Melina Dabney
Blog Post #2

1.

2.  All people who care about the environment eat plant-based meals.
     Whoever doesn't eat plant-based meals does not care about the environment.

3.

 

4. Format: All A are B.

                  x is not B.

                  x is not A.

    

     Or:   ~q→~p; contrapositive, valid.

 

This argument is valid but not sound since the premises do not necessarily lead to the conclusion (just because someone does not eat a plant-based diet does not automatically mean that they do not care about the environment).

 

5. Conditional Statement:

    If a person cares about the environment, then they will eat plant-based meals.

    Whoever does not eat plant-based meals does not care about the environment.

 

6.  P: Cares about the environment

     Q: Eats plant-based meals

     1. If cares about the environment then eats plant meals

     2. does not eat plant meals

    ___________________

     Conclusion: does not care about environment

p→q (hypothesis 1)

~q     (hypothesis 2)

therefore ~p  (conclusion)

p	q	~q	p→q	~q	(1ᶺ2)	~p	(1ᶺ2) →~p
T	T	F	T	F	F	F	T
T	F	T	F	T	F	F	T
F	T	F	T	F	F	T	T
F	F	T	T	T	T	T	T

                                                                                                                               TAUTOLOGY!

 

a. Although the conditional statement is a tautology, it fall short in real life since there are other things a person can do to show or imply that they care about the environment without only eating a plant-based diet (recycling, biking to work, etc.).

 

b. Even if the statement were not a tautology it still would not make a lot of sense in real life.

 

c. In regards to truth tables, they can explain why a statement alone is logical (valid), but in real life there are constantly other counter-arguments to be considered. Therefore, reaching a reasonable, sound conclusion actually requires more extensive thought (especially when it comes to ads).

 

7. Consider the source: This ad comes from a site that strongly promotes veganism as a lifestyle choice, which gives it credibility (of knowing how to eat vegan) but a biased opinion.

Check the date: The ad is fairly recent and still has relevance in the community.

Validate accuracy: The ad can be validated through the website link; however, the statistics could be validated further.

Watch for hidden agendas: This information is skewed for the site's "hidden" agenda, or bias, for promoting vegan eating habits.

Big picture: Even though the argument is valid (that switching to a plant-based diet might help the environment by lessening animal agriculture), there are other "big picture" things to consider: if someone chooses to eat meat they can still find other ways of helping the environment; vegetarianism is also a viable option, as well as check to see where the consumed meat is coming from (for example cage-free eggs).

 

8. Fallacy: Limited Choice-The argument suggests that their can only be people who care about the environment through eating plant-based diets and those who don't when there are other options to consider.

 

9. People are often passive viewers of media information allowing fallacious reasoning to wash over them without a second thought.  This particular add is, I think, a more obvious example of biased and fallacious reasoning to persuade the viewer. But I also noticed that the format had to be broken down further to get to the "root" of the argument since it starts out in the form of a question ("Do you care about the environment?"). The question is directly misleading, after all, not many people (in Boulder at least) are going to say to themselves that they don't care about the environment, which effectively invites the viewer to read on and consider the argument. I've taken Logic in the past and doing truth table exercises on real-life adds is always eye-opening to how popular media construct advertisements.