Support If the purpose of laws is to contribute to people's happiness, we have a basis for criticizing existing laws as well as proposing new laws. ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████ █████ ████ █████ ██ ████ ████████ ████ ████████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ █████
The author concludes that existing laws have legitimacy simply because they are the laws. This is based on a subsidiary conclusion that, if the purpose of laws is not to contribute to people’s happiness, then we don’t have a basis for evaluating existing laws. This sub-conclusion is based on the premise that if the purpose of laws is to contribute to people’s happiness, then we have a basis for criticizing laws.
The author confuses a sufficient condition for having a basis for criticizing existing laws with a necessary condition. Although we know that if the purpose of laws is to contribute to happiness, then we have a basis, that doesn’t imply that if the purpose of laws is not to contribute to happiness, that we no longer have a basis to criticize laws. So the author’s jump to the sub-conclusion is flawed.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ████████
takes a sufficient █████████ ███ █ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ █ █████████ █████████ ███ ██
The purpose of laws being happiness is sufficient to have a basis for criticizing laws. But the author thinks this purpose is necessary for having a basis to criticize.
infers a causal ████████████ ████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █ ███████████
The evidence doesn’t present a correlation.
trades on the ███ ██ █ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █ ███████ ███ ██ █ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████
The author doesn’t use any term in two ways. “Legitimacy” means legitimacy throughout the argument. “Laws” mean laws throughout the argument.
draws a conclusion █████ ███ ███ █████ ████████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██████ █████ ███ ██ ██████ ██
The evidence does not assert anything about how the world “should” be.
infers that because █ ███ ██ ██████ ███ █ ███████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ███ ███ ████████
The argument doesn’t commit a whole-to-part fallacy. There is no whole presented in the premises, and no individual parts of a whole presented in the conclusion.
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