Tom: Critics of recent high court decisions claim that judges' willingness to abide by earlier decisions is necessary to avoid legal chaos. █████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ██████████ █████ ██████████ ███ ██ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ███████ █████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████████ █████████ ███ █████ ██ ██ ████████
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Tom mentions that critics of certain recent high court decisions argue that judges must be willing to abide by precedent to avoid legal chaos. But Tom then appeals to the behavior of past high courts, which often repudiated legal precedents, with no legal chaos ensuing. On the basis of this analogy (remember that comparisons with the past are a form of analogy), Tom rejects the critics' objections, which he also claims, without support, are "politically motivated".
Mary responds by pointing out an important difference between the behavior of past high courts and the current high court. When past high courts overturned precedents, those precedents were old and clearly outdated. The current court has overturned recent rulings, and Mary argues that overturning recent rulings makes the law seem unstable.
Mary responds to Tom's argument ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████
She questions Tom's █████ █████ ███ ███████ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ███ █████
Incorrect. Mary does not question Tom's claim that past reversals didn't cause harm to the legal system. In fact, she provides a reason for why those past reversals did not cause harm — because the precedents overturned were old and clearly outdated — while the recent reversals likely will.
She agrees to █████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ █████████
Incorrect. Mary never states that she agrees with Tom that the critics are "politically motivated." It seems like she might disagree, given that she is defending the critics' argument, but she doesn't directly respond to that part of Tom's conclusion.
She defends a ████████ ███████ █████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ████████ ██ ████ █████ ███ █████████████
Incorrect. It's important to see that although Tom mentions the critics of a certain practice — overturning legal precedents — and rejects their argument, Tom himself does not criticize that practice. Nor does Mary defend the practice of overturning legal precedent in general by saying that it "usually" comes after due deliberation. Mary isn't making a value judgment that overturning legal precedent is usually valid — she is just making a descriptive claim about the difference between past courts' overturning of legal precedents and more recent cases. Mary also doesn't cite any specific evidence.
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Incorrect. While Tom makes certain assumptions to get to his conclusion that the critics' argument is incorrect and politically motivated, those assumptions aren't "contradicted" by his premise that past courts also overturned precedents and no legal chaos ensued. Nor does Mary claim there is a contradiction in Tom's argument: she just presents additional, relevant information to show why his analogy with the past doesn't work.
She introduces a ███████████ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ███ █ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ████ ████████
Correct. Tom had argued that since past high courts overturned precedents without causing harm to the legal system, the current courts' reversal of precedents will likewise not cause harm. Mary points out that the past high courts' approach to overturning precedents was very different from the current court's approach, with different consequences likely to result from each approach.
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