Q26 - Employee: Vernon's behavior in last month's incident

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: For the sake of consistency, the company should give V his job back.
Evidence: Although V's behavior was bad enough that his firing was justified, so too was the behavior of some higher-ups who haven't been fired and are treated in good standing.

Answer Anticipation:
If we were trying to argue that "for the sake of consistency, the company should NOT give V his job back", how would we respond to this unfair double-standard? The author thinks, "the only way to be consistent is to let EVERYONE keep their jobs!" We might say, "Couldn't we also be consistent by firing the higher-ranking employees? After all, the author believes that all of them behaved badly enough that the company is justified in firing them." The author chooses one possible route to consistency when another possible route is available.

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) There was no equivocation here. "Unprofessional" is used the same throughout.

(B) There was no conditional logic flaw here, since none of the premises were conditional statements.

(C) This was not a circular argument. The conclusion "the company should give V his job back" is not also a piece of evidence.

(D) This was not a Possible vs. Certain flaw. I can see students maybe liking this one by thinking "The behavior of the higher-ranking employees was behavior that CAN result in keeping your job, but the author is treating it like it ALWAYS results in keeping your job". But that would contradict what we were told. Vernon's behavior did NOT result in his keeping his job, so clearly this behavior doesn't ALWAYS result in that consequence. The author might fairly be accused of thinking, "since a certain behavior can sometimes result in a certain consequence, it SHOULD always result in that consequence".

(E) YUP, this matches our predicted objection: "Why are you concluding that the company must give V his job back? Why aren't you concluding that the company should ALSO fire the other misbehavers?"

Takeaway/Pattern: The first three answers were from the 10 Famous Flaws: Equivocation, Nec vs. Suff (Conditional Logic Flaw), and Circular Reasoning. The qualifier at the beginning of the conclusion, "For the sake of consistency ...", importantly blocks out all other objections . We have to really ask ourselves, "If the company is trying to be consistent, do they HAVE to give V his job back?" That helps us unlock the wiggle room: No! They could just fire errrybody!

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