1^st Homework: Possible Answers

1. Any government would be silly to try to interfere with happiness so long as people were not interfering with other's rights.

2. Our government shouldn't be silly.

3. The constitution guarantees the right to the pursuit of happiness

4. Everybody should have the right to do whatever except when interfering with rights of others.

5. This right is really vital.

6. It holds even if a person likes to place her life in danger.

7. Seat belts shouldn't be required by law.

8. They are expensive.

9. People shouldn't have to buy them.

10. Marijuana shouldn't be illegal.

1. George Bush pulled a campaign stunt.

2. TV has lots of power.

3. Americans are very impressionable.

4. Many Americans get their only campaign news from TV.

5. TV's power is being misused.

6. TV has a quest for 30-second sound-bites.

7. They aren't interested in deeper issues.

8. By putting the camera up, they make Dukakis look short.

9. TV campaign coverage should be scrapped.

10. This would save plane fares.

11. They wouldn't have to lug heavy cameras.

Some comments on HW 1, Fall, 2001.

1) Remember to try to keep your arrows headed DOWN.

2) If claims are working jointly, the arrow must be coming from their connecting bar. Thus this makes sense. But this doesn't. Notice that you can't have a claim that is given as a reason for a joint conclusion. This doesn't make sense. In any case where you wanted to do that, you could do this instead:

3) Make sure that you use the arrow each time. If two claims just have a line between them with no arrow, then you have not made clear which is a reason for believing which, or whether perhaps they are supposed to be jointly a reason for believing something else. Every link in the argument needs an arrow.

4) A clarification on next week's HW, Argument #3. 'Campus recruiting' refers to the practice of organizations coming to MHC hoping to recruit seniors to work for the organization after they graduate. Islamic Jihad is a terrorist organization. (My apologies for this reference. The argument was written well before the World Trade Center attack and printed up before I realized that the reference was in it.)