Self-study
Company president: For the management consultant position, Support we shall interview only those applicants who have worked for management consulting firms generally recognized as in the top 1 percent of firms worldwide. ████ ██ ███████ ██████ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ██ ████ ██ ████ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ██████████ ███████████ ██████████
Summarize Argument
The company president concludes that the company will choose one of the best management consultants available because they will only interview candidates who have worked for top 1% of management consulting firms.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing whole versus part. Here, the president assumes that the best firms must be made up of the best individual consultants.
In other words, in order to conclude that his company will hire one of the best consultants, the president must assume that only the best consultants work at the best firms. In reality, top firms could still have had some bad consultants.
5.
The company president's reasoning is ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██
a
takes for granted ████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ ███████████ ████ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ██████████ ██████████ █████
The president assumes that the best firms are made up of only the best consultants. But top firms could still have had some bad consultants. In other words, just because the whole group is high quality doesn’t ensure that each part or member of the group is high quality.
b
generalizes from too █████ █ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██████████ █████ █████████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of hasty generalization. The company president doesn’t make this mistake. He just assumes that only the best consultants work at the best firms worldwide.
c
takes for granted ████ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █ ███████████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ █ █████
The president’s argument is actually vulnerable to criticism because it assumes that if something is true of a collection as a whole (the best consulting firms), then it is also true of each member of that collection (each individual consultant). (C) has this backward.
d
presumes, without providing ████████ ████ ███████ ███ ████ ██████ ███ ███ ███ █████████ ████ ██████ █ ███ █████
The president never makes any assumptions about which candidates will accept a job offer. He just argues that when the company chooses a candidate, that candidate will be one of the best consultants.
e
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ██████ █████████ ██████████ ███████████ ███ ██████ █████████ ██ █████ ████
The president never assumes this. Instead, he assumes that only the best consultants work at the best firms. Whether those consultants are competent at every task is irrelevant.