Q24 - One is likely to feel comfortable

[hyk1310]

Dear Noah,

I had an inquiry over solving this question.

How I solved it was:
A: approx age, B: comfort.
Premise: A--> B
Conclusion: ~A--> ~B.

The problem with this is similar to confusing the sufficient condition with the necessary condition. Essentially the flaw is negation. But in order to show that there is a flaw in the negation, we need to show that the conclusion's necessary condition doesn't hold (therefore, that the conclusion in unwarranted). In another words, we want to show that ~A--> B.

Therefore, the flaw would be that in this wrongly inferred negation, the stimulus failed to check whether ~A (not approx. age) --> B (comfort) this was a viable option.

Is this a valid way of thinking about the problem?

Thanks in advance

[mswang7]

I really don't like this question. Here's a stab at a detailed explanation
Premises: if stranger is similar in age -> one is likely to be comfortable approaching.
Most long term friendships began bc someone felt comfortable approaching stranger
Concl: Long term friends are likely similar in age
Gaps: Assumes it's necessary to be comfortable to approach someone
Does not establish one is uncomfortable approaching a stranger if a different age

A. The argument does the reverse of this
B. infers that a characteristic (similar age) is present in a situation (approaching a stranger) from the fact similar age is present in most situations of approaching a stranger. The argument does not do this
C. This is a mouthful. Overlooks the possibility it's less likely to feel comfortable approaching a stranger of a similar age than a stranger of a different age
Not sure if this matters to the argument
D. I feel like this matches my first gap, don't understand why it's incorrect
E. This matches. by second gap

[Laura Damone]

Hey!

Nice stimulus breakdown. And although ultimately I think you're wrong about the first gap, it's a gap that occurred to me, too, and I didn't reevaluate it until I saw D, so let's start there.

The problem with D is that it is too strong. Does this argument really presume that one never approaches a stranger unless one feels comfortable doing so? In other words, would one person approaching a stranger even though they were uncomfortable ruin the argument? Nope. One outlier would be fine. We're only dealing with "most" friendships, so we won't need to assume a statement of totality. See what I did there, btw? That's the negation test applied to an "assumes" flaw answer. It's a great tool for a tough question like this!

Now let's loop back to that first gap you saw. Does this argument really assume that you have to be comfortable to approach someone? Actually, no! Why? because it states that most friendships develop "because someone felt comfortable approaching a stranger" and we need to accept that as fact. We don't question the premises, so we don't question whether these friendships were started because someone was comfortable approaching or just because they approached. Make sense?

Diagramming is your friend on a tricky question like this, too. When I read it, I jotted this on my scratch paper:

AA --> C
LT --most--> C
-----------------------
LT --most--> AA

There you can clearly see that the argument is illegally reversing the first premise in order to link it to the second one. This can help you pick E out of the gate, because it addresses this illegal reversal.

Hope this helps!

[BarryM800]

I got this question right by eliminating irrelevant answer choices, but am still not convinced that (E) would be an assumption. The second sentence gives us the second premise ("long-term friends -[m]→ comfortable") and the final conclusion ("long-term friends -[m]→ similar age"). So we need a link "comfortable → similar age" to make the conclusion valid, but the first premise is "similar age -[m]→ comfortable." Clearly, the arrow is pointing the wrong direction. But that's not what (E) says. (E) has "likely" in it, which makes it another "most" statement, as opposed to a conditional/universal statement. So is (E) correct because a "most" statement is a necessary condition for an "all" statement, or because (E) plus "similar age -[m]→ comfortable" would somehow gives us "comfortable → similar age"? Thanks!

[Laura Damone]

Hi!

This one is a lot to get into before I've had my coffee but here goes

First off, I wouldn't call the first premise a "most" statement. As you noted, it uses "likely" which is a probability indicator, but "likely" doesn't technically establish "more likely than not" which is the threshold for "most." I would equate "likely" to "many" and "often" which both fall a bit shy of that threshold.

When I have an iffy quantifier like this, I'll typically treat it as part of a condition, rather than as the conditional logic linking word. So, instead of AA --m--> C, I'll diagram AA --> C with the understanding that C = "likely to feel comfortable." Does that make sense? Rather than trying to wrestle an unruly quantifier into the "totality box" or the "most box," I'll just let it be what it is and live in the condition itself.

Now, you know as well as I do that this argument hinges on the illegal reversal of the first premise. Because this is an ID the Flaw question, the correct answer could be phrased in one of three ways:
- As an assumption the argument makes
- As an objection the argument overlooks
- As a famous flaw call-out

Take a moment and try to prephrase an answer that follows each of those three formats. Don't read ahead until you do so! (If that's challenging for you, keep at it! Take a set of Flaw questions from your homework and do this for every question.)

Here's my take:
Assumption - The argument presumes that one is only likely to feel comfortable approaching a stranger of the same approximate age.
Objection - The argument overlooks the possibility that one may be equally comfortable approaching a stranger who is not of the same approximate age.
Famous Flaw - The argument treats a sufficient condition as though it is a necessary condition.

Now, why did I want you to do that? Because when you talked about (E), you talked about it as though it were an Assumption answer, but in fact, it's an Objection answer. "Fails to consider," "fails to address," "overlooks the possibility that," ... these are all phrases which alert you to the fact that the answer is raising a possible objection to the argument. When you see these intro phrases, look at what follows and ask yourself "is this a good objection to the argument?" If it is, you've found a winner.

So, is (E) a good objection to the argument? Absolutely. The argument never addresses the likelihood of feeling comfortable approaching a stranger of a different age. We know folks are likely to be comfortable when the stranger is the same age, but we don't know anything about whether they're comfortable in other circumstances. It would have been easier to pick if it had matched my Objection prephrase, but it addresses the same gap in reasoning: the Illegal Reversal.

Hope this helps!