Evaluating Truth And Validity Exercise Paper

RUNNING HEAD: Evaluating Truth and Validity Exercise

Evaluating Truth and Validity Exercise

Evaluating Truth and Validity Exercise

PHL/458

September 15, 2014

First Argument- J

Week three assignment was to evaluate arguments from scenarios in the applications list 12.2 (a.-y.) at the end of Ch. 12 in The Art of Thinking using the 4-stepm process while explaining the assessment and adding an alternative argumentation where need be. I will begin with the premise that "Power must be evil because it can corrupt people" which is in exercise j. Step one, I would verify that the argument was stated clear and complete for any hidden premises. The argument did not hold the water once checked for errors affecting the truth although it seemed to
Questions such as "How corrupt do an individual have to become before considered evil?" need to be answered when revising the statement. Individuals who have done corrupt things still does not label them as evil. One may ask what would be considered evil or what would be acceptable or unacceptable but yet still not categorized as evil? So with picking that statement apart and showing all the flaws it is only best to move on to a different argument and throw this one out. Evil is defined as some type of supernatural force or profound immorality and powers used for evil purposes will have evil results. So that tells you that if power is in the right hands there will be good
The hidden premise process and verifying that the statement was complete and clear was the first step done. Checking for errors affecting the truth was the next step. Just reading the statement as is, "Nuclear power is a threat to world peace", is written falsely. It should read "Nuclear power is a threat to world peace if used as a weapon." Fossil energy is a positive way to use nuclear energy which makes the original statement false. Next we will examine the reasoning that link conclusions to premises and check for validity errors. Nuclear power is a threat to world peace is the premise and I verified that the statement was false. Once I inserted "if used as a weapon" the statement is now more defendable. So rewriting the statement using "if used as a weapon" has changed everything and has made it a qualifying statement.

Most nuclear energy is used to produce clean energy and is not a threat to world peace unless it is used to produce weapons. The statement "Nuclear power is a threat to world peace" had to be rewritten to state "Nuclear power is a threat to world peace if used as a weapon." Alternative energy sources are generated by most nuclear energy stations and are no threat to the world