I am having an argument on a political thread, the argument goes as follows:
"Sami supports Hizballah, hizballah is a terrorist organization, therefore Sami supports terrorists."
Is this logically correct?
"Sami supports Hizballah, hizballah is a terrorist organization, therefore Sami supports terrorists."
Is this logically correct?
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France
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Re: Argument
Mon, July 31, 2006 - 4:26 AMYour argument is valid in form. It's form is as follows.
All S is a P
X is a member of S.
Therefoe X is a P.
By comparison:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is a mortal.
Is your argument sound is another question; i.e., are all the premises true? Is Hezbollah a terrorist organization? That is the next point of contention. (I imply no answer.)
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Re: Argument
Mon, July 31, 2006 - 12:27 PM:: Is this logically correct?
maybe - the funk is introduced in translating informal natural language into formal symbolic language. for example, what is the nature of sami's support? perhaps -
A) Sami supports Hezbollah (by way of sympathizing with their plight, or honoring their human right not to be tortured)
B) Hezbollah are terrorists
C) ergo Sami supports terrorists, in the sense of wanting them to go around setting civilians on fire
that would obviously be fallacious. if C) were rendered as "...in the sense that terrorists may have a valid position, even if their means are despicable, or in the sense that all human beings deserve certain rights no matter what their status", the argument is valid. alternatively if A) were rendered as "...(by way of pointing out where there are israeli babies to dismember and putting a bounty on dead babies)" the argument would also be valid.
usually in political 'debates', these ambiguities are left to stand for rhetorical purposes - this of course makes for bad argument. -
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Re: Argument
Tue, August 1, 2006 - 3:13 AMMy issue is with the sentence as it is, not with wether the premices are true or false (hezbollah being a terrorist organization) or what my "support" is. But just the construction of the sentence:
"Sami supports Hizballah, hizballah is a terrorist organization, therefore Sami supports terrorists."
I find it odd that [a terrorist organization] can be replaced by [terrorists] in the conclusion. I argued in another forum that this was not justified and made the argument fallacious, and that the correct conclusion should have been: "therefore sami supports a terrorist organization".
I think the same logic would also lead to:
Sami supports terrorists
Suicide bombers are terrorists
Therefore Sami supports suicide bombers.
So my "support" of Hezballah would infer that i support suicide bombers. -
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Re: Argument
Tue, August 1, 2006 - 4:11 AMIn your original argument I was reading "terrorists" as being equivalent with "terrorist organization". Maybe this is a false equivocation thereby rendering the argument invalid. Just as Kage pointed out, Aristotlean logic does not handle everyday language very well. I also do no know any background information. Terrorist organizations require members; so those members would naturally be called terrorists. It is only an extra step or two to get from supporting a terrorist organization to supporting terrorists.
Your second argument is invalid.
The first premise given should read:
"Sami supports suicide bombers."
The invalid form is like this:
All men are mortal. (Your premise 2)
Socrates is a mortal. (Your premise 1)
Therefore, Socrates is man.
The conclusion does not follow because the universal claim that is premise one gives information about men not about mortals. The universal claim says S belongs inhe category of P. Other things could belong in that category as well. Ignoring history, "Socrates" could be a species of bird. So it does not follow that Socrates is a man.
Additionally I am treating your premis 2 s a universal and not as a particular: Some suicide bombers are terrorists. If it is a particular then it isinvalid in a different way; but I will not get into that.
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Re: Argument
Wed, August 2, 2006 - 3:27 PM:: I find it odd that [a terrorist organization] can be replaced by [terrorists] in the conclusion.
again, the ambiguities of natural language are laying the funk on us. surely 'a terrorist organization' cannot be substituted with 'all terrorists', as you suggest; but it's pretty safe to substitute 'some terrorists' if we assume that organizations of terrorists contain some terrorists - which is pretty safe. ergo:
sami supports hezbollah;
hezbollah is a terrorist organization;
any terrorist organization is (e.g. is logically equivalent to) some set of terrorists;
sami supports some set of terrorists
S(H)
H <=> O
O <=> T
S(T)
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