity, one does not consent to yield to all the accidental outcomes that might flow from that activity. Policies that punish men for accidental pregnancies also punish those children who must manage a lifelong relationship with an absent but legal father.