People commit errors in reasoning on a daily basis. This is even true for individuals who are trying to be reasonable and avoid these mistakes. One place where we would hope to see very few biases or obviously fallacious arguments is in the information media that we watch and read. This sort of media is invaluable for connecting us to what is happening in the world, and with the recent proliferation of ‘fake news’, it is becoming more and more important for us to be able to discern reasonable arguments from fallacious or biased ones. For this paper, pick TWO (2) written on-line articles that demonstrate examples of different kinds of fallacious or biased arguments. These could be from a newspaper, magazine, blog, or other on-line source. For EACH of these arguments, you must do the following: (1) Reconstruct the problematic argument, explaining which fallacies/biases are present. You must give a clear explanation of the fallacies/biases in general and as they pertain to the article in question. (2) Provide a charitable reconstruction of the original argument that eliminates the bad reasoning. That is, try to present a version of the argument that achieves the same conclusion as the original without committing these mistakes. In order to do this, you will need to be a bit creative, and try to come up with premises that you think the author would agree with. (3) Analyze the new arguments that you have given with a critical eye. Are these revised versions merely valid/strong? Or have you managed to give a sound/cogent reconstruction on behalf of the original author? It is entirely possible that the best you can do is to reconstruct the argument into something with the right structure, but with some false premises. Effectively, I am asking you to write a paper where you make two versions of that reply, but more fleshed out with more detail.Show more
