Cause and Effect Mistakes

A cause and effect situation can be defined and described by claims. There is a relationship between the two, between the premises and conclusion of either a strong or valid argument. Two mistakes are often seen when evaluating a cause and effect situation. These two are: reversing the cause and effect, or looking too hard for the cause. An example of the first mistake can be seen here:

Bob: The more you shave your hair, the faster and thicker it grows back.
Rich: Why do you think so?
Bob: Well if I shave every day, and I seem to get a 5 o’clock shadow earlier and earlier every day.

Even if Bob is complaining about hair growing back by shaving often, he shaves every day regardless.

The second mistake occurs usually when someone jumps to a conclusion. Sometimes, not everything has a cause. Therefore, looking for a cause may sometimes be a waste if there is not one to begin with.

Mission: Critical

The Mission: Critical website has defines the steps to critical thinking and even has a tutorial which explains the concepts. The website is divided into sections, and consists of 4 main categories: the basics, analysis of arguments, fallacies and non-rational persuasion, and other common fallacies. The website also includes exercise and quizzes to test knowledge of the different fallacies. The purpose of this page is “to create a ‘virtual lab,’ capable of familiarizing users with the basic concepts of critical thinking in a self-paced, interactive environment.” San Jose State University’s Mission: Critical website does exactly what it was designed to do. By creating this web page, it allows students to sign on at any point and review or research any concepts that they are not familiar with. The basics section is an excellent introduction to the concept of critical thinking. Going through these individual pages lets a student grasp the simplest ideas of critical thinking. Browsing further into the subcategories will provide students with detailed explanations to analyzing arguments and fallacies. The web site is very well organized which makes it easy to navigate and find the information that you may be looking for.

Cause Effect Website

The cause effect website dictates a chain reaction scenario in which an accident is caused mainly because of an illegally parked vehicle. The article then reveals that there are two rules to dealing with causations: “the cause must precede the event in time, and even a strong correlation is insufficient to prove causation.” In the bicycle and truck situation, the insurance companies argue about the primary cause of the accident. Finger pointing is very common in court cases. One party throws the fault on the other, and nobody admits to guilt. It is all about winning the case, and making sure your client comes out on top. But when it comes down to it, what was the initial cause for the accident? If the truck had not parked illegally, the bicycle would not need to swerve into traffic, which caused a chain reaction and resulted in a car rear-ending another car. This article helps to provide ideas which will strengthen an argument, and identify the main cause of a situation.

Analogies

The text book defines reasoning by analogy as a comparison if it is part of an argument. If one side of the comparison draws a conclusion, the other side will conclude with the same. Analogies in the law is something I felt that should have been discussed in detail. One of the example introduced in the text book questions whether or not taxes apply to Internet purchases since mail-order purchases are taxed. This subject seems to be a little confusing, because of the variations of Grey areas when such legislative examples are discussed. The basis behind legal reasoning is reasoning by example. If this is the case, how do you reason with the fact that judges may rule differently depending on how the judge interprets an issue or a law? The book finally lists that even though judges may hold different rulings for similar cases, there are still differences between each individual case which will set it apart from a previous case.

Criteria by Reasoning

There were seven types of reasoning that were discussed in the first question. Out of the seven, I found reasoning by criteria the hardest to provide an example for. Each type of reasoning was clear in the definition, and I had no problems interpreting each of them (that is, if my understanding of each subject is correct). Reasoning by Criteria is quite simple – it occurs when comparisons are used against established criteria to prove a point. In my first question, the example I used was: “How do we know which restaurant is good? Let’s read some online reviews.” I think the most important aspect of this type of reasoning is the fact that you must have an appeal to a common value for the criteria. If the listener can easily relate to the criteria or even share a similar opinion, then it is easier for the argument to be accepted.

Reasoning

1. Reasoning by Analogy – A) The 9/11 hijackers were terrorists. B) The terrorists currently are of Muslim faith. C) All Muslims are terrorists.
2. Sign Reasoning – If you hear a siren, there is most likely some type of emergency near by.
3. Casual Reasoning – The phone rings. Melissa gets up and runs to answer the phone. Melissa trips over the dog and breaks her ankle. Melissa’s injury was caused by the phone call.
4. Reasoning By Criteria – How do we know which restaurant is good? Let’s read some online reviews.
5. Reasoning by Example – I have a dog exactly like yours. He would not stop licking everything in sight when he was young. The solution was to punish him when he was wrong and reward him when he was right.
6. Inductive Reasoning – Every morning, for the past 10 years, my coworker has always neatly covered his car after he arrives in the morning. Tomorrow, he will cover his car.
7. Deductive Reasoning – A) All SUVs are gas guzzlers. B) The Ford Escape is a SUV. C) The Ford Escape is a gas guzzler.

Apple polishing

Apple polishing is an appeal to vanity. It is essentially a negative type of an appeal. In these types of cases, it usually occurs when a reaction or decision is made because of another person’s actions, which usually involves some type of positive aspect towards the person making the decision. In essence, it is basically known as brown nosing, or kissing someone’s behind in order to get the praise or feedback that you want or desire. This happens all of the time in the working world. Many may have experience a situation similar to the one that I am going to describe. “Eddie is a coworker of mine. He is lazy, sloppy, and always late. But he is always complimenting the manager, pointing the blame at others, and making him stand out as a good worker. As a result, he received the largest Christmas bonus and will most likely receive a promotion.” Eddie’s actions have caused the manager to move him up the ladder, because of appeals to vanity.

#6: Appeal to Spite

An appeal to spite is usually used to reject what someone believes has been seen in all the past elections with advertisements that rally against an opposing party. For example, Jerry Brown’s campaign used a brilliant advertisement on television that made the current governor and the Republican candidate, Meg Whitman, seem very unappealing. Jerry Brown’s campaign used an advertisement that contained many audio and visual clips of both Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman separately, but each audio segment dictated phrases and sentences that were uttered by both individuals during both of their campaigns. They were 100% matched, word for word. The advertisement then questioned the public if this is what they desired. This was a brilliant smear move towards the Republican campaign – it demonstrated their lack of ability to fix California’s issues, and in essence, broken promises. This argument is an excellent argument, with a very convincing message. Due to the election results, I would say the advertisement did the job it was meant to do.

Appeal to Emotion

An appeal to emotion occurs when a premise dictates that because you feel a certain way, you should believe or do something as a result of that feeling. There are a few different types of appeals to emotion in arguments. These include appealing to pity, appealing to fear, and appealing to spite. Today, appealing to fear has struck me. A friend posted about how he was able to reach speeds of 90 mph on Highway 17. Someone instantly replied and commented about how that could result in his funeral. Car accidents and death are both very serious issues, so it definitely struck my attention. This demonstrates an appeal to fear, because the consequence for the action of speeding could result in an accident, and Highway 17 is notorious for these incidents. Not only that, the road is a dangerous when excessive speeds are reached. This type of driving will only leave more of a chance for possible deaths in the event of an accident.