REASONING

Key to the Exercises

1. If a boy has a poor class record he is ineligible for the team. J. S. has a poor record. Therefore he is ineligible.

The certainty with which the conclusion is asserted depends upon the certainty of the connection between poor records and ineligibility.

2. If a thing is delicious it must be unhealthy. This cake is delicious, etc.

The conclusion drawn follows from the premises, but the major premise not being universally true, no conclusion is permissible. Since the major premise does not even represent the truth in the majority of instances, we are not even justified in concluding that the cake is probably unhealthy.

3. "Where there's a will, there's a way." You did not find the way.

... You did not have the will.

The major premise states what is true in the majority of cases, but not in all. To justify its application to the particular person, we should have to know enough about the circumstances of the failure to be able to say: Where there's a will, the way will always be found under these particular conditions. 4. "Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well." This book is worth reading.

... It is worth reading well.

The major premise is not universally true, but it states what is usually true, and thus a certain presumption is created in favor of the truth of the conclusion. But this is the most that can be said in the absence of additional data. 5. Procrastination makes you lose time.

You have procrastinated, etc.

The object of the preceding exercises is to make the student realize that the truth of his conclusion depends on the universality of the major premise; furthermore, to make him realize that a statement not universally true may neverthelest be useful as a premise, by creating a certain presumption sometimes a very strong one, in favor of the conclusion, and perhaps by serving as the rough draft of an assertion which is universal.

6. The word murder means the wrongful taking of life Replacing "murder" in the minor premise by its equivalent this premise reads: Capital punishment is the wrongfu taking of life. Obviously this is precisely what was to be proved. The question is "begged" in that a premise asserts as true that which the argument pretends to prove.

7. To do evil that good may come is wrong.

Punishment is doing evil that good may come. ... Punishment is wrong.

In this case, the word "evil" is used in different senses in the two premises. In the major, it means moral evil, or wrong doing. At least, it is only in that meaning of the word that the statement of the premise is true. In the minor, "evil" means physical evil, or pain. Accordingly, no conclusion can be drawn in such a case any more than from the following assertion:

Socrates is a man.

Man is an island in the Irish Sea.

8. "You can not make men moral by legislation."

In the first place the major is one of those half-truths which float about and mislead the unwary. Morality is a matter of free choice, and thus in one sense no person and no government can make anyone else moral. But the gov ernment-like the parent-by removing certain temptations which would be too strong for average human nature may protect the character from injury, and give it the op portunity to acquire the strength necessary for right choice. However even if the major were universally true, from the syllogism:

Legislation is incapable of making men moral,

Laws restricting the liquor traffic are legislation, we may infer only that laws restricting the liquor traffic are incapable of making men moral. But it does not follow that they may not do good in some other way, since there are plenty of ways of doing good in the world besides making men better morally. A different conclusion is thus drawn from the premises from that which they justify. The fallacy is termed "non sequitur."

9. The word "law" is used in this statement in two different senses. A law of nature, e. g., the law of gravitation, is simply a statement of the unchanging modes of activity of material objects. A law of Parliament, on the other hand, is a command to act in a certain way, issued to certain human beings, with a threat of punishment in the case of disobedience. We must carefully distinguish between a law of nature and the rules of human action based upon these laws. The consequences of breaking a rule, as the rules of safety and health, are just as much in accordance with nature as are the consequences of keeping the rule. Mr. Spencer presumably meant that the English nation was breaking certain rules of national welfare which were based upon his interpretation of the laws of evolution.

10. Freedom, when applied, as it is here, to the people of a country, may mean:

1. Every person can do precisely what he pleases as far as interference on the part of the government is concerned. This means, of course, the absence of all government, i. e., a state of anarchy. In such a state the great majority will be hindered from doing many of the things they most wish to do because no restraint is placed upon the force of their more powerful and unprincipled fellow-men.

2. A state of things in which the people have the inner power or ability and the resources to satisfy their most important desires. This state of things can be brought about only through the exercise on the part of the state of a very considerable amount of compulsion. Thus, freedom