I just saw this cartoon (from the Washington Post) in the Berkshire Eagle and immediately thought of Logic class. Just in case my link doesn't work, I've written the basic dialogue below:
Uncle Sam: "If you don't do anything bad, you don't have anything to worry about."
Citizen: "What if I happen to disagree with that premise?"
Uncle Sam: "That would be something bad."
Any thoughts?
I saw this, too. An unstated premise could be, "If you do something bad, you need to worry."
ReplyDeleteAnd since disagreeing with the original statement/premise is bad, the citizen does need to worry.
Gotta love how well suited logic is for irony.
This is a good argument, however you must define what it and what is not bad. If there is a different conception of the word, than you could do something bad that you are not aware of but still be in trouble due to the logic of this specific argument.
ReplyDeleteYes; some work is needed to render the snippet of dialogue into an argument.
ReplyDelete