Friday, September 9, 2011

Discussion Week 4-10 #2 Strong vs Valid arguments

Valid argument:  An argument is valid if there is no possible way for its premises to be true, and its conclusion to be false at the same time. Some valid arguments are bad. Not all good arguments are valid, and an argument could be either valid or not valid. Also not all valid arguments are good, a premise could be implausible. For example:  All birds are mammals. Parrot is a bird. Therefor e parrot is a mammal. This is a valid deductive argument. It is interesting to note that the conclusion is true.
 Strong Argument: An argument is strong if there is some way, some possibility for its premise to be true, and its conclusion to be false, but every such possibility is extremely unlikely. For example: Killing innocent human being is morally wrong. Abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent human. Therefore, elective abortion is morally wrong. 

1 comment:

  1. Hey Ani! It is interesting that you chose the issue of equating abortion with murder as your example. I actually like that you decided to use that example because it is an argument that really made me think hard in terms of what qualifies as an argument. Abortion is a very sensitive issue in our society and is constantly being debated upon. On either side of the argument whether abortion is wrong or right it is completely based on opinion. Do you think it is acceptable to make the premise of an argument based purely on opinion and not fact? I am sure that throughout this course I will find my answer, but I want to know your opinion :)

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