Self-study
Lawyer: Support If you take something that you have good reason to think is someone else's property, that is stealing, and Support stealing is wrong. ████████ ██████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██████ █████████ ██ ██ ███ ███ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███
Summarize Argument
The lawyer concludes that it was not wrong for Meyers to take the compost. She supports this by saying that if you take something that you have good reason to think is someone else’s property, then you are stealing, and stealing is wrong. But Meyers did not have good reason to think that the compost was someone else’s property.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. The lawyer treats “good reason” as necessary for “wrong,” but according to her premises “good reason” is merely sufficient. So negating “good reason” tell us nothing about “wrong.”
In other words, even though Meyers had no good reason to believe that the compost was someone else’s property, it might still have been wrong to take it. Having “good reason” is not necessary for making something stealing or for making something wrong.
21.
The reasoning in the lawyer's ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ████████
a
confuses a factual █████ ████ █ █████ ████████
The lawyer discusses both a factual claim about Meyers having no reason to believe that the compost belonged to anyone and a moral judgment about Meyers’ action not being wrong. But she never confuses these two claims.
b
takes for granted ████ ██████ █████ ███ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ████████
The lawyer doesn’t consider or make any assumptions about what might have happened if Meyers had good reason to believe the compost was someone else’s. She only discusses the fact that Meyers did not have a good reason to believe this.
c
takes a condition ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ █████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██ █████
Having “good reason...” is sufficient to make an action stealing, and thus to make it wrong. But the lawyer treats “good reason” as necessary. Just because Meyers had no good reason to believe that the compost belonged to someone else doesn’t mean that taking it was not wrong.
d
fails to consider ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████ ███ ███████ ████████
If the compost was Meyers’ property, this would strengthen the lawyer’s conclusion that it wasn’t wrong for him to take it.
e
concludes that something ██ █████████ ███████ ██████ ████████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ █████ ███ ███ ███████████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ██████ ████████
The lawyer concludes that it wasn’t wrong for Meyers to take the compost because he had no good reason to believe it was someone else’s property. She doesn’t conclude that the compost is certainly someone else’s property, nor does she give reason to think that it is.