Self-study
Board member: Support The J Foundation, a philanthropic organization, gave you this grant on the condition that your resulting work not contain any material detrimental to the J Foundation's reputation. ███ ████ █████████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ████████ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ █████ █████ ███ █████ ███ █████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that your work contains material that hurts the J Foundation’s reputation. This is based on the fact that your work never mentions any of the good stuff that the J Foundation does.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that failure to mention good things about the J Foundation is harmful to the J Foundation’s reputation. This overlooks the possibility that failure to mention good things might simply be neutral — it might not actually hurt or help the J Foundation’s reputation.
2.
The reasoning in the board ████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
takes for granted ████ █ ████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ████████ ████████████ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ████████████ █████
The author’s reasoning doesn’t relate to intellectual value. The argument concerns whether there is harm to the J Foundation’s reputation, not whether there is a lack of intellectual value.
b
confuses a condition █████████ ███ ███ ███████ ██ █ █████ ████ █ █████████ ██████████ ███ ███ ███████ ██ █ █████
The author doesn’t try to conclude that someone must have received a grant on the basis of having satisfied a necessary condition for a grant. The conclusion concerns whether someone who already received a grant is satisfying what’s required of them.
c
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ █ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ █ ████████████ ████████ ████████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ████████████ ██████████
The author assumes that failing to mention the good stuff J Foundation has done hurts the foundation’s reputation. This overlooks the possibility that there might be no reputational harm. Perhaps there’s no increase in reput., but that doens’t imply there has been a decrease.
d
fails to consider ████ ██████████ ██ █ █████ ███████ ██████ ██ ████ █ ████████████ ██████████
Whether the recipient has tried to satisfy the conditions has no bearing on whether what they’ve done actually satisfies them. The argument concerns whether the recipient has actually satisfied the conditions.
e
fails to consider ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ █████ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ █ ████████████ ██████████
The argument points out a particular condition that the author believes has not been satisfied. Even if other conditions have been met, that doesn’t affect an argument based on a purported violation of one particular condition.