Reasoning
PATTERNS AND ETHICS
Reasoning and Persuasion
 Ethos, Pathos, Logos
 Character, Emotion, and Logic
 Mythos
 Folk knowledge; interrelated set of beliefs, attitudes, values,
and feelings held by members of a particular society/culture
Credibility, Emotion and Reasoning
 Credibility
 Related to ethos
 Are you ethical/credible?
 Emotion
 Related to pathos
 Do you have or incite emotion
 Reasoning
 Related to logos
 Are your reasons logical
 Do they make sense
Reasoning
 The act of thinking about something in a logical and
sensible way
 Largely focused on Logos (logic), but it does use
pathos and ethos
 Relies on inferences (p 259)
 Mental leaps we make when we recognize a speaker’s evidence
supports his/her claim
Patterns of Reasoning
 Inductive Reasoning (p 260)
 Reasoning from multiple examples
Patterns of Reasoning
 Deductive Reasoning (p 262)
 Reasoning from a general principle
 Inverse of induction
Major Premise:
ALL MEN ARE MORTAL
Minor Premise:
Socrates, Campbell, and Hillary are humans
SOCRATES IS
MORTAL
CAMPBELL IS
MORTAL
HILLARY
CLINTON IS
MORTAL
Patterns of Reasoning
 Causal Reasoning (p 263)
 Cause and effect
 “This” caused “that”
 Be Careful Here
 Avoid FALSE CAUSES
 Don’t assume an event has ONE Cause
 Cite evidence
Patterns of Reasoning
 Analogical Reasoning (p 265)
 Like to Like
 Logic of categories
 Because two or more things are similar:

We can expect similar outcomes
 Because Alabama and Mississippi are geographically
close:

We can expect them to have a similar climate
Patterns of Reasoning
 Reasoning from Sign (p 266)
 Assures something exists or will happen based off something
else that exists or has happened
 Symbols in the world that resemble something else
 “Where there is smoke, there is fire”
 The more signs you have, the more strong of a conclusion you
can make
Reasoning Trivia
 Break into teams based on your policy speech day
 Watch these 5 video clips
 Determine (with examples) which type of reasoning





your group feels each one is
Example #1
Example #2
Example #3
Example #4
Example #5
Logical Fallacies
 Fallacy (pg 268)
 Argument that seems valid, but is flawed because of unsound
evidence or reasoning
 Many examples on Page 269
 But we will go over a couple
 Ad Hominem
 Attacking the person and not the argument
 Example
Logical Fallacies
 Bandwagon
 Argument that something is correct or good because everyone
else agrees with it or is doing it
 “Many others are banning the product, so we should too.”
 Example
 Either-Or
 Speaker claims there are only two options (when there are
always more)
 Example
Logical Fallacies
 False Cause
 Argument mistaking a chronological relationship for causal
 Example
 Hasty Generalization
 Argument is based on too few cases
 Generalizing about a policy based only on a few examples
 Example
Logical Fallacies
 Red Herring
 Introducing irrelevant information to distract from the main
argument
 Example
 Slippery Slope
 An argument in which the speaker says that taking a step in
one direction will lead to undesirable further steps
 “Domino effect” mentality
 Example