Q4: When politicians describe their opponents' positions

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: If politicians framed their opponents' positions as charitably as scholars do, voters would be more persuaded.
Evidence: Politicians make straw man arguments, unfairly representing their opponents' positions. Meanwhile, scholars represent opponents' positions in their best light, and this makes the scholars' position more persuasive to the scholars' colleagues.

Answer Anticipation:
Hopefully we're aware that the three big types of argument structures are Causal, Comparative, and Conditional.

This one is comparative: "Because technique X works well for scholars dealing with other scholars, technique X would work well for politicians dealing with voters."

We could attack this comparison by saying, "What works for scholars wouldn't necessarily work for politicians, because the two professions are importantly different", or we could attack by saying "What works for colleagues wouldn't necessarily work for voters, because the two audiences are importantly different".

Correct Answer:


Answer Choice Analysis: A
(A) YES! This is what we prephrased. Had we not already anticipated this answer, we would react to "fails to address" by reading what follows and asking, "Would this weaken?" If an approach that works with one audience (scholar's colleagues) would not work with another (voters), then that would be an effective objection to the author's argument.

(B) No, this certainly wouldn't weaken as much as (A). While it does feel somewhat adversarial to the author to say, "Politicians would find it DIFFICULT to do technique X", the conclusion is saying "IF they did technique X, they would achieve effect Y." The only way to disagree with that kind of claim is to present a scenario where they DO do technique X but do NOT achieve effect Y. We can't object to that kind of claim by saying "it's hard to do technique X".

(C) No, this goes wrong with the final word "similar". If it had said "even though those differing styles might be appropriate for DIFFERENT audiences", it would be a sensible objection similar to what (A) is saying

(D) No, when an author claims that "If Kevin does X, the effect will be Y", that author is not assuming that it's EASY for Kevin to do X (as choice B is worrying about) and the author is not assuming that Kevin WANTS effect Y (as this answer choice is talking about). The conclusion is simply describing a cause/effect relationship, not saying it's easy or desired. If we negate this assumption, we get "either scholars, politicans, or both do not have persuasion as their aim". That would not weaken the argument in any way.

(E) No, and also kind of funny. This is saying that Nancy Pelosi, who shares most positions with Chuck Shumer, would frame Shumer's positions uncharitably. I know the Democrats have a reputation for getting in their own way, but THIS would be a stretch.

Takeaway/Pattern: It's usually pretty easy to hear an argument by Analogy/Comparison because the author clearly is straddling two different topics: in this case politicians vs. scholars.

When we see comparative arguments, we strengthen by getting more relevant similarity. We weaken by pointing out an important difference.

#officialexplanation