Self-study
Politician: The huge amounts of money earned by oil companies elicit the suspicion that the regulations designed to prevent collusion need to be tightened. ███ ████ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███████ █████████ ███ ███ ███████████ ███████████ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ █████ ███████████ ██████████ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ ████ ████████ ███ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ██████ ██████████
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The politician concludes that oil industry regulations do not need to be tightened. She supports this with the following premises:
(1) If the regulations are not too burdensome, then oil companies will make sufficient profit to motivate risky investments.
(2) Oil companies’ profits are not the highest among all industries.
(3) So the regulations are too burdensome.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The politician’s argument rests on the unsupported assumption that that oil profits sufficient to motivate risky investments must also be the highest profits among all industries. She ignores the possibility that oil profits could still be sufficient to motivate risky investments, even though they’re not the highest among all industries. In this case, it doesn't follow that oil industry regulations are too burdensome.
12.
The reasoning in the politician's ████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
fails to justify ███ ███████████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ███████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ███ ██████████
The author assumes that “sufficient profits” must be the “highest profits.” But perhaps oil profits are sufficient to motivate risky investments, even though they’re not the highest among all industries.
b
attacks the character ██ ███ ███ █████████ ██████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ █████ ███████
The politician never attacks the character of oil companies, nor does she attack the substance of their conduct. She just argues that regulations don’t need to be tightened because oil companies’ profits aren’t high enough.
c
fails to justify ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ███████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing correlation for causation. The politician doesn’t make this mistake. Instead of a causal assumption, she makes a conditional assumption that is not supported in her argument.
d
treats the absence ██ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ███ ███ ███████ ███████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ █████ ███ ██████████
The politician does provide evidence in the form of “recent data” to support her claim that the oil industry does not have the highest profits among all industries.
e
illicitly draws a ███████ ██████████ ████ █ ████████ ███████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of hasty generalization. The politician doesn’t make this mistake. She draws a specific conclusion about oil industry regulations based on evidence that is also about the oil industry.