Q24 - Lawyer: The defendant wanted

[noah]

This question has two components. First we need to figure out what the flaw in the original argument is, and then we need to replicate that flaw in another argument.

This argument is actually quite similar to some that I have seen in law school. One interesting thing is that arguments not too far from this one have been known to win a case! But that is separate from our concern right now.

When I look at this argument, the flaw that jumps out at me is that the plaintiff's lawyer first argues that malic means to cause harm intentionally but then says that when the defendant intentionally removed snow that this was malice. The plaintiff's lawyer has tried a clever trick of words, trying to distract us from the fact that the malicious intent must match up with harm, not intent to do a certain bodily action. So the flaw here is transferring the quality of one thing or action (the snow shoveling being intentional) to another (hurting the plaintiff being assumed to be intentional even though it wasn't).

Answer choice (B) matches up with this pretty well. Here there is again another switch. We know that Bruce wants to eat mincemeat pie and then the argument twists this into saying that he wants to eat poison. This actually matches up even somewhat on the content of our original argument in again elliding a mental state with the action it was not associated with. Bruce had a mental state about the mincemeat pie, but he didn't have a mental state about the poison.

Let's look at (A) to discuss why this one is wrong. One reason (A) is not the answer is that (A) doesn't seem to be a flawed argument. We might be adding a few assumptions, but if there is no obvious logical error in an answer choice, it can't be an answer if we are trying to replicate the flaw above.

As a final thought, when I'm in a bind or having a hard time understanding an argument, I sometimes find that it works well to just count ideas. For example, if there are 3 separate ideas/concepts/actors in the original argument, then the answer choice should also have 3. This should be used as a method of last resort though - it's always better to work off a logical understanding of an argument than these sorts of trick strategies. Here there are 3 ideas in a way - the defendant, the snow shoveling, and the malice. In answer choice (B) there are also 3 ideas/actors: Bruce, mincemeat pie, and poison. Don't worry too much if this doesn't make sense - it is a slightly more idiosyncratic method that can be helpful to some but not to others.

(another one written by Aileen that I moved over here)

[Nina]

i still cannot quite get why C and E are incorrect. Can someone please help with it?

Thanks a lot!

[dcdharmadasa]

It seems that the Lawyer is equivocating the word 'intent'

similar to the word 'want' in answer choice B

Is that correct?

[ohthatpatrick]

It's not exactly equivocation, but I get where you're getting that from, since we're definitely dealing with misleading meaning.

But the misleading meaning isn't coming from two different meanings to 'intent' or two different meanings to 'want'.

The distorted reality is this:

Paul wanted to do X.
Doing X had a consequence of Y.
Thus, Paul wanted to do Y.

for example:
Paul wanted to go skiing.
He broke his leg skiing.
Thus, Paul wanted to break his leg.

We're using want in the same sense, but we disagree with the 'want' in the conclusion because we're thinking, "he only wanted the initial action, not its unintended consequence".

Actual equivocation means that a word/concept is used twice with two different definitions.

For example:
Most people claim that Paul was responsible for starting the food fight. But they must be wrong. After all, starting a food fight isn't a responsible thing to do.

1st use of 'responsible' = culpable, blameworthy
2nd use of 'responsible' = mature, exercising good judgment

Does that make sense?

While we're here, let me explain the other answers for anyone who comes along and wants a complete explanation.

Again, we're looking for something like
i. Person 1 meant to do X.
ii. X had a consequence of Y.
iii. Thus Person 1 meant do do Y.

(A) The conclusion here doesn't match the original. It isn't about Alice's thoughts/intentions. (A) is actually a logically sound argument, so it can't match the original, flawed argument.

(C) Same as (A). The conclusion isn't about Cheryl's intention/desire/thinking. It's only a comment on the unintended consequences of Cheryl's action. The flaw in the original hinges on concluding that Person 1 desired the unintended consequences. The flaw in (C) is "just because you denigrated an object Person 2 was responsible for doesn't necessarily mean that you denigrated Person 2."

(D) Same as (A) and (C). This isn't an airtight argument, like (A), but the conclusion doesn't speak of Deon's intentions/desires.
The flaw in this argument is "just because someone is generally thought to be X doesn't let us conclude that person definitely is X."

(E) Airtight argument. Not flawed.

Hope this helps.