Self-study
Sabina: Support The words used in expressing facts affect neither the facts nor the conclusions those facts will support. █████████ ██ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ███████ ███ ████████████ █████ ███ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ ██ ████████████ ██████████ █████ ███ ██ ████████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ █ ████ █████████
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What The Hell Is Even This?
This stimulus is pretty heady, so instead of breaking it all down I'm just gonna explain it in my own words. Central to Sabina and Emile's disagreement is the difference between an argument being sound and an argument being good.
Sound is a technical term that means "valid plus true" – if an argument is sound, that means it has a flawless logical structure and all its premises are true in the real world. This concept is worth remembering for law school.
Good means something different, especially for Emile. For Emile, good means "likely to persuade people when they hear it." Emile's essential point is that if you're being an insensitive asshole and using words that are misleading or make people hate you, you'll have a hard time actually changing people's minds even if your underlying argument is sound.
So that's what's happening in the stimulus. Sabina makes a very technical case about how as long as you're defining all the terms you're using precisely, the actual terms you use don't affect the underlying logical structure or truth (soundness). Sabina treats goodness as basically the same thing as soundness, saying well-chosen terms don't affect goodness either. That's where Emile jumps in and distinguishes soundness from goodness.
23.
The point at issue between █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████
a
defining words in ███ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ ██████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███ █████ ████ ███████
Can defining words in one way rather than another alter either the facts or the conclusions the facts will justify?
Sabina: ❌Emile: ❓/ ❌
b
a word can ██ ███████ ███████ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ ██████ ███ █████████ ████████████
Can a word be defined without taking into account its social and political connotations?
Sabina: ❓Emile: ❓/ ✅
Neither speaker addresses this question directly, but there's some weak reason to believe Emile would say "sure, whatever" if asked. Sabina just talks about defining words "clearly" without offering any more detail on what that means (which is a bit ironic). Emile highlights the importance of social and political connotations, but treats those concepts as separate from a word's definition.
c
a sound argument ██ ███████ ██ █ █████ ██████████ ██ █ ██████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████████ ███ ████ ████ ██████████
Is a sound argument in support of a given conclusion a better argument than any unsound argument for that same conclusion?
Sabina: ✅Emile: ❓
Sabina definitely thinks "sound is good," so there's support for the idea that sound arguments are better than unsound arguments.
Emile thinks sound arguments can be either good or bad depending on how they're expressed, but we don't know how Emile feels about unsound arguments. It's quite possible that Emile thinks unsound arguments are the worst, then sound-but-poorly-expressed arguments are in the middle, then sound-and-well-expressed are the best. (In that scenario, Emile would answer "yes" to (C)'s question.)
d
it would be █ ████ ██████ ██ █████ █████ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████████████ ███ ██████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ██████ █████ █████ █████ ██████
Would it be a good policy to avoid using words that are likely to lead people either to misunderstand the claims being made or to reason badly about those claims?
Sabina: ❓Emile: ❓
(D) is wrong because there's a difference between what makes a good argument and what makes a good policy. Sabina thinks expression doesn't affect how good an argument is, but they still might think that avoiding misleading claims is a good thing to do for other reasons. Emile thinks using misleading terms can make an argument bad, but doesn't comment on whether making bad arguments is a bad thing to do.
e
a factor that ███████ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ██ ████████████ ████████ ███ ███ ███████ ████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ █ ███ ███
Can a factor that affects neither the truth of an argument's premises nor the logical relation between its premises and its conclusion cause an argument to be a bad one?
Sabina: ❌Emile: ✅
Expression is the factor in question. Sabina thinks