I added the article I used

Running head: LONGER ARGUMENTS AND FALLACIES

Longer Arguments and Fallacies
[Author Name(s), First M. Last, Omit Titles and Degrees]
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Author Note
[Include any grant/funding information and a complete correspondence address.]

1

LONGER ARGUMENTS AND FALLACIES

2

Longer Arguments and Fallacies
Put things in your own words unless the question asks for a direct quote.
Part 1: Longer Arguments
1) Why are premises or conclusions sometimes left unstated in an argument? And, how does the
principle of charity help in supplying these missing claims? Answer in 8-12 sentences, with two
direct quotes from the text by Matthew Van Cleave. Quotes go in quotation marks with the in-text
citation (Van Cleave, 2019, p. ___). (10 points)

Often the arguments do not provide all the premises to make it valid. The concept of
validity is “a useful tool for knowing when to supply missing premises in our reconstruction of
an argument.” (Van Cleave, 2016) Sometimes the missing premises are straightforward and easy
to reconstruct; however there are times when the missing premises are difficult to find. A missing
premise “is a premise that the argument needs in order to be as strong as possible” (Van Cleave,
2016) The principle of charity states that the reconstruction of an argument should be done to
make the argument as strong as possible, which means to supply the most plausible premise to
make the argument valid. Normative statements are about whether something ought to be true,
relative to some assessment, while a descriptive statement is only a factual claim about what is
true. There are also rules, such the is-ought gap described by David Hume, which states that a
normative statement (what ought to be) could not be derived from descriptive statements (what
is). One argument can have more than one missing premise. Most of the times, when an
argument has missing premises that are difficult to find, the argument needs more than one
premise to become valid or inductively strong.

2) For each of the following, give the missing (unstated) claim that is intended by the speaker and
makes the argument valid. (5 points each)
a) If EPCOT is a Disney park, then it will have carefully designed and engaging rides. And, it is,
in fact, a Disney park. [supply the missing conclusion]
Then it will have carefully designed and engaging rides.

LONGER ARGUMENTS AND FALLACIES

3

b) People should not abuse animals since this causes unnecessary pain. [supply the missing
premise]
Animals feel pain
Abuse causes unnecessary pain
Humans can abuse animals
3) For this question, find a longer argument to analyze related to the social or ethical issue you
have chosen as your paper topic. This can be from an opinion essay, speech, or web page. Look
for an extended argument that is three or more paragraphs long and defends a certain view on
your topic. Make sure it has enough information for you to complete all parts of the question.
Then, answer the following prompts. (10 points each)

In the article about Animals and the Law (TANNENBAUM, 1995), the author describes
what he considers the animal activist view.
(1) The law's fundamental approach to animals is historically outmoded and ethically
unacceptable.
(2) This fundamental approach views most animals as the property of human beings and
claims to protect animals through so-called "cruelty-to animals" laws.
(3) The classification of animals as property and cruelty laws
(a) do not afford due regard to the interests of animals;
(b) do not, and indeed cannot, afford them legal "rights;" and
(c) are not even intended to protect animals and their interests, but to serve human
interests.
(4) Therefore, substantial and fundamental changes in the law's conception of and
approach to animals are required.

a) Give a link to the argument and briefly summarize its main ideas.

LONGER ARGUMENTS AND FALLACIES

4

The URL of the article is
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971109?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. The article is quite long
and analyzes the law regarding animals’ property, cruelty, and rights — the activist point of view
related to the different laws that regulate the treatment received by the animals. The article
investigated the history of animal property and cruelty laws, stating that although some of the
arguments from the activist point of view are commonsense, other ideas are not applicable.

b) What is the main conclusion of the argument? How do you know this is the main conclusion?

At the end of the article, the author says “The point of my argument is not just that
animals will remain property, and that this legal status is consistent with a variety of approaches
to them, but that we need to work within this status if we are to improve their lives.”
(TANNENBAUM, 1995) which means that the main conclusion of the argument is “there is no
need to change the legal status of the animals to improve their lives, but to use the instruments
that we already have.”
c) Find one short deductive argument within the extended argument and write it out in the
standard form. This will most likely be an argument of 2 or 3 premises leading to a
conclusion. Paraphrase and supply missing premises or conclusion as needed to complete
the argument. Use the principle of charity to make the argument valid, if at all possible.

(1) The law regards animals as a form of property.
(2) Historically as well as conceptually, the law began with a category of "property" and
placed animals in this category.
(3) Animals can be removed from the category of property just as they were placed in it.
(4) Personal property, by its very nature, involves "sole and despotic dominion" over it
by its owners.

LONGER ARGUMENTS AND FALLACIES

5

(5) Therefore, if animals are property, their interests are not important. Animals must
give way to their owners. They certainly cannot have legal "rights."
(6) If the law is to accord animal interests due regard or to afford them rights, it must
remove them from the category of property.
(7) The paradigm of personal "property" is an inanimate object, or to use Blackstone's
examples (other than animals) "household stuff, money, jewels, corn, garments, and everything
else that can properly be put in motion and transferred from place to place."
(8) Inanimate things cannot have rights.
(9) Therefore, as property, animals cannot have legal rights.
(10) If the law is to accord animal interests due regard or to afford them rights, it must
remove them from the category of property.
The argument, reduced to its core says
1. Property has no rights
2. Animals are property
3. Animals have no rights. (while animals remain property, they will have
no rights)
d) Is the short argument you found valid? Is it sound? Why or why not? (If it is valid, but one of
its premises is controversial, you could say that its soundness is debatable or undetermined.)
The argument is valid, and it is sound because both premises are true, and the conclusion is
true too.
Part 2: Logical Fallacies
1. What is the fallacy of false dichotomy? And how does it operate in politics to distort or
confuse issues? Answer in 8-12 sentences, with two direct quotes from the course text by
Van Cleave. Quotes go in quotation marks with the in-text citation (Van Cleave, 2016, p.
___). (10 points)

LONGER ARGUMENTS AND FALLACIES

6

According to Van Cleave, “A false dichotomy is simply a disjunction that does not
exhaust all of the possible options.” (Van Cleave, 2016) It means that the argument presents two
opposite situations saying that they are mutually exclusive, opposite and that there are no other
options. For example, the argument used in Van Cleave’s book uses the options “helps the
economy” and “does not help the economy” as the only options. However, there is a third option,
that the raise of the taxes on, wealthy people will not affect the economy. The existence of a third
option makes the argument a fallacy. “the form of the argument is perfectly good—the argument
is valid. The problem is that this argument is not sound because the first premise of the argument
commits the false dichotomy fallacy. False dichotomies are commonly encountered in the
context of a disjunctive syllogism or constructive dilemma.” (Van Cleave, 2016)

2. Give an example of each of the following, related to one of your hobbies or interests.
Compose your arguments for these questions. (10 points each)
(a) An argument that commits the fallacy of composition
Clothes are made of fabric; then my whole wardrobe is made of fabric (people can
have leather, plastic, and even edible clothes, so there are clothes made of different
materials)
(b) An argument that commits the fallacy of equivocation
Domestic animals are tamed, my friends are very tamed people, then my friends are
domestic animals.
(c) An argument that looks like the fallacy of false dichotomy at first, but is, in fact,
good and not a fallacy
On Sundays afternoon we go to visit my sister Jane or my brother John. We are not
visiting John, so we are visiting Jane.

LONGER ARGUMENTS AND FALLACIES
References
TANNENBAUM, J. (1995). Animals and the Law: Property, Cruelty, Rights. Social Research,
62(3), 539–607. Retrieved from JSTOR.
Van Cleave, M. J. (2016). Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com.uy/books?id=JnlpswEACAAJ

7


Animals and the Law: Property, Cruelty, Rights
Author(s): JERROLD TANNENBAUM
Source: Social Research, Vol. 62, No. 3, In the Company of Animals (FALL 1995), pp. 539607
Published by: The New School
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971109
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Animals and the

Law: Property,

Cruelty, Rights /

BYJERROLD
TANNENBAUM

In American society, the legal system is the predominant engine

of public policy and, perhaps, moral suasion. It is therefore important for all people who are affected by animals- which is, of
course, virtually everyone- to know something about how the
law treats animals. If the law precludes appropriate ways of thinking about animals, we ought to know about it so that the law can
be changed. On the other hand, if the law's general approach to

animals is sound, the existing legal apparatus may provide a
useful foundation for treating animals fairly.

This paper offers some basic information about how the
American legal system deals with animals. This information is

placed in historical context. Some readers will find this
history surprising, even if they (wisely) begin with the view
that the law can work in strange ways and does not always

reflect reason, morality, or common sense. However, the
main interest of this paper is not historical, and I will refer
readers to other sources for more detailed historical

discussions. My primary aim is to use historical data to
address the following question: Does the law treat animals as

essentially inanimate objects, not possessed of important
interests, and unworthy of protection in their own right?
This question is important because many who view themselves as animal advocates answer it affirmatively. Some of
these people believe that the law stands in the way of decent
treatment of animals. Some blame the law for much of what

they consider to be unethical behavior toward animals.
SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Fall 1995)

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540 SOCIAL RESEARCH

I will argue that, in fact, the basic conceptual apparatus
American law has fashioned to deal with animals is sensible

and serviceable. The law's view of animals is not hopelessly
manipulative and heartless. Indeed, fundamental legal concepts relating to animals provide considerable moral space.1

This space allows for some inappropriate treatment of

animals, but it is also consistent with excellent treatment of

animals. If people have too often treated animals poorly, that

is usually not the law's fault, but their own. To blame
fundamental legal concepts relating to animals for bad
treatment of animals will therefore prove as unproductive as
it is historically inaccurate.

THE LEGAL STATUS OF ANIMALS: THE 'ACTIVIST' VIEW

It is useful to begin with what I shall call the activist view of the

legal status of animals. In using the term "activist" I do not mean

to disparage those who espouse the view. Many people who

advocate this view call themselves animal activists. Indeed,

some who espouse the view use much stronger terms to

describe themselves, such as animal use "abolitionists" or
animal "liberationists."

I will elaborate on the activist view as its contentions are

explored further. Initially, it can be characterized as making
the following assertions:
(1) The law's fundamental approach to animals is historically
outmoded and ethically unacceptable.

(2) This fundamental approach views most animals as the

property of human beings, and claims to protect animals

through so-called "cruelty-toanimals" laws.
(3) The classification of animals as property and cruelty laws
(a) do not afford due regard to the interests of animals;
(b) do not, and indeed cannot, afford them legal "rights;"
and

(c) are in fact not even intended to protect animals and
their interests, but to serve human interests.

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ANIMALS AND THE LAW 541

(4) Therefore, substantial and fundamental changes in the law's

conception of and approach to animals are required.

ANIMALS AS PROPERTY

The Popular Definition of Property

In general, animals are classified by the law as property.
However, what the law means by "property" is not what many

people appear to understand by the term in ordinary

discourse.

Many people seem to conceive of property as something that
belongs to one and over which one has complete control, to the

absolute exclusion of anyone else. Recently, I observed an
altercation between a twelve-year-old boy and his next door

neighbor that illustrates this common usage of the term
"property" beautifully. The boy was playing soccer with his
friends in his back yard. One of the children inadvertently
kicked the ball over the fence separating the boy's yard from

his neighbor's. The boy ran onto the neighbor's lawn to
retrieve the ball. The neighbor was standing behind her
kitchen window awaiting the impending trespass. She rushed
out her back door. Running toward the ball with the obvious

intention of seizing it, she uttered words that children
throughout the ages have heard from so-called neighbors:
"This is my property!" she screamed. "Get off of my property!"

Not to be outdone, the boy responded, as he quickly grabbed
the ball and jumped over the fence back into friendly territory,
"Well, this ball is my property!"

Here, both the boy and neighbor viewed "their property" as
something over which they have the right of control. And the
assertion "This is my propertyl" is commonly meant to convey
that no one else may infringe on such control. One's property,
on this view, is something that belongs to one, something the
use or destiny of which one has the sole right to determine. If

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542 SOCIAL RESEARCH

someone else is to use, or have any affect on, one's "property,"
this can happen only if one gives such a person permission to
do so.

In his eighteenth century survey of English law, William
Blackstone provided a classic statement of this conception of

property. Blackstone also believed (incorrectly) that this
conception was to be found deep in the historical foundations

of English law. "There is nothing," he wrote, "which so
generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of

mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic
dominion which one man claims and exercises over the

external view of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any
individual in the universe."2

Blackstone applied this notion of absolute and exclusive
control to the concept of "chattel" or personal property (as
distinguished from "real property," that is, land or real estate).
He listed typical forms of such chattel over which their owners

supposedly have absolute dominion. Included in this list are
animals.
Chattels personal are, strictly speaking, things movable', which may

be annexed to or attendant on the person of the owner, and

carried about with him from one part of the world to another.

Such are animals, household stuff, money, jewels, corn,
garments, and every thing else that can properly be put in

motion and transferred from place to place.3

[Regarding property in chattels personal, there is] property in

possession absolute, which is where a man hath, solely and

exclusively, the right, and also the occupation, of any movable
chattels; so that they cannot be transferred from him, or cease to
be his, without his own act or default.4

Blackstonian Absolute Possession and the Activist View of the Legal
Status of Animals

If Blackstone's analysis of the concept of the law's concept of
property were correct, it would be obvious that the law must

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ANIMALS AND THE LAW 543

afford animals very little protection and, indeed, must have a

very low regard for them. For, according to this analysis,
animal owners would have "sole and despotic dominion" over
their animals. Owners could, at their option, treat their animals

well, but they could also treat them quite miserably, indeed,
could do with them as they wish, without interference from
others. Moreover, to say that something can freely be the
object of "despotism" is to place very little value upon it. A
thing or being over which a despot exercises despotic control is
far less important to the despot than the despot is to himself. If

such a being's interests are to be respected or furthered, this
will not be something to which the being has a right. Such
protection will only come at the sufferance of the despot, and
can be turned on or off at the despot's will or whimsy.

The Blackstonian conception of property has played an
important role in what I have termed the "activist view" of the

legal status of animals. Many proponents of this view accept

the analysis of property offered by Blackstone, and then
conclude that the law should no longer classify animals as

property because people ought not to exercise sole and
despotic dominion over other sentient beings. Such an
argument is presented by Professor Gary Francione in a recent
critique of current legal principles governing the treatment of

animals. Citing Blackstone and the philosopher John Locke,

upon whom Blackstone relied in formulating his views

regarding property, Francione considers how the law deals
with situations in which the interests of animals conflict with
the interests of their owners.

As far as the law is concerned, it is as if we were resolving a
conflict between a person and a lamp, or some other piece of
personal property. The winner of the dispute is predetermined

by the way in which the debate is conceptualized in the first

place. The human interest in regarding animals as property is so
strong that even when people do not want to consider animals as
mere "property," and, instead, view animals as members of their

family, as in the case of dogs, cats, and other companion

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544 SOCIAL RESEARCH

animals, the law generally refuses to recognize that relationship.
For example, if one person negligently kills the dog of another,
most courts refuse to recognize the status of the animal as family
member and will limit the owner to the same sort of recovery
that would be allowed if the property were inanimate.5

In one important respect Francione's apparent view of the
nature of property differs sharply from Blackstone's. Central
to Francione's notion of property- and to the activist view of

the legal status of animals- is that property, or at the very
least, paradigm forms of property, are in an important sense
or respect inanimate objects such lamps or other personal or

household goods. This explains Francione's statement that

animal owners who consider their animals as members of their

families do not treat these animals as "mere" property.
Francione appears to think that only something which is an
inanimate object, and indeed is considered (somehow) as no
more valuable than an inanimate object is "mere" or pure
property.6 In contrast, in the passage quoted above, Blackstone
not only included animate beings- animals- in his list of kinds
of personal property, he placed them first on the list. Locke

too not only included animate beings- animals- among kinds
of personal property, he placed animals first on his list of kinds

of property. Locke thought that historically the "original"
property right was the "right a man has to use any of the

inferior creatures, for the subsistence and comfort of his life."7
Locke believed that this was the first property right because, he
believed, God bestowed this right on humankind on the fifth
day of Creation.
For the historical record, it is important to note that Locke's

theory of property did not, as Francione asserts, have "an
extraordinary influence on the common law."8 Common law
principles relating to possessory rights in land and chattel, as
well as the forms of action in which such rights were pursued,
were largely in place well before Locke's time.9 Moreover, as

will be discussed below, Blackstone's principle of sole and

despotic dominion over personal property was never a feature

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ANIMALS AND THE LAW 545

of the common law.10 However, at least Locke and Blackstone

never suggested that inanimate objects such as lamps constituted the paradigm forms of personal property. Blackstone
included animals in his list of kinds of chattel without

qualification. He did not distinguish between animals as one

fundamental kind of property and inanimate objects as
another, although he believed that the law treated wild animals
differently from domestic species because the former tended

to stray and therefore were more difficult to possess.11 He
never would have suggested that people who viewed animals as
members of the family would thereby cease to view them as

"mere" or true property. To Blackstone and Locke animals
were every bit as much property as "household stuff, money,
jewels, corn, garments, and every thing else that can properly
be put in motion and transferred from place to place."

As we shall see, the actual history of the legal concept of
property provides absolutely no support for the claim that
property, "true" property, or property properly speaking is or

should be inanimate. However, at this stage in the discussion
the claim that "mere" or true property is inanimate provides
the opportunity to further elaborate on the activist view of the

legal status of animals. Regarding animals as property, the

activist view holds as follows:

(1) The law regards animals as a form of property.
(2) Historically as well as conceptually, the law began with a
category of "property" and placed animals in this category.
(3) Animals can be removed from the category of property just
as they were placed in it.
(4) Personal property, by its very nature, involves "sole and
despotic dominion" over it by its owners.
(5) Therefore, if animals are property their interests are not
important. Animals must give way to their owners. They
certainly cannot have legal "rights."
(6) If the law is to accord animal interests due regard, or to
afford them rights, it must remove them from the category
of property.

(7) The paradigm of personal "property" is an inanimate
object, or to use Blackstone's examples (other than animals)

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546 SOCIAL RESEARCH

"household stuff, money, jewels, corn, garments, and every

thing else that can properly be put in motion and

transferred from place to place."
(8) Inanimate things cannot have rights.
(9) Therefore, as property, animals cannot have legal rights.

(10) If the law is to accord animal interests due regard, or to
afford them rights, it must remove them from the category
of property.

Property in Post-Conquest English Law: Land

To understand how American law conceives of property in
general and animals as property in particular one must look to
the beginnings of our law- which is to say one must start with
the victory of William the Conqueror over King Harold in
1066. The early history of Anglo-American law is fascinating
in its own right, and I cannot even begin here to do justice to it
or the considerable body of scholarship it has engendered.12 It
can be said that shortly after the Conquest, and proceeding in

earnest beginning with the reign of Henry II (1154-1189)
foundations of what lawyers call the "common law" were
enunciated by judges and were modified by various royal
charters (such as the Magna Carta), acts of Parliament, and
litigation in the common law courts. This common law was
brought to the American colonies and became part of the law
of the first 13 states upon the creation of the United States.
Later states (with the exception of Louisiana, which had been a
French colony and retained much of its old civil rather than
the common law tradition) also adopted the common law. This
incorporation of the common law proceeded sometimes by
legislative edict but more often through decisions of judges,

who accepted and built upon fundamental legal causes of

actions and concepts which had been enunciated in the early
English common law courts.

The origins of English law were feudal,13 and Anglo-

American property law property still shows signs of its feudal

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ANIMALS AND THE LAW 547

roots. The first, and initially the most important form of
"property" (this word must be placed in quotation marks
because it arrived relatively late) in English law was land. To

William the Conqueror and his men, nothing was more
important than the land. They had to conquer the indigenous
population for it, and for some time had to defend their new
territory against foreign invaders. The feudal system of land
distribution and possession, which William brought with him
from the Continent, was well suited for these difficult times.

Figure 1 illustrates how the system worked. There was only
one person who could properly be called an "owner" of land,
and that was the King. The King owned all the land in the
kingdom. In return for service (which involved an oath of
fealty and supplying a certain number of men for the King's
army) the King granted his knights the right to possess land. In

turn, these men swore fealty to the King's knights, and were
then granted land in return for their service. This system
worked well as long as there were wars or skirmishes, but was
not suited for times of peace. As is illustrated in the figure, if A

(one of the King's immediate knights) died or failed in his
duties of service to the King, all of the land possessed by A
would revert to the King. This would displace all of A's men
(and their families) if the successor chosen by the King did not
choose to keep them on. Likewise, when one of A's men (B, for
example) died or failed in his duties of service to A, the land he

possessed would revert to A, displacing B's son or sons and
their families unless A chose to keep them on in return for
their service.

This system reflected the principle that all rights to possess
any land derived from the King's control over all the land, and
from the linkage of possession of land to the King's need for
military service. Possession of land was in a real sense personal.

It was as transitory and temporary as the personal relations

between the King and his immediate grantees, and the

grantees of the King's grantees. It is therefore not surprising
that the terms "owner" and "ownership" did not appear with

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548 SOCIAL RESEARCH

any frequency in the English law books until the late
1500s -because no one except the King really "owned" any
land. Indeed, even the term "property" did not appear with
frequency in statutes or case reports until the seventeenth
century. Rather, people spoke of their estates (in land) and

their possessions (of movable things).14 When the word
"property" was used, it did not denote Blacks tonian absolute
and despotic dominion, because English law did not recognize
any such dominion except by the Sovereign. Rather, when it

was used (which, initially, was not very often) the term

"property" meant the best right of possession.14 This remains
its core meaning in Anglo-American law.

For many years following the Conquest, English law
struggled to effect something that seems absolutely unproblematic to us today: how to "own" land in the modern sense.
How could men on the level of B through K in Figure 1 be
permitted to hold onto their land after A died? How could one

of these pass on his land to an eldest son? Other sons? A
daughter? The Church? How could someone sell one's right to
possess land (later viewed as one's land) to someone other than

a blood relative? The law instituted a number of fictions and

procedures, sometimes bordering on the bizarre,15 as it
fashioned rules that resemble contemporary land law. All these
developments presupposed, at first in actuality and later more
in theory, the principle that the King owns all the land, and
that everyone who has title to land derives it ultimately from
the King.

Property in Post-Conquest English Law: Movable Goods

A second major category of what was later called "property"

comprised what the law called "movable goods" or "chattel."
For a number of years, some legal historians thought that the

common law had taken an entirely different approach to
movable things from that which it had taken to land. While the

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ANIMALS AND THE LAW 549

Figure 1. A schematic representation of post-Conquest feudal

land possession*

KING
A owes the King 10 knights

A

I B II C II D II E II F I

I g i rrn i i i rn i k i
* This diagram was used by the late Professor Samuel Thorne in his lectures
on English legal history at Harvard Law School.

King was said to "own" all the land and to condition possession
of land on satisfactory service to him, movable things, some

historians thought, were different. Movable things such as

animals, books, and clothing were capable of absolute

ownership in a way land was not.

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550 SOCIAL RESEARCH

Modern scholarship has debunked this view of property
rights in movable things, and has, indeed, demonstrated that
from the beginning of Anglo-American law, property rights in
movable things were if anything less absolute and exclusive
than rights in land.16 The animals of post-conquest England
had a great deal to do with ...