Chapter 15 : Cause and Effect

I will be talking about Particular causes, generalizations and general causes.  there is no particular definition behind the concept. It is just laid on top of the basic definition of a cause and effect incident. Here, this example should clarify this concept :

A particular cause :
                  The sniper shot him at his heart; the man died on the spot.
This example shows how a cause, which happens once, creates an effect which also happens once. Now, in order to establish a relationship between these two incidents, we must look at this from various other possibilities. For instance, if the man shot him with a pistol gun, or a shot gun; or the distance between the two men. If these cases are tried, all these shots would kill the other.

Now, we can generalize this statement by stating that : A bullet shot at anyone's heart, will definitely lead to their death, unless they are wearing a bullet proof vest.

 This is basically what a particular cause and effect, and a generalization of causes is.

Mission Critical

This website has a lot of familiar concepts that we have studied during this semester. I took the freedom to go over the ones that we have not yet covered, or I personally have not read. For example, I went deductive reasoning in Conjunctions and Disjunctions. In other words, arguments with "or" or "and". I learned that during the "or" claims, you accept one case or the other, or you reject it all together. On the contrary, an "and" claim is where, you would accept all the cases, or reject one. Another concept that I went over was the "two wrong" fallacy. The "two wrong" appeal basically states that when a wrong action is performed based on another wrong action, it is called the "two wrongs make a right" fallacy. An example for this fallacy would be,
Sam borrow's his best friend's watch, but never returns it.
Sam keep the watch with him , and does it give it back to his best friend.
Sam tells himself that his best friend would have done the same to him.
I learned a lot more concepts from this website. It provided loads of exercise problems, and clear definitions with examples. It was easy to reiterate the purpose and the definitions of various concepts.

Mission : Critical ( Causation)

This website was the same exact website that I used to answer the previous week's blog post. This website really helped me understand the clear definition and meaning behind causation. The example was really simple for me to analyze and incorporate. The website had a couple of general rules that really help me, like

1. The cause must precede the event in time. On one hand, arguments that have the effect before the cause are examples of the relatively rare fallacy of reverse causation. One the other, arguments whose only proof of causation is that the effect followed the cause are examples of fallacious post hoc reasoning.
2. Even a strong correlation is insufficient to prove causation. Other possible explanations for such a strong correlation include coincidence, reversed causation, and missing something that is the cause of both the original "cause" and and its purported "effect. ( Introduction to causal agreements ).    

Another helpful insight this website provided me was the practice option ( exercises ). The exercises just reinforced the basic concepts and gave me a wide spectrum of the various concepts within causation. 

Judging analogies

Judging analogies are basically analogies / arguments that are made without proper premises. In other words, your supporting claims do not completely back up your conclusion, hence, the other person ends up claiming that your claim is weak. In the words of Epstein, "one side of the analogy is like, the other side is too vague to use as  a premises."

For example :
An elephant eats anywhere between 200 to 400 pounds per day; on the other hand, humans on average consume anywhere between 3000 to 4000 calories per day.

So, does this mean that, all of the elephants combined eat more per day than all of the humans combined ?
Of course not !  This is an example of an argument trying to argue that what is true of an individual is true for the group . Furthermore, the type of food / diet a human follows is not clear. It would certainly differ. Other details for the elephant are if the elephant is a wild one, or a tamed one. Therefore, we can conclude that, with this as the example, the differences between the units of an individual and the group is too large to analyze.

Causal Reasoning

I had a tough time coming with a proper explanation for causal reasoning. I was able to understand the the purpose of such a reasoning. I searched for variousexplanations for the reasoning and found a really interesting one. "These causal arguments, then, follow the form of an inductive argument with one important exception: whereas an inductive argument carries as part of its second premise the implication that there is otherwise no significant difference, these causal arguments carry the implication that there is only one significant difference" (Introduction to Causal Arguments). I could easily relate this with the example I gave in my previous post :


My example :


A car is traveling at speed limit, and suddenly swerves and hits another car trying to avoid a kid who was threatened to run across the road.  The people in car can argue that, the kid who ran across them caused them to change directions unexpectedly. The kid can argue that, his friends threatened him which caused him to do that action. 


Hence, for every single action there is only one and only one cause for that action. For the kid, he was threatened; for the car, it was the kid. That particular definition really helped me understand this concept clearly. 

Reasonings

Here are a list of examples for the different types of reasonings :

1 ) deductive reasoning : 

All cows are mammals

All mammals have hearts

So, all cows have hearts

2 ) Inductive reasoning : 

Pau Gasol is an excellent basketball player. So, his children are going to be excellent basketball players as well.

3 ) Analogy by reasoning : 

Assume that you are going to go buy a brand new car. You talk with your friends who recently bought new cars. They tell you that, they are delighted with the new cars they bought from New Cars. So, you are likely to conclude by analogy that, if you buy a new car from New Cars, you will be delighted as well.

4 ) Causal reasoning 

A car is traveling at speed limit, and suddenly swerves and hits another car trying to avoid a kid who was threatened to run across the road.  The people in car can argue that, the kid who ran across them caused them to change directions unexpectedly. The kid can argue that, his friends threatened him which caused  him to do that action. 

5 ) Criteria Reasoning :

Chef 1 : This dish must taste delicious . 

Chef 2 : Then why don't we add some bay leaves, and cloves ?

6 ) Reasoning with examples :

In order for you to be successful in life, you must work a minimum of 10,000 hours in that field; Just like how Bill Gates and Kobe Bryant did (Gladwell , Outliers ). 

7 ) Argument with signs :

Wayne is walking with out his crutches and is able to move his foot in different directions; He is showing signs of recovery. 

Appeal to Spite

An appeal to spite is a type of appeal to emotion. An appeal to spite involves a person trying to reach his objective without providing evidence or support for his claim. According to the Encyclopedia, an appeal to spite is " An `appeal to spite` (also called `argumentum ad odium`) is a logical fallacy in which someone attempts to win favor for an argument by exploiting existing feelings of bitterness, spite, or schadenfreude in the opposing party. Instead of an argument being made with supporting facts or evidence, the argument is made that you should or should not do something simply out of spite. " 


Here is an example for this fallacy :


X : Oh wow, Y gave an excellent presentation. I am going to vote for Y's presentation. I think she deserves the trophy. 
Z : Yes, I agree, but do not remember that Y did not select your presentation last year ?
X : Oh yea ! You are right, I change my mind. I will not vote for Y.


This is a simple example for an appeal to spite. This is purely based on getting revenge, without providing evidence or support to the claim. Hence, as Epstein states "an appeal to spite often invokes the "principle" that two wrongs make a right" (Epstein , 193). On the contrary, there are times when a claim that evokes a feeling of spite can be judged as an true, factual evidence. 

Advertisement : Appeal to Fear !

An appeal to fear is supposed to instill a quick flash of fear in you regarding the situation. The ad that I found on the internet did create a moment of fear. The way the company used its advertising strategy to use the appeal to fear, is very well done.

http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/WWF-22.jpg

The ad basically depicts an action that has a negative effect on us, and in this case the planet as well. This ad caught my attention, and it made me believe that, the way we humans are dealing with this issue is wrong. This is exactly how an appeal to fear ad should do. On the contrary, there are a couple of view points, which can be noted as ineffective. This might lead people to jump over the purpose of the message. But, this ad does not have as many ineffective ways to grab the attention of the public. So, this ad was simple, clear, effective, and good.

Appeal to Emotion :

An appeal to emotion is " an argument with a prescriptive conclusion, can be good or can be bad. Being alert to the use of emotion helps clarify the kinds of premises needed in such an argument, so we can more easily analyze it" (Epstein, 194). So, an appeal to emotion is used to change / manipulate others' emotions in order to gain their acceptance towards our claim. In other words, the way one succeeds in achieving this, is when the use of strong emotions are being substituted for evidence to back up claims. 

Many well known organizations, brands, and companies use this appeal to gain power, and support. Here is one such example :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eMmcMK_3Ao

This ad, shows there is no evidence to show that the Porche is really as good as they say it is. Instead, the bring out this kid, and make you feel sorry and attached to the kid in the ad. 

The example is also a way of appealing to pity.  In India, appealing to pity is probably the most common means of  convincing people. I particularly find this appeal appealing because, it is very easy to change a person's emotion, than to change their rational thoughts and ideas. In addition, emotions can be easily changed especially when facing depression.