Does experience Matter in a President?
This article is about the argument whether or not experience on the job, i.e. experience as a governor or state legislator and time on the job really makes a better president. The main question the article revolves around is the question of whether or not Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is the better president to lead this nation. Illustrating this many references to former presidents, such as J.F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson are made.
Although this article is well researched and tries to avoid logical fallacies I have discovered at least three which I will point out and explain in the following:
Arguing about the sufficient or insufficient experience of a president, the author makes a very slippery statement “Unfortunately, when a president gets an education, we all pay the tuition”. This statement is characteristic for a “Slippery Slope” fallacy saying that one first step, here the election of a obviously less experienced president, will result automatically in failure and that we all have to suffer from the consequences. In my mind this is not necessarily a very profound way to argue that someone is not capable to be president because most of the time people grow into their responsibilities and thus do a very good job in doing so.
Another logical fallacy I have recognized in this article is in the very last paragraph. This fallacy is the generalization on how “all Americans” cast their vote. It says that they all follow their guts and their heart when casting their vote and so might pass over the “best-credentialed candidates”. I consider this as a very hasty generalization in the way that all Americans are seen as people not capable of critical thinking just following their hearts and guts when casting their vote. This statement mainly denies all Americans the ability to make critical and reasonable decisions.
The final logical fallacy is not that easy to discover in this text as it is consistently pursued throughout the whole text itself – namely the “Either/Or” fallacy. It seems like that there is only one criterion being the sole determinant, i.e. experience. The text basically argues that people have to make a decision if they want to have an experienced or a non-experience president. This observation is too clean-cut and simple for such a complex office as the one of the President of the United States. To make this argument less “Either/Or” – there is only one right answer to this question and all others are wrong, you have to define what experience really is and whether sometimes too much experiences leaves a person with occupational blindness or organizational blindness.
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10 comments:
Great interpretation and analysis. You explain the fallacies clearly and support with examples from the text. Question: you write "Most of the time people grow into their responsibilities and thus do a very good job in doing so." Is there some fallacious reasoning here on your part? It may not be a slippery slope fallacy, but perhaps an overgeneralization? Anyway, not a big deal. I'm just drawing attention to the fact that when we point out fallacies in our opponents' argumentation (counterargument sections of the paper), we must be extra careful not to have those same types of fallacies in our own reasoning. The thinking reader will catch that every time...great work though.
I guess you got me on a logical fallacy too...since I am generalizing here too in saying "Most of the time people grow...." is a generalization right there.Although I thought that I would be a lot easier to find logical fallacies,it took me quite some time until i first of all had found a suitable article and then going through the article and looking for these fallacies. However, it is very astonishing how fast logical fallacies could find their way into your argument even if you really focus on avoiding them.
I like the article you picked because like you said even though they researched well they are only human and made some small mistakes. I like how you explained them really well, you went into a lot of depth. Good job on finding fallacies!
I really liked your choice of article. It's a very important topic at the current point in the US right now. I like how you say it was a really well researched article yet there was still a few fallacies that you found that were just common mistakes.
Susanne, this blog is very well written. It is clear and easy to understand. I like how you set up your paragraphs using examples from the text to support the fallacies. I agree on your comment you have made on your blog when you say "It's astonishing how fast logical fallacies could find their way into your argument." I found this was very easy also when writing my blog.
Great post. I liked how you picked up on the either/or fallacy very well. We seem to be seeing that quite a bit in politics lately. They try to make everything black or white when actually most of the issues lie somewhere in the gray area. You did a great job of showing this in your post.
Good job Susanne! I thought your blog was very interesting to understand. You explained all the fallacies you found and cited examples from the text, which is very helpful to the reader.
I found your analysis of the logical fallacies to be very interesting! I found the part of you article that talked about how we as a people will end up "paying for the education of our presidents", as to say that we pay for their mistakes.This statement is true to a certain extent, but no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes so no matter whom is president we as the American people will face consequences from their actions, good or bad. Your blog was very well written!
Great job this assignment must have came easy to you because you went in depth on the article and finding the fallacies with in it. I enjoyed reading it and how you were able to find fallacies with in an article from TIME Magazine.
I really enjoy reading your blogs. You describe everything in detail that you really make it easy to understand the issue at hand, without actually reading the article you analyzed. I liked that you chose an article about the upcoming election. I'm not sure who exactly I'm going to vote for since I'm 18 now. All candidates have some pretty good "solutions" for the problems the US is facing. But I do know that I won't be voting with just my guts but also with my head, too. So nice work!
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