PT13.S2.Q7 - It is not correct that people of the US

tanes256

Hey, yall! Would you say that AC B equals ambiguity? Sometimes I get equivocation and ambiguity mixed up but I eliminated equivocation here because "tax" isn't used differently throughout the passages. B basically says the author extended the meaning of tax to help or justify her claim (US residents pay for health care out of their pockets, whereas the service is paid by tax revenues in the other Western countries so US residents do indeed pay high taxes because they're the same). Does this quite qualify as ambiguous? I understand the ambiguity fallacy to mean that a word or phrase used in the argument is unclear. Is the term unclear or did the author just tweak it to mean what he/she wanted it to mean? I'm trying to get familiar with the different ways the LSAC can construct this type of fallacy as an AC. I didn't eliminate this AC but I also didn't choose it because I wasn't quite sure what it was actually saying.

hon132

B is basically saying the argument is trying to add additional metrics for being a tax. For example, taxes generally include the income tax you file return for, corporate taxes, etc. However, the author makes the argument that because healthcare expenses are not included, US taxes are lower than they should be but are healthcare expenses really the same as a tax? A similar AC might be that he's trying to compare two things that are not exactly the same, taxes and healthcare, but doing it this way, he's trying to lump healthcare within the same thing as a tax when in many significant ways, it is not. Basically, cars are cars but what about that bike? It make sounds so it must also be a car. It's not iron-clad but certainly less wrong than the other choices.

tanes256

@hon132 thx for the explanation. I get what you're saying but does the AC equate to the ambiguity fallacy, or should I just scrap that?

hon132

I wouldn't consider it as an ambiguity fallacy because B relies on a set definition for taxes while the argument tries to include HC into that umbrella. An AF might actually make it wrong if there are no clear definition as what a tax is. I would consider it a Necessary =/= Sufficient issue since there are other possible reason why HC may or may not be a tax, using only the reasons he gave doesn't suffice.

tanes256

@hon132 whoa! Ok, you through me off with the necessary and sufficient stuff. I didn't see that at all. Let me go back and look at this one again.

akistotle

Hi @tanes256 !

I may be wrong, but are you trying to categorize the answer choice (B) as one of the common flaws?
https://7sage.com/lesson/19-common-argument-flaws/

[Stimulus]
P: The people in the U.S. pay for goods and services that taxes would have paid for in other countries.
P: These payments are basically taxes.

---

C: People in the US are not taxed less than people in other countries.

Is this flaw Uses terms unclearly/equivocation?
I don't know if the author uses the term "tax" inconsistently here. In the argument, the author explicitly (deliberately) redefines the meaning of "tax" by extending its application.

Uses terms unclearly/equivocation answer choices would be something like....
・it relies on the vagueness of the term "tax"
・it fails to provide a definition for a key term--the word "tax"
・it is based on an ambiguity of the term "tax"

But I think the meaning of the term "tax" is clear here, and the author is intentionally trying to redefine it.

I may be wrong, so any comments will be appreciated!!!

akistotle

Sorry I commented without refreshing this page. It seems like you figured it out already.

tanes256

@akistotle thx. I don't think I've quite figured it out. I get why it's not equivocation. I'm still not certain if it's ambiguity or not though. The other commenter mentioned necessary and sufficient and that totally shocked me because that was nowhere on my radar. Could you elaborate on whether it's ambiguity or not and why? And also, can you clear up the necessary and sufficient stuff? Is your explanation saying equivocation and ambiguity are the same?

@akistotle said:
Uses terms unclearly/equivocation answer choices would be something like....

・it is based on an ambiguity of the term "tax"

hon132

When I mention it might be an N/S issue, I mean in that a tax may have different requirements to be considered a tax, logic-wise it would look like X+Y+Z = Tax. Here, X, Y, Z are necessary reasons to be a tax and meeting all 3 are sufficient enough to be considered a tax. His argument is that HC expenses are taxes because HC fits X but there are other necessary reasons, perhaps more important reasons, why HC is not considered a tax. In the argument, his reasoning may or may not be necessary to be a tax but it sure doesn't meet the sufficiency required to be a tax. In my earlier example, this could be that a bike has tires. Tires are necessary to be a car but simply having tires does not mean car.

tanes256

@hon132 oh ok! Gotcha! I appreciate that!