Choose one item that addresses a current issue and makes connections to class concepts. The item may be print or video?for example, an article fro
* Choose one item that addresses a current issue and makes connections to class concepts. The item may be print or video—for example, an article from the current edition of a newspaper or magazine, a segment from news or talk show, a YouTube video, a vlog, or any program that features current affairs.
Answer each of these questions below:
1) Clearly identify the argument. Present the premises and conclusion in your chosen article or video clip and explain their importance. Did the speakers/writers use deductive or inductive reasoning?
2) In your article or video clip, identify and explain three of the following: vague/ambiguous language; credibility; cognitive bias; rhetoric; logical fallacies; generalizations; arguments from analogy; cause and effect reasoning; and value judgments about morality, law, or aesthetics.
3) Explain why you think the argument fits this concept. Also, identify if this was purposeful and why, and how this affects the strength of the argument.
4) Provide a conclusion. Was the argument convincing? What is your position?
I have already chosen the current affairs. Use the video link and the posts below to complete the assignment.
moo41025_fm_i-xxvi.indd i 12/10/19 01:23 PM
Thirteenth Edition
Brooke Noel Moore Richard Parker California State University, Chico
with help in Chapter 12 from Nina Rosenstand and Anita Silvers
Critical Thinking
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CRITICAL THINKING
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2021 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2017, 2015, and 2012. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 LWI 24 23 22 21 20
ISBN 978-1-260-57069-4 MHID 1-260-57069-X
Cover Image: McGraw-Hill
All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
mheducation.com/highered
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Chapter 1 Driving Blindfolded 1
Chapter 2 Two Kinds of Reasoning 35
Chapter 3 Clear Thinking, Critical Thinking, and Clear Writing 73
Chapter 4 Credibility 102
Chapter 5 Rhetoric, the Art of Persuasion 141
Chapter 6 Relevance (Red Herring) Fallacies 185
Chapter 7 Induction Fallacies 207
Chapter 8 Formal Fallacies and Fallacies of Language 233
Chapter 9 Deductive Arguments I: Categorical Logic 257
Chapter 10 Deductive Arguments II: Truth-Functional Logic 305
Chapter 11 Inductive Reasoning 362
Chapter 12 Moral, Legal, and Aesthetic Reasoning 420
Brief Contents
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Contents
Preface xviii Changes to the 13th Edition xix Acknowledgments xxi About the Authors xxiv
Chapter 1 Driving Blindfolded 1 Beliefs and Claims 4
Objective Claims and Subjective Judgments 4
Fact and Opinion 6
Relativism 7
Moral Subjectivism 7
Issues 7
Arguments 8
Cognitive Biases 15
Truth and Knowledge 21
What Critical Thinking Can and Can’t Do 22
A Word About the Exercises 22
Recap 23
Additional Exercises 24
Answers and Tips 33
Chapter 2 Two Kinds of Reasoning 35 Arguments: General Features 35
Conclusions Used as Premises 36
Unstated Premises and Conclusions 36
Two Kinds of Arguments 37
Deductive Arguments 37
Inductive Arguments 38
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt 40
Two Kinds of Deductive Arguments 40
Four Kinds of Inductive Arguments 41
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vi CONTENTS
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Telling the Difference Between Deductive and Inductive Arguments 42
Deduction, Induction, and Unstated Premises 44
Balance of Considerations 46
Not Premises, Conclusions, or Arguments 46
Selfies (and Other Pictures) 46
If . . . Then . . . Sentences 47
Lists of Facts 47
“A because B” 48
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos 48
Techniques for Understanding Arguments 53
Clarifying an Argument’s Structure 54
Distinguishing Arguments from Window Dressing 56
Evaluating Arguments 57
Recap 57
Additional Exercises 58
Answers and Tips 68
Chapter 3 Clear Thinking, Critical Thinking, and Clear Writing 73
Vagueness 74
Ambiguity 76
Semantic Ambiguity 77
Grouping Ambiguity 77
Syntactic Ambiguity 77
Generality 79
Defining Terms 84
Purposes of Definitions 84
Kinds of Definitions 85
Tips on Definitions 85
Writing Argumentative Essays 87
Good Writing Practices 89
Essay Types to Avoid 89
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CONTENTS vii
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Persuasive Writing 90
Writing in a Diverse Society 91
Recap 92
Additional Exercises 92
Answers and Tips 100
Chapter 4 Credibility 102 The Believability of Claims 103
Does the Claim Conflict with Personal Observation? 104
Does the Claim Conflict with Our Background Information? 107
Might the Claim Reinforce Our Biases? 108
The Credibility of Sources 111
Interested Parties 111
Physical and Other Characteristics 112
Expertise 113
The News 118
Mainstream News Media 118
Advertising 126
Three Kinds of Ads 126
Recap 129
Additional Exercises 130
Answers and Tips 139
Chapter 5 Rhetoric, the Art of Persuasion 141 Rhetorical Force 142
Rhetorical Devices I 143
Euphemisms and Dysphemisms 143
Weaselers 144
Downplayers 144
Rhetorical Devices II 146
Stereotypes 147
Innuendo 148
Loaded Questions 149
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viii CONTENTS
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Rhetorical Devices III 150
Ridicule/Sarcasm 150
Hyperbole 151
Rhetorical Devices IV 151
Rhetorical Definitions and Rhetorical Explanations 152
Rhetorical Analogies and Misleading Comparisons 153
Proof Surrogates and Repetition 157
Proof Surrogates 157
Repetition 157
Persuasion Through Visual Imagery 161
The Extreme Rhetoric of Demagoguery 162
Recap 166
Additional Exercises 167
Answers and Tips 183
Chapter 6 Relevance (Red Herring) Fallacies 185 Argumentum Ad Hominem 186
Poisoning the Well 187
Guilt by Association 187
Genetic Fallacy 187
Straw Man 188
False Dilemma (Ignoring Other Alternatives) 189
The Perfectionist Fallacy 190
The Line-Drawing Fallacy 190
Misplacing the Burden of Proof 191
Begging the Question (Assuming What You Are Trying to Prove) 193
Appeal to Emotion 194
Argument from Outrage 194
Scare Tactics 195
Appeal to Pity 196
Other Appeals to Emotion 197
Irrelevant Conclusion 198
Recap 200
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CONTENTS ix
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Exercises 200
Answers and Tips 206
Chapter 7 Induction Fallacies 207 Generalizations 207
Generalizing from Too Few Cases (Hasty Generalization) 208
Generalizing from Exceptional Cases 210
Accident 211
Weak Analogy 212
Mistaken Appeal to Authority 213
Mistaken Appeal to Popularity (Mistaken Appeal to Common Belief) 214
Mistaken Appeal to Common Practice 215
Bandwagon Fallacy 216
Fallacies Related to Cause and Effect 217
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc 217
Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc 221
Slippery Slope 223
Untestable Explanation 224
Line-Drawing Again 225
Recap 225
Exercises 225
Answers and Tips 232
Chapter 8 Formal Fallacies and Fallacies of Language 233
Three Formal Fallacies: Affirming the Consequent, Denying the Antecedent, and Undistributed Middle 233
Affirming the Consequent 233
Denying the Antecedent 234
The Undistributed Middle 235
The Fallacies of Equivocation and Amphiboly 237
The Fallacies of Composition and Division 239
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x CONTENTS
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Confusing Explanations with Excuses 240
Confusing Contraries and Contradictories 242
Consistency and Inconsistency 244
Miscalculating Probabilities 244
Incorrectly Combining the Probability of Independent Events 245
Gambler’s Fallacy 246
Overlooking Prior Probabilities 247
Faulty Inductive Conversion 247
Recap 249
Additional Exercises 250
Answers and Tips 256
Chapter 9 Deductive Arguments I: Categorical Logic 257 Categorical Claims 259
Venn Diagrams 260
Translation into Standard Form (Introduction) 261
Translating Claims in Which the Word “Only” or the Phrase “The Only” Occurs 262
Translating Claims About Times and Places 263
Translating Claims About Specific Individuals 264
Translating Claims that Use Mass Nouns 265
The Square of Opposition 268
Existential Assumption and the Square of Opposition 268
Inferences Across the Square 268
Three Categorical Relations 269
Conversion 269
Obversion 270
Contraposition 270
Categorical Syllogisms 278
The Venn Diagram Method of Testing for Validity 279
Existential Assumption in Categorical Syllogisms 282
Categorical Syllogisms with Unstated Premises 284
Real-Life Syllogisms 285
The Rules Method of Testing for Validity 289
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CONTENTS xi
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Recap 291
Additional Exercises 291
Answers and Tips 301
Chapter 10 Deductive Arguments II: Truth-Functional Logic 305
Truth Tables and Logical Symbols 306
Claim Variables 306
Truth Tables 306
Symbolizing Compound Claims 312
“If” and “Only If” 312
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions 314
“Unless” 316
“Either . . . Or” 316
Truth-Functional Argument Patterns (Brief Version) 318
Three Common Valid Argument Patterns 319
Three Mistakes: Invalid Argument Forms 322
Truth-Functional Arguments (Full Version) 325
The Truth-Table Method 326
The Short Truth-Table Method 328
Deductions 334
Group I Rules: Elementary Valid Argument Patterns 334
Group II Rules: Truth-Functional Equivalences 339
Conditional Proof 347
Recap 350
Additional Exercises 351
Answers and Tips 358
Chapter 11 Inductive Reasoning 362 Argument from Analogy 362
Evaluation of Arguments from Analogy 363
Three Arguments from Analogy 365
Other Uses of Analogy 366
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xii CONTENTS
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Generalizing from a Sample 371
Evaluation of Arguments That Generalize from a Sample 372
Three Arguments That Generalize from a Sample 372
Scientific Generalizing from a Sample 373
De-generalizing (Reverse Generalizing; the Statistical Syllogism) 375
Causal Statements and Their Support 382
Forming Causal Hypotheses 382
Weighing Evidence 384
Confirming Causal Hypotheses 395
Inference to the Best Explanation 399
Reasoning from Cause to Effect 401
Calculating Statistical Probabilities 402
Joint Occurrence of Independent Events 402
Alternative Occurrences 403
Expectation Value 403
Calculating Conditional Probabilities 404
Causation in the Law 406
Recap 407
Additional Exercises 408
Answers and Tips 416
Chapter 12 Moral, Legal, and Aesthetic Reasoning 420 Value Judgments 421
Moral Versus Nonmoral 422
Two Principles of Moral Reasoning 422
Moral Principles 424
Deriving Specific Moral Value Judgments 424
Major Perspectives in Moral Reasoning 427
Consequentialism 427
Duty Theory/Deontologism 429
Moral Relativism 430
Religious Relativism 432
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CONTENTS xiii
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Religious Absolutism 432
Virtue Ethics 432
Moral Deliberation 435
Legal Reasoning 439
Justifying Laws: Four Perspectives 441
Aesthetic Reasoning 444
Eight Aesthetic Principles 444
Using Aesthetic Principles to Judge Aesthetic Value 447
Evaluating Aesthetic Criticism: Relevance and Truth 448
Why Reason Aesthetically? 450
Recap 452
Additional Exercises 453
Answers and Tips 455
Appendix: Selected Exercises from Previous Editions 457
Glossary 480
Index 488
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More Engaging
Moore & Parker are known for fresh and lively writing. They rely on their own classroom experience and on feedback from instructors in getting the correct balance between
explication and example.
■ ■ Examples and exercises are drawn from today’s headlines.
■ ■ Students learn to apply critical thinking skills to situ- ations in a wide variety of areas: advertising, poli- tics, the media, popular culture.
Critical Thinking . . . Skills for
First Pages
Co Gn ITIv E BIASES 19
moo41025_ch01_001-032.indd 19 09/06/19 12:33 PM
impossible to think that good judgment or rational thought would lead them to such excess.*
Yet another possible source of psychological distortion is the overconfidence effect, one of several self-deception biases that may be found in a variety of contexts.** If a person estimates the percentage of his or her correct answers on a subject, the esti- mate will likely err on the high side—at least if the questions are difficult or the subject matter is unfa- miliar.† Perhaps some manifestation of the overcon- fidence effect explains why, in the early stages of the American Idol competition, many contestants appear totally convinced they will be crowned the next American Idol—and are speechless when the judges inform them they cannot so much as carry a tune.††
Closely related to the overconfidence effect is the better-than-average illusion. The illusion crops up when most of a group rate themselves as better than most of the group relative to some desirable charac- teristics, such as resourcefulness or driving ability. The classic illustration is the 1976 survey of SAT tak- ers, in which well over 50 percent of the respondents rated themselves as better than 50 percent of other SAT takers with respect to such qualities as leader- ship ability.‡ The same effect has been observed when people estimate how their intelligence, memory, or job performance stacks up with the intelligence, memory, and job performances of other members of their profession or workplace. In our own informal surveys, more than 80 percent of our students rate themselves in the top 10 percent of their class with respect to their ability to think critically.
Unfortunately, evidence indicates that even when they are informed about the better-than-average illusion, people may still rate themselves as better than most in their ability to not be subject to it.‡‡
‡‡http://weblamp.princeton.edu/ psych/f ACUl TY/Articles/Pronin/The%20Bias%20Blind.PDf . The better-than-average bias has not been found to hold for all positive traits. In some things, people underestimate their abilities. The moral is that for many abilities, we are probably not the best judges of how we compare to others. And this includes our ability to avoid being subject to biasing influences.
‡See Mark D. Alicke and other authors in “The Better-Than-Average Effect,” in Mark D. Alicke and others, The Self in Social Judgment: Studies in Self and Identity (new York: Psychology Press, 2005), 85–106. The better-than-average illusion is sometimes called the l ake Wobegon effect, in reference to Garrison Keillor’s story about the fictitious Minnesota town “where all the children are above average.”
††This possibility was proposed by Gad Saad, Psychology Today, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/200901/ self-deception-american-idol-is-it-adaptive.
†See Sarah lichtenstein and other authors, “ Calibration of Probabilities: The State of the Art to 1980, ” in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 306–34.
**However, a universal tendency among humans to irrationally exaggerate their own competencies hasn’t been established. for an online quiz purportedly showing the overconfidence effect, see www.tim-richardson.net/joomla15/finance-articles-profmenu- 70/73-over-confidence-test.html.
*Jamey Keaton, Associated Press. Reported in The Sacramento Bee, Thursday, March 18, 2010. Did the subjects suspect the shocks weren’t real? Their statements afterward don’t rule out the possibility but certainly seem to suggest they believed they truly were administering painful electrical shocks to the actor.
■ Does Kim Kardashian wear too much makeup? The issue is subjective, or, as some people say, “a matter of opinion.”
Stephen l ovekin/WWD/ Shutterstock
Confirming Pages
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216 CHAPTER 7 : InduCTIon FAllA CIES
Bandwagon Fallacy Sometimes a speaker or writer will try to get us to do something by suggesting that every- one or most people are doing it. The idea is not to cite what people believe as evidence of the truth of a claim. Rather, the attempt is made to induce us to do something by mak- ing us feel out of step with things if we don’t. This is the infamous Bandwagon Fallacy, illustrated by this example:
Appealing to Tradition
According to Representative Steve King of Iowa (pictured here), “Equal protection [under the Constitution] is not equal protection for same sex couples to marry. Equal protection has always been for a man and a woman to be able to get married to each other.”
YuRI GRIPAS/uPI/newscom Pete Marovich/ZuMAPRESS. com/newscom
I am the most popular candidate by far. Only a minority support my opponent.
The speaker wants us to jump on the bandwagon. He or she has not said anything that is relevant to who we should support or how we should vote.
Here is one more example:
Let’s get a spa. They are very popular these days.
The speaker hasn’t really shown that we need a spa. He wants us to get on the bandwagon.
More Relevant
Moore & Parker spark student interest in skills that will serve them throughout their lives, making the study of critical thinking a meaning- ful endeavor.
■ ■ Boxes show students how critical thinking skills are relevant to their day-to-day lives.
■ ■ Striking visuals in every chapter show stu- dents how images affect our judgment and shape our thinking.
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More Student Success
Moore & Parker provide a path to student suc- cess, making students active participants in their own learning while teaching skills they can apply in all their courses.
■ ■ Learning objectives link to chapter sections and in turn to print and online activities, so that students can immediately assess their mastery of the learning objective.
■ ■ Exercises are dispersed throughout most chapters, so that they link tightly with the concepts as they are presented.
■ ■ Students have access to over 2,000 exer- cises that provide practice in applying their skills.
the course. Skills for life. First Pages
moo41025_ch08_223-246.indd 240 09/19/19 02:23 PM
240 CHAPTER 8: FoRMAl FAllA CIEs ANd FAllA CIEs o F lANG u AGE
Exercise 8-4 Here are 107 examples of the fallacies discussed in this chapter. Match each item to one or more of the following categories or otherwise answer as indicated:
a. affirming the consequent b. denying the antecedent c. undistributed middle fallacy d. confusing explanations with excuses e. equivocation f. composition g. division h. miscalculating probabilities
Note
Your instructor may or may not ask you to further assign miscalculating probabilities into the following subcategories: Incorrectly combining the probabilities of indepen- dent events, the gambler’s fallacy, overlooking prior probabilities, and faulty inductive conversion.
1. Professor Parker can tell you if you are sick; after all, he is a doctor.
2. If this man is the president, then he believes in immigration reform. If this man is vice president, then he believes in immigration reform. Therefore, if this man is president, then he is vice president.
3. If global warming is for real, then the mean global temperature will have risen over the past ten years. And that is what happened. Therefore, global warming is for real.
4. My chance of being born on December 25 was the same as yours. So the chances we were both born on December 25 have to be twice as good.
5. Sodium is deadly poisonous, and so is chlorine. Salt consists of sodium and chlo- rine, which must be why we’re told not to eat too much of it.
6. The Bible commands you to leave life having made the world a better place. And therefore it commands you to make the world a better place each and every day.
7. A dialogue: JILL: Helen has her mother’s eyes. BILL: Good lord! Can the woman still see?
8. Is an explanation clearly being offered as an excuse/justification? I didn’t buy tick- ets to see Chris Angel’s show because I heard that he spends half his act with his shirt off strutting around in front of the ladies in the audience.
9. If Congress changes marijuana from a Class 1 drug to something lesser, next year the penalties for possession will be much less than they are now. But Congress is not going to declassify marijuana this year. So we’ll have to live with the drastic penalties for at least another year.
10. If you are rich, then your car is something like a Mercedes or a Bentley. Oh! Is that your Bentley, you rich old thing, you?
11. Man! Three sons in a row? Your next kid is bound to be a girl.
▲
▲
▲
Additional Exercises
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I t is remarkable how much university students have changed over the decades since we first began teaching in our 20s. Back then they called us by our first names or even “Dude.” Nowadays they call us “Sir,” as in, “Sir, do you need help?” They are also better informed. Thanks to Instagram and Snapchat and other
sources of breaking news, they know what friends are doing and thinking at any given moment.
Educators seem not to agree on what exactly critical thinking is, though they do agree that, whatever it is, we can use more of it. They also agree that being informed is important, though what they think is important to be informed about doesn’t necessar- ily include how Emily did her nails or what Jacob thinks about the new Starbucks cups.
You have to wonder. How can teachers compete with such stimulating infor- mation? Critical thinking instruction is fairly abstract. It doesn’t deal with topics. In this book, we don’t discuss whether someone’s a good president or if global climate is changing. Rather, we offer instruction on good and bad reasoning. We try to help read- ers develop facility in spotting irrelevancies, emotional appeals, empty rhetoric, and weak evidence. To compete with distractions, we offer examples and exercises we hope first-year university students can understand and relate to, and we try to be as concise and readable as possible.
What, by the way, is our definition of critical thinking? This is something we go into more in Chapter 1; for now, let’s just point out that critical thinking is aimed at mak- ing wise decisions about what to think and do. This book is not about critical thinking as much as it is a book in critical thinking. We try to provide guided practice in what we think are the most important critical thinking skill sets. Although as authors we dif- fer somewhat in our emphasis, we both agree (as do many instructors) that drill-and- practice is useful in improving students’ critical thinking ability. Online technology can be helpful when it comes to drill-and-practice, as well as in enabling students to learn at their own pace. (Details coming up shortly). But if you don’t use online assignment, practice, and assessment platforms such as ours, this text contains hundreds and hun- dreds of exercises of the sort that (we think) can be applied directly to the world at large. Exercise questions are all answered in the answer sections at the end of each chapter.
If you use this text or the online peripherals, we would appreciate hearing from you. We can both be
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