Mark Pursley
Logic
Collaborative Exercise: Reconstructing Arguments
Instructions: Reconstruct the following argument fragments by supplying missing
premises or conclusion as needed. Cast each argument.
1. If race tracks are allowed to have slot machines, freeway congestion will worsen.
Freeway congestion should not worsen.
Missing conclusion:
2. The person she [former drug addict prostitute and convicted axe murderer who
became “born again” in prison Karla Faye Tucker] is now is not the person she
was then. Once the Lord came into her life, she became a completely different
person. (Jackie Oncken)
Conclusion: Karla Faye should not be executed.
Missing premise?
3. Introducing a bill that would ban cloning for ten years, Senator Diane Feinstein
said: The science is still dangerous. Its morality is unacceptable for American
society at this stage.
Construct an argument from her remarks indicating which statement is the
conclusion and supplying an assumed premise that is needed to make the
conclusion follow.
4. Taking 25 years of somebody’s life for committing a non-violent crime is
violence almost on the level with murder. Sentencing someone to 25-life because
he made a false application for a real estate loan, or for taking aspirin out of a
bottle and putting the bottle back on the shelf in a drugstore- now that is violence.
(Joe Klass)
Hint: Missing factual premise (about current three strikes law).
Missing conclusion (about current three strikes law).
5. Certain people are hardwired for crime and need to be locked up for decades,
even if their third strike is a petty crime, so that they don’t revictimize. (Marc
Klass)
Hint: Missing factual premise (about current three strikes law).
Missing universal premise (about the need for laws that prevent
“revictimization”).
Missing conclusion (about current three strikes law).
6.
Many Congress members are not demanding Clinton’s resignation because they
fear that if they do someone may begin to investigate their own personal histories.
Missing premise: