A limited partnership

Article: A limited partnership (Baltimore Sun, Maryland, US)

Author: The Editor, unnamed (information welcome)

It’s saddening to read a poorly constructed argument, especially when the conclusion could – and should – have been justified had the writer spent more time planning. Today’s article is an example of such an argument.

Conclusion: Civil partners of homosexual state employees should benefit from free/subsidised health insurance [in Maryland].

The editor uses two separate reasons to justify this conclusion.

R1: “At least 15 states, including Maine, Arizona and Montana…and a host of smaller Maryland municipalities” already provide health coverage, therefore Maryland state should provide health benefits too.

Tu quoque; you cannot justify a conclusion on the basis that other states have already concluded the same. This is also an appeal to popularity, the editor has assumed that because a number of other states have concluded one course of action is right, that it must be the right.

R2: Other social groups receive health benefits, therefore homosexual partners should too. “It’s a matter of basic fairness – providing equal pay (and benefits) for equal work.“

This appears, on the surface, a valid argument; however, the editor has committed the fallacy of tu quoque again. His argument simplified: homosexuals partners should have health benefits because hetrosexual partners have health benefits. The problem is in that the editor assumes that the law governing hetrosexual couples is right. By using the same logic I could argue: homosexual couples don’t receive health benefits, so neither should other social groups. So, the editor’s argument allows a contradiction in the conclusion (because of the tu quoque).

Double tu quoque whammy!

Shaken, not slurred

Article: “Shaken, not slurred” (The Guardian, UK)

Author: Ariane Sherine [1]

Sherine commits one of the most severe examples of appeal to humour I have ever read. An appeal to humour attempts to divert attention from a poorly constructed argument by use of humour.

The conclusion of the article: “Women are drinking more and accept the consequences – but not the responsibility for the crimes of others“

Paragraph 2: The statistics presented don’t give the time period over which the increase in drinking has taken place. The significance of a “50%” increase is small if it is over 100 years, but very large if it is over one week. Therefore, it is hard to draw a precise conclusion.

Moreover, the figures given in paragraph 2 contradict figures in paragraph 3.

“OK, so those 5,891 females make up less than 0.01% of the population” (paragraph 2)

“they’re the 1 in 5,891” (paragraph 3)

These are not the same; it’s unforgivable that such poor maths has been published. 1 in 5891 constitutes 0.01% of the UK population, and 5891 women alone make up 0.0001% of the UK population.

Paragraph 3: Ad hominem on the Daily Mail. “No, stop, the Daily Mail will call me a wanton alcoholic!“. This adds nothing to the overall conclusion, and just attempts to transfer the blame of overdrinking onto a newspaper by suggesting the Mail’s negative perception of binge drinking eggs women on. It attacks the respectability of the Daily Mail, and nothing more.

Paragraph 4: Tu quoque. “Men under 30 are the majority of offenders“, inexplicably Sherine believes that because younger men engage in drink driving it justifies women doing so. Furthermore, there is no context to Sherine’s statistic; younger men may be the majority of drink drivers because more younger men drink, rather than because they are more inclined to drink drive.

“…compared to 2% of men“; no context again.

“34% have unprotected sex, and nearly a fifth have injured themselves“, Sherine uses this as evidence of women being vulnerable. She has misdefined the word; vulnerable means “susceptible to attack” [1], which means an attacker/perpetrator must be present. A perpetrator is absent in both cases.

Paragraph 5: Hasty generalisation. Sherine uses one of her experiences to draw the general claim that people prefer to be drunk socialites, rather than teetotal loners. It’s not logical to move from a specific example to a general claim.

Paragraph 6: Very weak analogy. Sherine draws a parallel between a teetotaler and a person who has “set fire to” their “armpit hair“. They are similar in that the subjects are in the minority; however, they are very dissimilar in the sense that a teetotaler can still be considered normal, while a hairy arsonist cannot. Sherine has conflated the terms “minority” and “abnormal”.

Paragraph 8: Tu quoque. Sherine argues that because all her friends are drunks it is OK for herself to be one too.

She goes on to argue that because everyone (her friends) are unembarrassed drunks, it must be the case that all people are unembarrassed to be drunk. She moves from a specific example (her group of friends) to a general claim about the whole population. Arguably this is, also, an appeal to popularity; Sherine believes that because all her friends testify to one opinion it must be true.

Paragraph 9: Ad hominem. Sherine attacks other newspapers by suggesting they are whiners “bleat“, she believes, wrongly, that this will strengthen her argument.

Overexaggeration/appeal to humour/straw man. “It’s drunk women’s own silly faults if they get raped/killed/tied to a pylon by a maniac who repeatedly hits their ankles with a large hammer!” Sherine makes any opposition look ridiculous by misrepresenting them.

“assaults are never anyone but the perpetrator’s fault“; she states a principle without any reasoning.

Overall the article’s argument is poorly constructed. It appears that Sherine has tried to provide entertainment rather than any intelligent political commentary. Humourous articles have the right to be published, but they shouldn’t be using serious political issues as their target, neither should they be published in the comment section of the Guardian.