Exercises on the Structure of Arguments
(Exercise/Number Two)
I'm on my way to school. (1) I left five minutes late. (2) Traffic is heavy. (3) Therefore, I'll be late for class. (4) So I might as well stop and get breakfast (5).
Argument? (yes or no)
Yes
Conclusion:
They were late on leaving on time to get to school, so they might as well enjoy breakfast.
Additional premises needed?
They are not only already five minutes late, but traffic is heavy, which means it will take them even longer to get to school.
Identify any subargument?
The argument is kind of a chain of reasons and sub-arguments as the person stating it sees that because of 2, 3, and 4, he should just give up trying to do what is already done (trying not to be late) as he calculates that adding on the time it will take to get through traffic will ultimately make him late, so he might as well just enjoy the time to eat before getting to school, which is 5. Because of 2, 3 will occur, which means there is a direct relation between the two. 1, introduces the topic to which they speak of. It doesn't give any sort of argument, but is rather what sticks the rest of the sub-arguments together; it is the main point.
Good argument?
Not necessarily. The argument has a potential to be strong, however, simply stating independent clauses after another without any link to the previous clause causes the argument to become weak. Each reason does make sense and reverts back to the first sentence, however, there isn't much reason to believe (it isn't a good reason) for the person to do just go and have a good breakfast because he essentially keeps adding minutes to his tardiness, and could possibly be missing crucial information he could have known at least a little bit more if they just goes straight to school. According to Epstein, an argument drastically improves when there is a consistency or link between every sentence or reason.
I felt like this exercise could be much more helpful if there was more of a breakdown of details for the examples. I wish I had a little more help understanding what to do. I also think it'd be more helpful and useful if I had feedback, like in the examples, telling me whether I understood and analyzed the argument correctly. However, it did help me see that simply saying why certain things are bad about something, as illustrated in the text, does not immediately make it a good argument. I also learned how to look more in detail in arguments and statements in general.
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You are correct this is a poor argument. Some people, such as the person giving that statement , weigh out the costs and benefits before making a decision such as being tardy. A person such as the example views tardy as being tardy plain and simple no matter how late they are, late is late. They are looking at the situation as “If I am going to be late, whether its 10 minutes or 30 minutes, I am still late so I might as well grab breakfast”. However, the logical person would rather get to class as soon as possible even though they are going to be tardy, so that they are only tardy and not missing out on important class time by adding to the tardiness to get breakfast.
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