Self-study
Lindsey: Several people claim that our company was unfair when it failed to give bonuses to the staff. ███████ ████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ██ █████████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ███ ████████ ████████ ███ █████████ ██████ ███ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████████ █████ ███ ███████ █████ ███████
Summarize Argument
Lindsey concludes that the company acted fairly in not giving bonuses. As support, she says that those who claim the company acted unfairly might be remembering the company's promise to give bonuses if profits increased, but profits actually decreased.
Identify and Describe Flaw
Lindsey argues that people are wrong to say the company acted unfairly, but she only addresses one possible reason for their claim—the company's promise to give bonuses if profits increased. She refutes this by pointing out that profits actually decreased. But there might be other reasons for why the company should give bonuses.
In other words, just because she attacked one reason for saying the company was unfair doesn’t mean she’s proven that the company was actually fair.
18.
The argument is flawed in ████ ██
a
relies on the ████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██████ ███████ ████████████ ████ █████ ██████ ████ ████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████
Lindsey mentions some unnamed people who claim that the company acted unfairly, but she isn’t relying on their opinions to support her argument. Instead, she argues against their opinion by concluding that the company actually acted fairly.
b
infers that an ███████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████ ███ █████████ ██████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ████ ██████████
Lindsey concludes that the people’s opinion is false merely because one potential reason for that opinion— the company’s earlier promise— has been undermined. She doesn’t address any other possible reasons, nor does she provide evidence that establishes that the company acted fairly.
c
dismisses a claim ██ ███ █████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ███ █████
This is the cookie-cutter “ad hominem” flaw, where the author attacks the people making an argument rather than the argument itself. Lindsey doesn’t make this mistake. She argues against the people’s claim, but not based on irrelevant attributes of those people.
d
confuses the size ██ █ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ████████ ███ █████████
Lindsey doesn’t confuse overall profit size with profit increase. All that matters is whether profits increased, not how big they were. Since profits went down, the company’s promise to give bonuses doesn’t apply. Lindsey wrongly assumes that this means they acted fairly.
e
overlooks the possibility ████ █ ██████ ███ ██ ████ ████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████████
Irrelevant— the argument is only about whether the company acted fairly, not whether it acted generously. Also, Lindsey argues that the company did act fairly.