CHAPTER
3
Critical Reasoning Skills for
Evaluating Disputes in
Cyberethics
You may wonder why a chapter dedicated to critical reasoning skills is included in
a book on cyberethics.1 To appreciate the important role that these skills play in
our examina- tion of cyberethics issues, recall the methodological framework that
we developed in Chapter 1. There we saw that the final step of that methodology
requires that we defend or justify our position by evaluating it against the rules of
logical argumentation.2 In Chapter 3 we examine some basic critical reasoning
concepts needed to do this. To accomplish these objectives, we
_ examine the structure of a logical argument and show how
arguments are used in resolving disputes affecting ethical aspects of
cybertechnology;
_ evaluate the strength of arguments by distinguishing between
arguments that are valid and invalid, sound and unsound, inductive and
fallacious;
_ identify some common logical fallacies that occur in everyday
reasoning and show how they apply to arguments affecting cyberethics
issues. Additional material on critical reasoning skills is included in
Appendix G, available at www.wiley.com/college/tavani. c 3.1
GETTING STARTED In Chapter 2, we learned how to apply
ethical theories to cyberethics issues and we saw how those theories
provided a consistent and systematic approach to analyzing ethical issues.
For example, we saw how a typical cyberethics issue could be
systematically approached from the vantage point of a standard ethical
theory, such as utilitarianism, deontology, etc. At some point, however, we
may also need to defend—give a reason for why—we selected one
particular ethical theory over another. Additionally, we may sometimes
need to convince others about which ethical theory is best for analyzing
cyberethics issues in general.
74
c
It is also possible that others may try to convince you with regard to why a
particular theory or framework is best for analyzing some ethical issue. Or, they
may try to persuade you either to accept or violate policies and laws that have
ethical implications—e.g., they may wish to convince you to endorse a specific
Internet user policy. They may also try to persuade you as to how one ought to
behave online, based on their perceptions or beliefs about the legitimacy or
nonlegitimacy of certain policies and laws. Consider, for instance, disputed
policies involving digital intellectual property and the appropriateness of
downloading copyrighted material from the Internet. It is possible that you may be
unclear about some of those laws and policies, or unclear about how to behave
appropriately in light of those laws and policies—especially ones that might not
initially seem to be unethical (even if they are illegal).
In the following scenario, where you are conflicted about whether or not to
download a software application from the Internet, a friend tries to convince you
why you should take one course of action rather than another.
c SCENARIO 3–1: Reasoning About Whether to Download a File from
“Sharester”
You are contemplating downloading a software application that is available on a Web site
called Sharester, a peer-to-peer (P2P) site set up for file sharing. Sharester is not officially
designated as a “pirate site” because it provides users mainly with access to (freely
available) open-source software applications. However, the site also enables users to
download a few proprietary (or copyrighted) software programs. It turns out that the
particular software application you are interested in downloading is proprietary, and there
is no reason to believe that the copyright holder of that application has authorized its
being freely downloaded by users on this P2P site. You want to download this application
for personal use (only) but you are conflicted about what to do, and you discuss your
concerns with a good friend.
Your friend tries to convince you not to download the proprietary software program,
using the following rationale: Downloading proprietary software (without permission
from the copyright holder) is identical to stealing physical property. Stealing physical
property is morally wrong. Therefore, downloading proprietary software (without
permission) is morally wrong. &
Is the reasoning process used by your friend a good one? How do we determine
that? If we rely solely on our intuitions, we might be inclined to think that the
reasoning process used here is very solid (and in this case, the conclusion reached
in the reasoning process would indeed seem to be true). But what about the
reasoning process itself, i.e., the “reasoning form,” used in this case. Is the
evidence provided by your friend sufficient to guarantee the truth of the
conclusion reached? Also, can we always trust our intuitions (solely) when
reasoning about what to do in situations similar to this one? Fortunately, there are
some objective criteria that we can use to distinguish good and bad reasoning
(what we will call valid vs. invalid/fallacious reasoning).
Later in this chapter (at the end of Section 3.8), we apply a seven-step strategy to
evaluate the reasoning process used in the above scenario. First, however, we need
to understand some basic terms and concepts used by logicians to analyze the
strength of reasoning forms called arguments.
3.1.1 Defining Two Key Terms in Critical Reasoning: Claims and
Arguments
Critical reasoning is a branch of informal logic. It aims at assisting us in
evaluating the strength of arguments and in analyzing (the truth or falsity of)
claims. Claims, also called
3.1 GettingStarted b 75
76 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
statements or assertions, comprise a form of reasoning called a logical argument or
argument.
For our purposes, an argument, which contains at least two claims, can be defined
as a reasoning form, or structure, that attempts to establish the truth of one claim
(called a conclusion) based on the assumed truth of the evidence in other claims
(called premises) provided to support the conclusion. Thus, an argument is a form
of reasoning that has two important characteristics or features in that it
i. includes at least two claims (but can include an indefinite number of claims);
ii. aims at establishing a conclusion (i.e., the truth of one claim) based on evidence
provided by one or more other claims, called premises.
We will see that whereas arguments are either valid or invalid, the claims that
comprise them are either true or false. First, however, we examine an important
role that arguments can play when someone is trying to support or defend a
position that may be in some dispute.
.
3.1.2 The Role of Arguments in Defending Claims
.
3.1.3 The Basic Structure of an Argument
Consider a
hypothetical scenario involving a claim about the development of a controversial and powerful new computer chip—code-named Chip X—in Japan.
This new chip is purported to be so powerful in speed and performance that
it will eclipse any computer chips that manufacturers in the United States,
such as Intel or AMD, will be capable of producing during the next several
years. Chip X will also enable the manufacturer to monitor certain activities
of those users whose computers contain the chip in ways that pose serious
threats to personal privacy. Suppose I claim that Chip X is currently
under development by Mishito Corpora- tion. Let us further suppose that
you are skeptical about my claim. There are a number of ways I could
attempt to convince you: I could persuade you to accompany me on a trip to
Japan to see first-hand whether or not Chip X is being developed there. In
this case, we could obtain direct evidence about my claim. But if you are
unable or unwilling to accompany me to Japan, I will have to use some
other, less direct mode of verification to convince you. For example, I
could show you a copy of the design specifications for Chip X, extracted
from a confidential Mishito Corporation document that I happened to
acquire. Or perhaps I could ask a mutual colleague of ours who recently
studied as an exchange student at the University of Hiroshima, where the
field testing for this new chip is being carried out, to corroborate my claim
regarding Chip X. That is, I can put together various pieces of evidence to
construct a logical argument that supports my claim. Now we are in a
position to debate the merits of my argument regarding Chip X without
having to go to Japan to verify the truth of my claim. Before we debate the
strength of my argument, however, we must first understand some essential
features of an argument’s structure.
We noted in Section 3.1 that
an argument consists of two or more claims, one of which is called the
conclusion; the others are called the premises. The standard form for
3.1 GettingStarted b 77 representing an argument is to list the premises first and
then state the conclusion. The
following structure represents an argument’s standard form:
PREMISE 1 PREMISE 2 (optional) PREMISE 3 (optional) .
(optional)
.
.
PREMISE n
CONCLUSION
To support my claim that Chip X is currently being developed in Japan, in the
conclusion of my argument, I would need to list the evidence in the form of one or
more premises. For example, I could use the following argument form:
PREMISE 1. When I recently visited the Computer Science Department at the
University of Hiroshima in Japan, I noticed that graduate students and professors
there were field-testing a new computer chip, whose code name is Chip X.
PREMISE 2. I have a copy of the design specifications for Chip X, which shows
that it will be several times faster than any chip currently available in the United
States.
PREMISE 3. Lee Smith, a mutual colleague of ours who was recently an exchange
student in the computer science program at the University of Hiroshima and who
participated in the field-testing of Chip X, will corroborate my claim.
CONCLUSION. Chip X is currently being developed in Japan.
This particular argument includes three premises and a conclusion; additional
premises could be added. However, an argument requires at least one premise
along with a conclusion. In this section, we are concerned only with an argument’s
structure and not with how strong the argument might be. An argument, however
weak it may ultimately be, still qualifies as an argument if its structure (or
reasoning form) includes one or more premises and a conclusion.
You might have observed that the claim expressed in the conclusion to our
argument about Chip X could also be verified (i.e., determined to be either true or
false) independent of the evidence provided in the argument’s premises. Since the
conclusion contains a statement that is descriptive, or empirical (i.e., capable of
being observed through sensory experience), the truth or falsity of the conclusion
could be resolved in this case simply by going to Japan to see whether such a chip
was actually being developed there.
78 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
However, not all arguments have empirical or descriptive statements as their
conclusions. Suppose that a friend wants to convince you that Internet users
should be allowed to write a blog on how to build a bomb. (Note that this is a
normative claim because it includes the word “should”; you may want to consult
the distinction we drew in Chapter 1 between normative and descriptive claims.)
Further, suppose that his reason for holding this view is based on the principle that
people are allowed to write books on how to build bombs, and authors of blogs
should have the same rights and freedoms as authors of books. And suppose your
friend bases his reasoning for this claim on the right of authors to express
themselves as guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution. His argument could be constructed as follows:
PREMISE 1. A person’s right to author a book on how to build a bomb is
protected by the First Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution).
PREMISE 2. Authoring a book is similar to authoring a blog on the Internet.
CONCLUSION. A person’s right to author a blog on how to build a bomb ought
to be protected by the First Amendment.
Notice how this argument differs from the preceding one. For one thing, we can’t
simply go to Japan to determine whether this conclusion is true or false. For
another, the conclusion contains a normative statement (one that includes
“ought”). Unlike the previous argument, which contained a descriptive statement
in its conclusion that could be verified independent of the argument, we now
depend on the form of reasoning alone to help us determine whether the
conclusion is true. In doing this, we will assume that the premises in this argument
are true and then ask whether the conclusion would logically follow from them.
Initially, the reasoning in this argument might seem plausible: the person
construct- ing the argument cleverly uses an analogy based on a legal right that
applies in physical space. So, we might assume that any legal rights that citizens
enjoy in physical space should automatically be extended to cyberspace.
In this argument, we are also asked to consider certain features or characteristics
that are common to both (printed) books and blogs. Clearly, we can draw a
number of analogies here. For example, both books and blogs can communicate
and disseminate information to readers; each is authored by one or more persons;
and so forth. However, there is a danger in pushing some of these analogies too
far: Whereas traditional books are tangible items existing in physical space, blogs
are not. And the scope of a blog allows it to be accessed by members of the
international community, some of whom may have no access to physical books or
may lack sufficient funds to purchase such books. We now begin to see
dissimilarities between books and blogs, so we must be cautious about drawing
conclusions when reasoning by analogy. Later in this chapter, we will see why
arguments of this kind are not valid. First, however, we consider some strategies
for constructing arguments.
c 3.2 CONSTRUCTING AN ARGUMENT
Think of some situations in which arguments are used by those in powerful
positions, as well as by ordinary persons. Lawyers, for example, use arguments to
try to persuade
juries; and politicians often use arguments to convey their positions to their
constitu- encies. All of us use arguments when we try to convince a friend, a
spouse, or a boss about some point or other. If you try to convince your parents
that they should buy you a new iPod, for example, you will most likely be making
an argument of some sort. Ultimately, arguments will succeed or not succeed
depending on (a) how well they are constructed and (b) how strong their reasoning
forms are. We refer to (b) as argument strength, and we examine that concept in
Section 3.3 in our discussion of valid vs. invalid arguments. In this section, we
focus on how arguments are constructed.
Arguments often appear as editorials in newspapers and periodicals where they are
sometimes expressed in prose forms that can obscure the argument, making it
difficult to isolate and analyze. When this happens we must locate the arguments
concealed in the text before we can analyze them. Consider the political debate
over the need for a new national missile defense (NMD) system, which has been
controversial from both a domestic and an international perspective. A fairly
straightforward argument in favor of NMD in the editorial section of a newspaper
might look something like the following:
We must build a national missile defense system because without such a system we are
vulnerable to nuclear attacks from rogue nations that might arise in the future. Engineers
and computer scientists have testified that they can design a computer-guided missile
defense system that is effective, safe, and reliable. It is our obligation as Americans to
take whatever measures we can to protect the safety of our citizens.
Before we analyze this argument, however, it is perhaps worth making a few
parenthetical remarks about certain events leading up to NMD. The debate in the
U.S. Congress over NMD that occurred during the George W. Bush administration
can be viewed as an updated version of the earlier “Star Wars” debate, officially
known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (or SDI). That debate, which took place
during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, was significant for cyberethics
because it was one of the first ethical controversies to catch the attention of a
group of computer ethics pioneers.3 We will examine some specific ethical issues
pertaining to Star Wars and NMD of interest to computer professionals in Chapter
4. Our primary purpose in this chapter, however, is to consider the NMD
controversy only insofar as it illustrates how logical arguments can be constructed
and analyzed.
There has been strong support for NMD among many conservative politicians in
the United States. As suggested above, a proponent of the NMD system could
construct an argument for his or her case by first asserting that without such a new
missile system, the United States is vulnerable to future attacks from potential
“rogue” nations that might acquire nuclear weapons. The proponent might next
want to assure us that there is sufficient and compelling evidence that such a
missile defense system would be safe and reliable. Finally, the NMD supporter
might assume the following principle: “We must do whatever is necessary to
preserve the safety of America and its people.” The structure of the proponent’s
argument can be represented as follows:
3.2 ConstructinganArgument b 79
PREMISE 1. Without the NMD, the United States is vulnerable to nuclear attacks
in the future from rogue nations.
80 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
PREMISE 2. Computer scientists and engineers have testified before Congress
that they can design a computer-guided missile defense system that is both safe
and reliable.
PREMISE 3. The United States must do whatever is necessary to preserve the
military defense of the nation and the safety of its citizens.
CONCLUSION. The United States should build the NMD.
So far, we have considered only the structure of this argument. That is, we have
described its two basic components—its premises and conclusion—and we have
repre- sented it in standard logical form. Now we ask: Is the reasoning used in the
argument strong? Are there rules that will enable us to determine this? To answer
these questions, we first need to understand the difference between valid and
invalid arguments.
c 3.3 VALID ARGUMENTS
The first question we could ask about the sample argument described in the
preceding section is whether its reasoning is strong or weak—that is, is the
argument’s reasoning valid or is it invalid? “Valid” and “invalid” are technical
terms in logic. Whereas claims (the individual statements that make up an
argument) are either true or false, arguments will be either valid or invalid; it is
incorrect to refer to an argument as either true or false, and it is incorrect to refer
to a claim as either valid or invalid.
How can we determine whether a particular argument is valid or invalid? In
formal systems of logic, elaborate schemes that consist of symbols, rules, and
tables have been constructed for determining when arguments are valid or invalid.
Alternatively, however, some “informal” systems of logic, such as the system
developed by John Nolt (2002), also enable us to accomplish this task. Nolt’s
system does not require that we know anything about the actual truth or falsity of
the claims in an argument’s premise(s) in order to determine whether an argument
is valid or invalid. Instead, we need only to determine whether the argument’s
conclusion would necessarily follow from its premises, when those premises are
all assumed to be true.4 In other words, we ask,
Is the relationship between the premises and the conclusion such that if all of the
premises in the argument are assumed true, it would be impossible for the conclusion to
be false?
The concern here is with the relationship of truth conditions vis-_a-vis the
premises and the conclusion. The premises and the conclusion could be true or
false (in the actual world) independent of each other, but that is not relevant for
testing the argument’s validity. We ask only whether the assumed truth of the
premises is sufficient to guarantee the truth of the conclusion. If the answer is yes,
then the argument is valid. If, however, it is logically possible for the argument’s
conclusion to be false at the same time that its premises are (assumed) true, then
the argument is invalid.
You can apply this test for validity to the argument for the new national missile
defense system that we considered above. Imagine that all of the argument’s
premises are true statements. Is it possible—that is, could you conceive of a
possible instance such that—when those premises are true, the conclusion could
still be false? Of course, the
premises could be imagined to be false, and the conclusion could be imagined to
be false as well. But the relevant questions here are: What happens when all of the
premises are imagined to be true? Could the claim in the argument’s conclusion
(i.e., “The United States should build the new NMD.”) be false, even when
Premises 1–3 are assumed true? The answer is yes. Hence, the argument is invalid.
The Counterexample Strategy
To show that an argument is invalid, all we need to do is to produce one
counterexample to the argument. A counterexample is
a logically possible case in which the argument’s conclusion could be imagined to be
false while (at the same time) the argument’s premises are assumed true.5
In the NMD argument, we can coherently imagine a logically possible situation
(i.e., a situation that does not involve a logical contradiction) where the conclusion
“The United States should build the new NMD” is false when the claims stated in
Premises 1–3 are assumed true. For example, we can imagine a situation or case in
which all three premises are true but some alternative strategy not involving the
development of a new missile defense system could provide for the safety of
America. So a counterexample is possible; thus the argument is invalid.
Note, however, although this particular argument has been shown to be invalid, it
does not follow that the argument’s conclusion is, in fact, false. All that has been
shown is that the argument is invalid because the form of reasoning it uses does
not succeed in guaranteeing that the conclusion must be true. It is still possible, of
course, that the conclusion could be true. But a different argument would need to
be constructed to show that the inference is valid.
Suppose we added a fourth premise, “The new NMD system is necessary to
preserve the defense and safety of the United States and its citizens,” to the
argument. The amended argument would be as follows:
3.3 ValidArguments b 81
PREMISE 1. Without the NMD, the United States is vulnerable to nuclear attacks
in the future from rogue nations.
PREMISE 2. Computer scientists and engineers have testified before Congress
that they can design a computer-guided missile defense system that is both safe
and reliable.
PREMISE 3. The United States must do whatever is necessary to preserve the
military defense of the nation and the safety of its citizens.
PREMISE 4. The new NMD system is necessary to preserve the defense and
safety of the United States and its citizens.
CONCLUSION. The United States should build the NMD.
This argument would now be valid. If all of its premises are assumed true, then the
conclusion cannot be false. Of course, we could next ask whether all of the
premises in this argument are in fact true. Premises 1 and 2 are fairly
uncontroversial claims, though Premise 2 might be challenged by programmers
who believe that building a completely
82 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
Arguments
Valid
The assumed truth of the premises is sufficient to guarantee the conclusion.
Valid and invalid arguments.
Invalid
Premises (even when true) do not guarantee the conclusion.
Figure 3.1
reliable computer system is not possible. However, both Premises 3 and 4 are
contro- versial: Premise 4 can be shown to be false if it can be demonstrated that
the United States could be adequately protected without the newly proposed
missile defense system; Premise 3, which is a normative statement, can also be
shown to be false if, for instance, we can provide an exception to the principle
included in it. For one thing, we could ask both whether indeed the United States
must do whatever is necessary to make the United States safe and what exactly we
mean by the phrase “whatever is necessary”? For example, what if making the
United States safe entailed closing down all systems of transportation, all
government offices, and all schools for an indefinite period of time that could go
on for years? It might protect U.S. citizens but would it be an acceptable
alternative? And U.S. citizens might be willing to make trade-offs rather than shut
down major institutions essential to their day-to-day lives. So Premise 3, as stated,
is also false. However, even if all of the premises are eventually shown to be false,
the argument itself is still valid because its conclusion follows from the premises if
they are assumed true.
Figure 3.1 illustrates the basic distinction between valid and invalid arguments.
Next consider the following argument:
PREMISE 1. People who own iMac’s are smarter than those who own PCs.
PREMISE 2. My roommate owns an iMac. PREMISE 3. I own a PC.
CONCLUSION. My roommate is smarter than me.
This argument meets all of the criteria for validity: if all three of the premises in
this argument are assumed true, then the conclusion (“My roommate is smarter
than me.”) must be true. In other words, no counterexample to this argument’s
reasoning form is possible. However, the argument’s validity alone is not
sufficient to establish that the argument succeeds in the final analysis (as we will
see in the following sections). It only shows that when all of the premises are
assumed true, the conclusion would also be true.
This argument, like all valid arguments, is valid by virtue of its logical form; an
argument’s logical form, not its content, determines its validity and invalidity. An
example of a valid logical form is as follows:
Any argument that has this form is valid, regardless of the content represented by
A, B, or C. As long as the premises “Every A is a B” and “C is an A” are both
assumed true, there is no way that the conclusion “C is a B” could be coherently
conceived to be false. Even if the two premises in this particular argument turn out
to be false in the actual world, the argument continues to be valid by virtue of its
logical form.
We can now see that it is important to separate two distinct questions:
a. What is the strength of reasoning of the argument (i.e., is it valid or invalid)?
b. Are the argument’s premises true in the actual world?
To say that an argument is valid does not necessarily mean that its premises are
true in the actual world. An argument can be valid in terms of its logical form and
yet still be unsound. One more step is required for an argument to qualify as a
sound argument. To be sound, all of the premises (included in the valid argument)
must be true in the real world, and not merely assumed true as in the case of the
test for validity. For information on how to determine whether a statement is true
or false, see Appendix G, available at www.wiley.com/college/tavani.
c 3.4 SOUND ARGUMENTS
To assume that the premises of an argument are true is an important first step in
the process of evaluating arguments, because doing so enables us to determine the
logical relationship between the argument’s premise(s) and conclusion and thus
determine the argument’s strength of reasoning. The reasoning strength will be
one of either validity or invalidity. If we can produce one counterexample by
showing a possible case where the argument’s conclusion can be false even when
all of its premises are assumed true, we have shown the argument to be invalid. If
the argument is shown to be invalid, we can stop here for the time being. To show
that the argument was valid, all that we had to do was to show that no
counterexample was possible. And to do that, we considered the hypothetical or
assumed truth of the argument’s premises vis-_a-vis the argument’s conclusion. If
the argument is valid, then we must determine if it is sound by going on to the next
step, where we test the premises to see whether they are true or false in the actual
world.
Consider again the two arguments in the preceding section: one involving an
NMD system, and the other involving the intelligence of iMac users. Both
arguments were shown to be valid. (The argument defending the need for an NMD
system had to be modified, but once we modified it, it met the criteria for validity.)
We can now further
3.4 SoundArguments b 83
PREMISE 1. Every A is a B. PREMISE 2. C is an A.
CONCLUSION. C is a B.
84 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
examine each argument to see if it is also sound. An argument will be sound if (a)
the argument is valid and (b) all of the premises are actually true (and not merely
assumed to be true).
First consider the NMD system. If one or more of Premises 1–4 are false, then the
argument will be unsound. Premise 3, “The United States must do whatever is
necessary to preserve the military defense of the nation and the safety of its
citizens,” is clearly questionable. Surely, the goal of national defense is one of the
highest priorities of a political administration. But we have already seen that the
phrase “whatever is necessary” is problematic. For example, would such a
principle give the United States government the right to use any means that it
happened to deem necessary to bring about some desired end?
Suppose some government officials believed that it was necessary to put all nonUnited States citizens under house arrest? Or suppose that some of those officials
believed that all United States citizens should be subject to constant search and
seizure, both within and outside their homes? Would these measures be
acceptable? Perhaps under the most severe and dire circumstances some proposals
of this type might seem plausible. But it is still not exactly clear that such drastic
measures would be necessary. So Premise 3 in the missile defense argument
cannot be confirmed to be true, even if Premises 1, 2, and 4 can. Thus, this
argument is not sound even though it is valid. Because it is unsound, the argument
does not succeed. However, once again we should be careful to note that even
when an argument is unsound, or even when it is invalid, it does not necessarily
follow that the argument’s conclusion is false. Rather, we can only infer that the
evidence given, that is, the particular premises used to support the argument’s
conclusion, is not adequate because (when used alone) the premises fail to meet
certain logical requirements.
Returning to the argument involving claims about the intelligence of iMac users,
we saw that when we assume the truth of all three premises of that argument, the
conclusion cannot be imagined to be false; hence the argument is valid. But is it
also sound? We need to examine each premise in more detail. Premises 2 and 3—
“My roommate owns an iMac computer” and “I own a PC,” respectively—are
relatively easy to verify because both are descriptive claims. To see if they are true
or false, we simply go to the dormitory room or to the apartment where my
roommate and I live and observe whether my roommate indeed owns an iMac
computer and whether I own a PC.
Premise 1—“People who own iMac computers are smarter than those who own
PCs”—however, is more controversial and hence more difficult to verify than the
other premises. Clearly, more evidence would be needed to show that Premise 1 is
true; in fact, it certainly seems suspect. So despite the fact that the argument is
valid by virtue of its logical form, we cannot yet say that it is sound. Thus the
argument would appear, at best, to be not sound, but inconclusive.
As you might suspect, sound arguments are not very common, and often they are
about matters that are either trivial or uncontroversial. Consider the following
argument:
PREMISE 1. CEOs of major computer corporations are high-school graduates.
PREMISE 2. Bill Gates was the CEO of a major computer corporation.
CONCLUSION. Bill Gates is a high-school graduate.
Valid Arguments
3.5 InvalidArguments b 85
Sound Unsound
All of the premises are true. At least one premise is false.
Figure 3.2 Sound and unsound (valid) arguments.
This argument is clearly valid because no counterexample can be constructed; that
is, there is no possible case where Premises 1 and 2 could both be (assumed) true
and the conclusion could be false at the same time. As it turns out, the premises
are also true in the actual world, so this argument is sound; however, it is also not
terribly informative. Perhaps you can now see why there are so few sound
arguments that are also informative: relatively few valid arguments are sound, and
relatively few sound arguments are informative or nontrivial.
Figure 3.2 illustrates the basic differences between valid arguments that are sound
and those that are unsound.
At this point, you might ask, what good is a valid argument if it contains false
premises? You might also wonder whether certain types of invalid arguments
whose premises are true in the actual world are stronger than valid arguments that
contain one or more false premises.
c 3.5 INVALID ARGUMENTS Consider the following argument:
PREMISE 1. All CEOs of major United States computer corporations have been
United States citizens.
PREMISE 2. Steve Jobs was a United States citizen.
CONCLUSION. Steve Jobs was a CEO of a major computer corporation in the
United States.
Even though all three of the claims included in this argument (i.e., the two
premises and the conclusion) are true in the actual world, we can show that this
argument is invalid by producing at least one counterexample. We can imagine a
possible case where the premises in this argument are both true, but the
conclusion—(the late) Steve Jobs was the CEO of a major computer corporation—
is false. For example, we can imagine that he had been a consultant or a
programmer, or he could have been employed outside the
86 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
computer field. However, there is an even more serious flaw in this argument: If
we substitute for “Steve Jobs” the names Sara Palin, Michael Jordan, Julia
Roberts, or Brad Pitt, we see that although each of these persons is a United States
citizen, none has been a CEO of a major computer corporation. Yet by the logic
used in the argument, it would follow that if any of these people is a United States
citizen, then he or she must also be or have been a CEO. We have shown that this
argument is invalid. If you noticed that the reasoning in this argument was weak,
now you know exactly why.
We next determine whether the following argument is valid or invalid:
PREMISE 1. Most CEOs of major computer corporations are college graduates.
PREMISE 2. Steve Ballmer is the CEO of a major computer corporation.
CONCLUSION. Steve Ballmer is a college graduate.
Notice that all of the statements included in this argument happen to be true in the
real world. But is the reasoning valid? Clearly not! All we need is one
counterexample to show why. If we substitute the name “Bill Gates” for “Steve
Ballmer,” the present CEO of Microsoft, the premises of the argument remain true
but the conclusion is false. The argument is invalid, but because the premises are
true, this particular invalid argument is stronger overall than either of the two
arguments we considered that were valid but unsound. Overall argument strength,
as opposed to an argument’s strength of reasoning, takes into account the actual
truth condition of the argument’s premises. We saw that an argument’s strength of
reasoning is concerned only with the hypothetical or assumed truth of those
premises.
c 3.6 INDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS
Not all invalid arguments are necessarily weak arguments; in fact, some are quite
strong. Hence, we should not automatically discard every invalid argument simply
because it is not valid. Some invalid arguments are inductive. Although inductive
arguments do not necessarily guarantee the truth of their conclusions in the way
that valid arguments do, inductive arguments nonetheless provide a high degree of
probability for their conclu- sions. Those invalid arguments that are not inductive
are fallacious arguments; we will discuss them in the next section. In this section,
we describe the criteria that must be satisfied for an argument to be inductive.
Let’s determine the strength of reasoning of the following argument:
PREMISE 1. Seventy-five percent of people who own iPods also own iMacs.
PREMISE 2. My roommate owns an iPod.
CONCLUSION. My roommate owns an iMac.
Invalid Arguments
3.7 FallaciousArguments b 87
Inductive
Conclusion likely follows from assuming the truth of the premises.
Fallacious
Conclusion does not likely follow from assuming the truth of the premises.
Figure 3.3
Inductive and fallacious (invalid) arguments.
Based on the technique discussed earlier in this chapter, we can see that this
argument is not valid: a counterexample to the argument is possible. For instance,
we can assume that both premises are true while the conclusion (“My roommate
owns an iMac computer”) is false. There is no contradiction in doing this since my
roommate could be among the 25% of people who currently own iPods but who
never owned iMacs. So the argument is clearly invalid.
This argument and the argument in the preceding section designed to show that
Bill Gates is the CEO of a major computer corporation are both invalid, but they
are different in their strength of reasoning. The argument that tried to show that
Gates must be or have been a CEO because “Gates is a United States citizen” and
“all CEOs of major computer corporations have been United States citizens” has
weak reasoning. On the other hand, the form of reasoning used in the argument to
show that my roommate owns an iMac computer is much stronger. In fact, the
conclusion (“My roommate owns an iMac computer”) is very likely to be true
when we assume the truth of both premises. Hence this (invalid) argument is
inductive.
As suggested above, some inductive arguments, although invalid, can be strongeroverall than some valid arguments. But how is that possible? We have seen
examples of valid arguments that contained premises that were false in the actual
world. Inductive arguments consisting of premises that are all true in the actual
world are generally stronger than arguments that are valid but unsound. As you
consider the various arguments involving privacy, free speech, security, etc., in
Chapters 4–9, determine which ones meet the criteria of being inductive with all
true premises. Such arguments will be much more successful in establishing their
positions (i.e., they will be much stronger) than will deductive arguments that
contain one or more false premises.
Figure 3.3 illustrates the basic differences between invalid arguments that are
inductive and invalid arguments that are fallacious.
c 3.7 FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS
Recall the argument that we examined in Section 3.5 to show that Bill Gates was
the CEO of a major corporation. All of the statements or claims in that particular
argument were true in the actual world, so the argument might have seemed fairly
strong. Yet, because
88 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
we could produce a counterexample (and, in fact, we saw that we could easily
produce several counterexamples), clearly the argument was invalid.
We next ask whether the argument is inductive or fallacious. That is, how likely is
it that the argument’s conclusion, “Gates has been the CEO of a major computer
corporation,” would be true based simply on the assumed truth of the argument’s
premises? Even though the conclusion could be true—and even though it is, in
fact, true—the truth or falsity would have to be established on grounds other than
those given in the premises used to support the conclusion that Gates has been a
CEO. Hence this argument is fallacious.
Note that an argument’s being fallacious has nothing to do with the actual truth or
falsity of its premises, so you have probably noticed a certain irony with respect to
an argument’s strength of reasoning. We have seen that an argument can be valid
and yet contain one or more false premises and a false conclusion; and,
conversely, an argument can be fallacious despite the fact that all of its premises
as well as its conclusion could be true.
Next, consider an argument in which someone tries to convince you that Internet
users should not expect to retain their privacy when they engage in online
activities, because the Internet is essentially a public forum or public space.
Expressed in standard form, the argument reads:
When we evaluate this argument’s strength of reasoning, that is, whether it is valid
or invalid, we first ask if a counterexample can be produced. Let us assume that
the premise—The Internet is in public space—is true. We next ask: Is it possible
for that statement to be true, and for the conclusion (Internet users cannot expect
to retain their privacy) to be false, at the same time? The answer is “yes.” For
example, a person’s backpack can be in public space, yet its owner enjoys some
expectation of privacy regarding the contents enclosed in the backpack. So a
counterexample can be produced, and the argument is invalid. We can next ask
whether the argument is inductive or fallacious. In the argument’s current form,
the conclusion does not likely follow from the premise, even when that premise is
assumed true. So the argument is fallacious.
Also recall an argument that we examined in Chapter 1 for the view that at least
some ethical issues involving cybertechnology must be unique. The argument had
the following form:
PREMISE. The Internet is in public space.
CONCLUSION. Those who use the Internet should not expect to retain any
personal privacy.
PREMISE 1. Cybertechnology has some unique technological features. PREMISE
2. Cybertechnology has generated some ethical concerns.
CONCLUSION. Some ethical concerns generated by cybertechnology must be
unique ethical concerns.
3.8 ASeven-StepStrategyforEvaluatingArguments b 89 Arguments
Valid
Invalid
Unsound
Weak Arguments
Sound Inductive
Strong Arguments
Fallacious
Weak Arguments
Figure 3.4 Comprehensive view of arguments.
You can no doubt see why this argument is fallacious. First, we construct a
counter- example to show the argument is invalid; that is, we can imagine a case
where both premises are true, but the conclusion is false. For example, we can
imagine some ethical concern generated by the use of cybertechnology to be
simply a variation of a traditional ethical problem that is neither not new or
unique. Furthermore, we can construct a range of possible cases where both
premises are assumed true, but the conclusion could be false. (In fact, in the
majority of such cases, the conclusion would not likely be true merely because of
what is assumed to be true in the premises). As we noted in Chapter 1, this
argument wrongly assumes that a characteristic that applies to the technology—
viz., uniqueness—must also apply to the ethical issues generated by this
technology. Of course, it is possible that some cyberethics issues may turn out to
be unique ethical issues. But if that happens, it is not because of the evidence
supplied in the premises of the above argument.
In Section 3.9, we will examine some “informal logical fallacies” that tend to
recur in everyday reasoning. There, we will also examine techniques for spotting
some of the more common fallacies, or “fallacy types,” that occur in ordinary
discourse. These techniques do not require the counterexample strategy that we
used to distinguish invalid from valid arguments. First, however, we include a
scheme that summarizes the techniques we have used so far to differentiate among
valid and invalid, sound and unsound, and inductive and fallacious arguments.
Figure 3.4 presents an overview of the different kinds of argument forms that we
have examined in this chapter.
c 3.8 A SEVEN-STEP STRATEGY FOR EVALUATING
ARGUMENTS The following strategy, which consists of seven steps,
summarizes the techniques we used
in Sections 3.3–3.7 to evaluate an argument’s overall strength of reasoning:
Step 1. Convert the argument into standard form. (List the premises, followed by
the conclusion.)
90 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
Step 2.
Step 3.
Step 4.
Test the argument for its strength of reasoning to see whether it is valid or invalid.
Strategy: Assume the premises to be true, and ask yourself whether the conclusion
must also be true when those premises are assumed true. Is a counterexample to
the argument possible?
Is the argument valid?
If yes, go to Step 4.
If no, go to Step 5.
Is the (valid) argument also sound? That is, are the premises true in the actual
world?
Strategy: To determine whether a claim is true or false in the actual world, see the
guidelines in Appendix G (available at www.wiley.com/college/ tavani).
a. If the argument is valid and if all of the premises are true in the actual world,
then the argument is also sound.
b. If the argument is valid, but one or more premises can be shown to be false, then
the argument is unsound. (Note that if one or more premises are unable to
be verified, i.e., determined to be either true or false, then the overall
argument is inconclusive.)
Is the (invalid) argument inductive or fallacious?
Strategy: To determine this, ask how likely the conclusion would be true when the
premises are assumed true.
a. If the conclusion would likely be true because the premises are assumed true
(i.e., the evidence for the conclusion is strong), the argument is inductive.
b. If the conclusion would not likely be true even when the premises are assumed
true, the argument is fallacious. Note: Keep in mind that a fallacious
argument can be made up of individual
claims or statements that are themselves true in the actual world.
Determine whether the premises in your argument are either true or false in the
actual world.
Strategy: Consult the guidelines for determining the truth or falsity of state- ments
in Appendix G, available at www.wiley.com/college/tavani.
Make an overall assessment of the argument by determining both (a) the
argument’s strength of reasoning (valid, inductive, or fallacious) and (b) the truth
conditions of each of the argument’s premises.
Strategy: Determine, for example, whether the argument’s overall strength is _
sound
_ valid but unsound
_ inductive with all true premises,
_ inductive with some false premises,
Step 5.
Step 6.
Step 7.
3.9 IdentifyingSomeCommonFallacies b 91
_ fallacious with a mixture of true and false premises,
_ some other combination. Remember that an inductive argument
with premises that are all true can be stronger overall than a valid argument
with one or more false premises, which will be (valid but) unsound. We
next apply the seven-step strategy to the argument included in Scenario 3–
1, at the beginning of this chapter. Applying Step 1, we convert the
argument into standard form (which, in this case, it already happens to be
presented):
PREMISE 1. Downloading proprietary software (without permission from the
copyright holder) is identical to stealing physical property.
PREMISE 2. Stealing physical property is morally wrong.
CONCLUSION. Downloading proprietary software (without permission) is
morally wrong.
At Step 2, we examine the argument’s strength of reasoning and determine that the
argument is valid because if we assume the truth of both its premises (Premises 1
and 2), the conclusion cannot be false (i.e., the combination of true premises and
false conclusion in this example would be a logical contradiction). Having
determined that the argument is valid (Step 3), we next go to Step 4 and ask
whether it is sound or unsound. Whereas Premise 2 is a true statement (and is
easily verifiable), the truth or falsity of Premise 1 is less clear cut. Although there
would certainly seem to be a strong analogy between stealing physical property
and downloading unauthorized software, there are also some disanalogies. Thus,
the two behaviors are not, strictly speaking at least, “identical.” (We examine this
and some other disanalogies in Chapter 8 in our discussion of intellectual
property.) So, Premise 1 may be either false or indeterminate (i.e., it is not literally
true, as stated), and we now see that this argument is unsound.
However, the argument is still valid; so we can skip Step 5, which applies only to
invalid arguments. At Step 6, we note that both Premise 2 and the conclusion are
true, while Premise 1 may be either false or indeterminate (since it is not literally
true). So our overall evaluation of this argument, at Step 7, is: valid but unsound.
Here, we note that the conclusion happens to be true, even though its truth is not
logically supported by the argument’s premises.
The seven-step strategy is a useful tool for evaluating a wide range of arguments.
However, we should note that some less formal techniques are also available for
spotting fallacious arguments that commonly occur in ordinary, everyday
reasoning. In the next section we will see that there is an informal, and arguably
simpler, way of identifying and cataloging many logical fallacies that frequently
appear in everyday discourse.
c 3.9 IDENTIFYING SOME COMMON FALLACIES
Contrary to what many people assume, “fallacy” does not mean false statement;
rather, it means faulty reasoning. As we saw in Section 3.6, it is possible for an
argument to contain
92 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
all true statements and still be fallacious. (We also saw that an argument can
contain all false statements and still be valid, solely by virtue of its logical form.)
At this point, you might be unsure about your ability to recognize a fallacious
argument without using the counterexample strategy described in this chapter or
without applying some of the more sophisticated rules that comprise formal
systems of logic. Because so many fallacies appear in everyday reasoning,
logicians have categorized them in ways that are convenient for us to recognize.
We refer to these kinds of fallacious arguments as informal logical fallacies.
The following ten informal fallacies, or “fallacy types,” each illustrated with one
or more examples involving computers and cybertechnology, are typical of
fallacious arguments that surface time and again in ordinary everyday discourse.
.
3.9.1 Ad Hominem Argument
In the ad hominem argument, an attack is
directed at the person rather than the substance of the person’s argument.
For example, imagine that the late Senator Ted Kennedy had opposed a bill
before Congress that supported the construction of a controversial national
missile defense system (we saw an argument for this view in Section 3.2).
Further suppose that Kennedy opposed the bill even though its passage
would have meant thousands of new jobs for computer professionals in
Massachusetts. Next imagine that a proponent of this legislation, Senator
Smith, offered the following objection to Kennedy’s position: How can
we take seriously a position regarding the future of our national defense that has
been proposed by a senator who has been arrested for drunken driving and who
has been involved in extramarital affairs? What is wrong with Senator
Smith’s attack, and why does the reasoning used in it commit a logical
fallacy? Note that Senator Smith did not attack the merits or weaknesses of
Kennedy’s position on the national missile defense system; rather he
attacked the personal character of the senator. Even if Kennedy’s personal
character was question- able, that point was irrelevant to whether the bill he
opposed should be passed or defeated, or whether it was a well-conceived
piece of legislation or one that was ill- founded. Unfortunately, the debate
over the merits or deficiencies of the bill could be cut short, or at least
temporarily derailed, because of the ad hominem attack. One might
object that if Kennedy’s character had been attacked in this scenario
because of allegations that were made against him on different grounds—
e.g., a charge that he had sold secrets to foreign governments—then the
personal attack against Kennedy might have been justified. Although
national security-related allegations might have greater relevance in the
argument as to why Kennedy’s position on the missile defense system
debate should not have been taken seriously, the argument would still be
fallacious because the attack fails to focus on the merits of the issues being
debated; instead it focuses on a person’s character.
.
3.9.2 Slippery Slope Argument
The slippery slope argument has the
form, “X could possibly be abused; therefore, we should not allow X.” For
example, one might argue:
We should not continue to allow computer manufacturers to build computer systems that
include CD burners. If we allow them to do so, young users will burn copies of
copyrighted music illegally. If the rate of unauthorized copying of music continues,
recording artists will lose more money. If they lose more money, the entire music
industry could be in jeopardy. If the music industry in America declines, the entire U.S.
economy will suffer. So, we must prohibit computer manufacturers from providing CD
burners as part of the computer systems they build.
It should be fairly easy to spot the fallacy here: The author assumes that allowing
computer manufacturers to continue to include CD burners as part of their
computer systems will inevitably lead to an abusive slippery slope that logically
implies a downturn in the overall U.S. economy. It is certainly possible that in the
future, the U.S. economy does experience a downturn while computer
manufacturers continue to produce com- puters with CD burners. And it may well
be that some users abuse CD burners to make unauthorized copies of music.
However, any claim that the bad economy was an inevitable result of the use of
CD burners in computers cannot be substantiated merely in terms of the evidence
provided in the above argument.
.
3.9.3 Fallacy of Appeal to Authority
Arguments that conform to the
fallacy of authority (argumentum ad vericundiam) have the following form:
As an example, imagine that Tim Berners-Lee, who designed the HTTP
protocol that became the standard for the World Wide Web, has agreed to
do an advertisement for Twitter, a social networking service (SNS). Further
imagine that someone draws the following inference from the ad: Tim
Berners-Lee believes that Twitter is superior to SNSs such as Facebook and
MySpace. And Berners-Lee is clearly an expert on matters involving the Web and
the Internet. So, Twitter must be superior to alternative SNSs such as Facebook
and MySpace. Can you spot the fallacy here? It is true that Berners-Lee is
an expert on Web design; it may also be true that Twitter is superior to
alternative SNSs (e.g., in certain respects). However, is the argument’s
conclusion that Twitter is superior to Facebook and other SNSs, even if
true, warranted by the premises? Simply because Berners-Lee wrote the
code that became the standard protocol for the World Wide Web, and thus
is an expert on some matters involving the Web, does that make him an
authority on SNSs?
.
3.9.4 False Cause Fallacy
The false cause argument (post hoc ergo
propter hoc—after this, therefore because of this) reasons from the fact that
event X preceded event Y to the conclusion that event X is
3.9 IdentifyingSomeCommonFallacies b 93
PREMISE 1. X is an authority in field Y. PREMISE 2. X said Z.
CONCLUSION. Z.
94 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in
Cyberethics necessarily the cause of event Y. Consider the following argument
about the Microsoft’s
Windows 7 operating system:
Shortly after the release of the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system in 2009,
Microsoft’s stock plummeted severely. Hence, there is no doubt that the release of
Windows 7 is responsible for the decline in Microsoft’s loss in the stock market.
Can you identify the fallacy in the above argument? Even though it might be
tempting to attribute Microsoft’s decline in the price of its stock to the release of
the Windows 7 operating system, the person making this argument has overlooked
the possibility of other factors that might have caused this decline. For example,
maybe there were factors in the economy in 2009 that affected all high tech stock
prices, or maybe there were overall declines in the market during that year.
.
3.9.5 Begging the Question
An argument commits the fallacy of begging
the question when its premise(s) presuppose the truth of the conclusion it is
trying to establish. In such a case, the reasoning is circular. Consider the
following argument: Object-oriented programming (OOP) languages are
superior to nonstructured programming languages because OOP languages are
structured. Why is this reasoning fallacious? Here the author of the
argument has reasoned in a circle—instead of establishing that OOP
languages are superior, the author assumes that to be the case; that is, the
truth of the premise presupposes the truth of the conclusion, rather than
supplying evidence for the conclusion.
.
3.9.6 Fallacy of Composition/Fallacy of Division
The fallacy of
composition confuses the characteristics that apply to the parts of a whole,
or to the individual members of a group, with the characteristics of the
whole itself. For example, consider the following form of reasoning: The
new XYZ desktop computer is the best system on the market. XYZ has the fastest
processor currently available on any PC, it comes with twice the amount of RAM
than any of its competitors, and it comes equipped with a suite of office
applications that are superior to those on any currently available system. Also, its
monitor has the best resolution and graphic display currently available on any
commercial desktop computer. Here the fallacy should be obvious. Each of
the components of this desktop computer is the best that is currently
available. However, it clearly does not follow that the system will
necessarily be the best one available. The connections between the various
parts of this system might not be well designed; we are not told how
reliable the computer system is vis-_a-vis its competitors. These kinds of
flaws are apparent in all argument forms that commit the fallacy of
composition. A film that has the best cast (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts), one
of the best directors (Steven Spielberg), and one of the best soundtrack
composers (John Williams) might still be a flop. The quality of the
individual parts does not necessarily guarantee the same quality in the
overall product. Next consider the flip side of this fallacy: the fallacy of
division. The fallacy of division mistakenly infers that the same attributes
or characteristics that apply to the whole or to
3.9 IdentifyingSomeCommonFallacies b 95 the group must also apply to every part
of the whole or to every member of the group. See
if you can spot the fallacy in the following argument:
Harvard University is the
highest-ranked university in the U.S. Thus, Harvard must have the
nation’s best computer science department.
Does the conclusion to the above argument follow from its premise? Clearly not!
Harvard might be ranked first overall among universities in the United States, but
the possibility remains that MIT, Stanford University, or some other institution has
the nation’s highest-ranked computer science department.
.
3.9.7 Fallacy of Ambiguity/Equivocation
Fallacious reasoning can
occur whenever one or more terms are used either ambiguously or
equivocally; ambiguous terms have more than one interpretation, and it is
not always clear which interpretation the author intends. A term is used
equivocally, on the contrary, when it has two (or more) different senses or
meanings. Consider the following argument: Humans can think, and highlysophisticated AI (artificial intelligence) computer systems can think; therefore,
highly-sophisticated AI computer systems are human. In this case, it is
possible that both premises are true in the actual world. However, the sense
in which AI computer systems are said to think is not necessarily the same
sense in which humans, in fact, think. Here, the term “think” is used
equivocally. So even if it is true that computers can think in one sense of
that term, it doesn’t necessarily follow that computers can think in the same
sense that humans do. Even if computers and humans could both think in
the same sense, it doesn’t follow that computers must be human. Consider
that some animals, such as orangutans, do many things in ways that are
similar to humans, yet we do not infer that orangutans are humans. (One
might object to the above argument being called a fallacy by noting that if
thinking is defined as something that only humans could do, then, by
definition, computers (that “think”) would have to be human. While this
kind of move might avoid the fallacy of ambiguity/equivocation, it
introduces other problems since the premise “computers can think” would
now be more controversial and require further analysis.) Another
example of the fallacy of ambiguity/equivocation can be found in the
following argument: Computers have memory. Humans have memory.
Having memory enables humans to recall some of their childhood experiences.
Therefore, computers can recall their childhood experiences. Notice that
“memory” is used in two different senses in the above argument.
Although both examples of the fallacy of ambiguity/equivocation
illustrate exag- gerated cases, which might seem implausible, we should
note that many arguments used in everyday discourse commit variations of
this fallacy.
.
3.9.8 Appeal to the People (Argumentum ad Populum)
Sometimes
people appeal to the notion that there is strength in numbers. I remember
once seeing a jacket to a record album that contained the following
expression: “Fifty million Elvis fans can’t be wrong.” Does it follow that
because Elvis Presley had fifty million fans, that those numbers alone were
sufficient to prove that Elvis was a great
96 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
recording artist? Are sheer numbers sufficient to establish this claim? Suppose that
150 million Americans believed that slavery was okay. Would that mean that
slavery must be okay? The fallacy of the appeal to the people assumes that
because X is popular, or because the majority of people agree with X, then X must
be an acceptable standard. The following argument commits the fallacy of popular
appeal.
The majority of Americans believe that it is perfectly acceptable to share copyrighted
music over the Internet. So, despite the objections of greedy entrepreneurs in the
recording industry, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as LimeWire and Pirate Bay should
be allowed to serve the wishes of the American people.
You should be able to spot the fallacy in this argument quite easily. Perhaps there
are good reasons for why LimeWire should be allowed to operate as a site for
downloading music. However, those reasons have not been well articulated in this
argument. What if the majority of Americans believed that all software should be
distributed free of charge, does it follow that it should? The appeal to popular
opinion has been an effective strategy, and in a democracy there are cases where
such an appeal is clearly warranted and appropriate. The fallacy, of course, is to
assume that every kind of issue—especially those concerning moral questions—
can be decided in terms of a popular referendum.
3.9.9 The Many/Any Fallacy
This fallacy assumes that because many things of a certain kind have a feature,
anything of that kind has that feature. It has the following form:
Clearly, many items of a certain kind can have a property B without all of them
having B. Note that many intellectual-property-protection policies could be
justifiable, but does it follow that any intellectual-property-protection policy is
justifiable? Similarly, we can ask whether it follows from the fact that many
sorting algorithms are efficient that any sorting algorithm is efficient. In his
description of this fallacy, James Moor (2004) made the point that there are many
acceptable ways to travel from Boston to Madrid. For example, one could travel to
Madrid from Boston via flights connecting in London, Paris, Zurich, and so forth.
However, it doesn’t follow that any way of traveling between the two cities is
acceptable. Consider that traveling from Boston to Madrid via the South Pole or
even by way of Bangkok, Thailand would not be acceptable, at least not for most
travelers.
Next, consider how a variation on this fallacy could arise in a discussion involving
the use of programming languages to write a particular kind of software
application. Theoretically, there are many programming languages—Basic,
Algol60, Ada, Cobol- Script, Java, Cþþ, and so forth—that could be used to write
the code for a particular kind of software application, but it doesn’t follow that any
programming language can be used to write the code efficiently. While there
might be legitimate disputes as to whether Cþþ or Java is better for writing a
particular Internet application, most
PREMISE. Many items of a certain kind, A, have property B. CONCLUSION.
Any item of the kind A has B.
3.9 IdentifyingSomeCommonFallacies b 97 programmers would agree that for
Internet applications either of these two languages
is superior to Fortran or Cobol.
3.9.10 The Virtuality Fallacy
The virtuality fallacy, coined by James Moor, has the following form:
Those who defend questionable forms of online behavior, such as launching
viruses and engaging in unauthorized entries into computer systems, sometimes
suggest that these activities cause no real harm to people. Some reason that
because these activities are carried out in the virtual world, their effects are only
virtual and thus not real. You should be able to spot the fallacy in this line of
reasoning. Imagine that someone has posted an insulting remark about you on
Facebook or some other online forum. Arguably, the locus of offense is in
cyberspace, or virtual space, as opposed to real (physical) space. Does it follow
that the particular harm caused to you is any less real than it would have been had
it occurred in a physical setting? In Chapter 11, we examine some arguments used
by members of virtual communities who reason that no real harm can result in
these forums because they are only in virtual space. There, we will see how the
virtuality fallacy applies.
We have considered some techniques for identifying fallacy types in ordinary
language. The common fallacy types identified in this section represent only a
small sample of those identified and labeled by logicians and philosophers. Yet all
have one feature in common: their reasoning is so weak that even when the
premises are assumed true, the conclusion would not likely be true because of the
weak or insufficient evidence supporting it.
You can devise your own labels for some of the fallacious arguments we have
encountered that have not yet been given names. For example, consider the
fallacious argument we examined in Section 3.7 that tried to show that computer
ethics issues must be unique because (a) computers have some unique
technological features and (b) computers raise ethical issues. We could call this
the “Computer Ethics is Unique Fallacy.” Also consider the fallacy we examined
earlier in this chapter, which reasoned that Internet users should have no
expectation of personal privacy while they are online because the Internet is in
public space. We could label this the “Privacy in Public Fallacy.” You can no
doubt come up with additional labels for fallacious arguments that you encounter
in your analysis of cyberethics issues. (For the names of some standard logical
fallacies not covered in this chapter, see http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/.)
These techniques for spotting logical fallacies in ordinary, everyday discourse are
useful in helping us to evaluate some of the arguments we will examine in the
remaining chapters in this textbook. We should also note that some authors,
including John Artz (2000), have suggested that “narrative reasoning” in the form
of stories, as opposed to strict logical reasoning (even in the informal sense
described in this chapter), can be very useful in helping us to understand and
evaluate some cyberethics issues. However, we will
PREMISE 1. X exists in cyberspace. PREMISE 2. Cyberspace is virtual.
CONCLUSION. X (or the effect of X) is not real.6
98 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
not pursue this claim here, because the aim of Chapter 3 has been to show how
conventional critical reasoning skills for analyzing informal logical arguments can
be applied in the context of cyberethics.
c 3.10 CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, we considered some basic critical reasoning skills and we
examined both the structure and the strength of logical arguments. We considered
key criteria for differentiating among arguments that were valid and invalid, sound
and unsound, and inductive and fallacious. We then considered a seven-step
strategy for determining an argument’s overall strength of reasoning. We also
identified ten common fallacies, or “fallacy types,” that illustrated flaws in
reasoning in the context of cybertechnology and cyberethics; and we considered
some techniques that will help us to spot additional informal logical fallacies that
occur in everyday reasoning. In the remaining chapters of this textbook, we will
see how the critical reasoning skills introduced in Chapter 3 can be used to
evaluate arguments affecting many cyberethics disputes.
c REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What is critical reasoning, and how can it be applied to ethical issues involving
cybertechnology?
2. What is a logical argument, and how is it different from a claim or a statement?
3. Identify and briefly describe the two important characteristics or features of an
argument?
4. What role or purpose do arguments play in helping us to resolve issues in cyberethics?
5. Describe the basic structure of an argument.
6. What is meant by “argument strength” (as
opposed to argument structure)?
7. What is the essential difference between an arguinvalid? Construct an example of each.
ment that is valid and one that is
8. What is a counterexample, and how can it be used
invalid?
to show that an argument is
9. How is it possible for an argument to be valid but
not successful?
10.
What is required for an argument to be sound?
argument.
Construct an example of a sound
. "11. What is the main difference between invalid argu- ments that are inductive and
invalid arguments that are fallacious? Construct an example of each.
. "12. What is an “informal logical fallacy”?
c DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
"21. Construct an argument for the view that your uni- versity should/should not have the
right to monitor
"13. What is the Ad Hominem Fallacy? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context
of cyberethics.
"14. What is the Slippery Slope Fallacy? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context
of cyberethics.
"15. What is the Fallacy of Appeal to Authority (Ad Vericundiam)? Provide an example
of this fallacy in the context of cyberethics.
"16. What is the False Cause Fallacy? Provide an exam- ple of this fallacy in the context
of cyberethics.
"17. What is the difference between the Fallacy of Composition and the Fallacy of
Division? Provide an example of each fallacy in the context of cyberethics.
"18. What is the Fallacy of Ambiguity/ Equivocation? Provide an example of this fallacy
involving either an issue in cyberethics or an aspect of cyber- technology.
"19. What is the Fallacy of Appeal to the People (Ad Populum)? Provide an example of
this fallacy in the context of cyberethics.
"20. What is the Virtuality Fallacy? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context of
cyberethics.
student e-mail. Next, analyze your argument to see if it is either valid or invalid. If it is
valid, determine
whether it is also sound. If it is invalid, determine
whether it is inductive or fallacious. "22.Identifysomeoftheargumentsthathavebeen
made on both sides in the debate about sharing
c ESSAY/PRESENTATION QUESTIONS
. "23. Based on what you have learned in this chapter, construct an argument to support
or to refute the view that all undergraduate students should be required to take a
course in cyberethics. Next, apply the seven-step strategy (in Section 3.8) to your
argument.
. "24. Construct an argument for the view that privacy protection should be improved
for ordinary users
copyrighted MP3 files on the Internet. Evaluate the arguments in terms of their strength
of reason- ing. Can you find any valid arguments? Can you find any inductive
arguments?
who conduct searches on Google. Next evaluate your argument via the rules for validity
vs. inval- idity. If your argument is invalid, check to see if it also includes any of the
informal fallacies we examined in Section 3.9.
Endnotes b 99
1. Apply the seven-step strategy (in Section 3.8) to your evaluation of the argument in the
following scenario. A major association representing the music industry in the
U.S. has determined that 4,000 copies of a new album featuring a popular rock
group, called DUO, had been illegally downloaded last month. The cost of this
album for those who download it legally from online music stores is $10 per
copy. So the association concludes that the music com- pany that holds the
copyright to this album lost $40,000 dollars in revenue last month (on that album
alone).
2. Determine whether the strength of reasoning used in the argument in the following
scenario is valid or invalid. If it is invalid, does it commit any of the fallacies we
examined in Section 3.9?
You are engaged in an intense discussion with your friend, Bill, who works in the IT
department at your university. Bill complains that many students are using P2P filesharing applications on the university’s network to download excessive amounts of
unauthorized copyrighted material. He also claims that the most effective solution to this
problem would be to disable student access to all (existing) P2P sites and to prevent
students at your institution from setting up their own P2P sites for any reason whatsoever
(even to include non- copyrighted material). You convey to Bill your belief that this
measure is too drastic. However, Bill argues that the only way to eliminate unauthorized
file sharing among stu- dents at your institution is to disable access to all P2P software on
the university’s network.
Scenarios for Analysis
c ENDNOTES
1. Following Thomson (2009), Cederblom and Paulsen (2012), and others, I use the expression
“critical reason- ing” instead of “critical thinking” to describe the rea- soning skills examined in
this chapter. In my view, “critical thinking” has become far too broad a term, and it can now be
interpreted to mean very different things in different academic disciplines. For our pur- poses,
“critical reasoning” better captures the kind of
precision and rigor required in the strategies and tech- niques used in this textbook to evaluate
informal logical arguments.
2. Many ethics instructors now recognize the importance of rigorous critical reasoning skills for
analyzing issues examined in ethics courses, and an increasing number of introductory ethics and
applied ethics textbooks include a separate chapter on logical arguments and
100 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
critical reasoning. See, for example, Bowyer (2001), Vaughn (2008), and Waller (2008). See also
Ruggiero (2007) who devotes an entire text to critical thinking in the context of ethics.
3. An analysis of issues and arguments surrounding the classic SDI controversy, as well as NMD,
are included in Bowyer (2001, 2002) and Yurcik and Doss (2002).
4. Both the methodology and the terminology that I use for argument evaluation in Sections 3.3–
37 closely follow a
c REFERENCES
Artz, John M. 2000. “Narrative vs. Logical Reasoning in Computer Ethics.” In R. Baird, R.
Ramsower, and S. Rosenbaum, eds. Cyberethics: Social and Moral Issues in the Computer Age.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus, pp. 73–79.
Bowyer, Kevin W. 2001. Ethics and Computing: Living in a Computerized World. 2nd ed. New
York: IEEE Press. Bowyer, Kevin W. 2002. “Star Wars Revisited: Ethics and
Safety Critical Software.” IEEE Technology and Society
21, no. 1: 13–26.
Cederblom, Jerry, and David W. Paulsen. 2012. Critical Rea-
soning: Understanding and Criticizing Arguments and
Theories. 7th ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth. Moor, James H. 2004. “Reason, Relativity, and
Responsibility in Computer Ethics.” In R. A. Spinello and H. T. Tavani, eds. Readings in
CyberEthics. 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones
and Bartlett, pp. 40–54.
c FURTHER READINGS
Bergmann, Marie, James H. Moor, and Jack Nelson. The Logic Book. 5th ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2009. Copi, Irving M., and Carl Cohen. Introduction to Logic.
14th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. Hurley, Patrick. A Concise Introduction to
Logic. 11th ed.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2012. Kahane, Howard, and Nancy Cavender. Logic and
Contem- porary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life.
11th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2010.
model of informal logic used by Nolt (2002). In those sections, I also include several examples
from my (Wiley custom) textbook on reasoning (Tavani 2010).
5. This description of a counterexample closely follows the definition in Nolt.
6. Moor described this fallacy in a talk entitled “Just Consequentialism and Computing,” at the
2000–2001 Humanities Lecture Series, Rivier University, Nashua NH, February 2001.
Nolt, John E. 2002. Informal Logic: Possible Worlds and Imagination. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ruggiero, Vincent R. 2007. Thinking Critically About Ethical Issues. 7th ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Tavani, Herman T. 2010. The Elements of Reasoning: A Short Introduction to Informal Logic.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons (Custom Learning Solutions).
Thomson, Anne. 2009. Critical Reasoning: A Practical Intro- duction. 3rd ed. New York:
Routledge.
Vaughn, Lewis. 2008. Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues. New York: W.
W. Norton.
Waller, Bruce N. 2008. Consider Ethics. 2nd ed. New York: Pearson.
Yurcik, William, and David Doss. 2002. “Software Technol- ogy Issues for a U.S. National
Missile Defense System.” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 21, no. 2: 36–46.
Moore, Brooke Noel, and Richard Parker. Critical Thinking. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill,
2011.
Munson, Ronald, and Andrew Black. The Elements of Rea- soning. 6th ed. Boston, MA:
Wadsworth. 2012.
Ruggiero, Vincent R. Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking. 9th ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2012.
Chapter 3 Questions 1, 4 13-20
1). What is critical reasoning, and how can it be applied to ethical issues involving
cybertechnology?
4.) What role or purpose do arguments play in helping us to resolve issues in cyberethics?
13.) What is the Ad Hominem Fallacy? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context
of cyberethics.
14.) What is the Slippery Slope Fallacy? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context
of cyberethics.
15.) What is the Fallacy of Appeal to Authority (Ad Vericundiam)? Provide an example
of this fallacy in the context of cyberethics.
16.) What is the False Cause Fallacy? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context of
cyberethics.
17.) What is the difference between the Fallacy of Composition and the Fallacy of
Division? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context of cyberethics.
18.) What is the Fallacy of Ambiguity /Equivocation? Provide an example of this fallacy
involving either an issue in cyberethics or an aspect of cybertechnology?
19.) What is the Fallacy of Appeal to the People (Ad Populum)? Provide an example of
this fallacy in the context of cyberethics.
20.) What is the Virtual Fallacy? Provide an example of this fallacy in the context of
cyberethics.
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