PP1RA
Reason & Argument
First Assignment
This assignment must be completed and submitted by midday on
Wednesday 27th October 2021. It is worth 40% of your overall
module grade.
Please answer all 6 questions.
1. State whether the following sentences are declarative,
interrogative, or imperative sentences (1 mark each; 5 marks
total):
a. Hold me back!
b. Life is what you make of it.
c. You should sacrifice your queen if and only if it will lead to a
checkmate.
d. Shouldn’t we raise the alarm?
e. My favourite colour is green, and so we will paint every
surface green.
2. Put the following arguments into Standard Form (5 marks
each; 10 marks total):
a. It is better to have free will than to lack free will and God is
omnipotent and benevolent. For this reason, God gave us free
will. With free will, we can choose to do evil things. So that is
why God allows evil to occur.
b. If you destroyed all my cells and recreated a perfect cell-for-
cell replica of me elsewhere, you would have killed me,
because if you had created the replica without killing me, I
clearly wouldn’t be the replica. So anyone that gets into a
teletransportation device will just be killed.
3. Assuming the following arguments have no suppressed
premises, show that each is invalid by presenting an
argument with the same structure that is clearly invalid (7
marks each; 21 marks total)
a. Socrates was either Greek or Turkish. Therefore, Socrates
was a philosopher.
b. If there is a worker shortage, there will be no turkeys for
Christmas. If there are no turkeys for Christmas, then
Christmas lunch will not be perfect. Christmas lunch won’t be
perfect. Thus, there must be a worker shortage.
c. Either taxes will go up this year or the NHS will crumble. If
the NHS crumbles, then the worst-off will suffer. Taxes will
go up this year, so the worst off won’t suffer.
4. State whether the following arguments commit any fallacies
(2 marks each; 10 marks total):
a. If I have free will then I have moral responsibility for my
actions. I don’t have free will, so I am not responsible for my
actions.
b. Fred says the vaccine is there to control us, but then he is a
tin-foil conspiracy theorist, so who would listen to him?
c. If it is very hot, then my Dracaena is dead. My Dracaena isn’t
dead, so it isn’t very hot.
d. People say that to be happy you need to have a balanced diet
but I’ve been eating really well these last few weeks and I
feel no better.
e. Every time John takes his umbrella to work, it rains that day.
I wish he’d leave it at home so we could have a nice day for
once!
5. Using the symbol key below, symbolize these sentences in
truth-functional logic (2 marks each; 14 marks total):
P: Moore told a dirty joke.
Q: Ludwig had a laugh.
R: Russell was offended.
a. Moore told a dirty joke.
b. Ludwig had a laugh if Russell was offended.
c. Ludwig did not have a laugh if and only if Moore told a dirty
joke.
d. Either Moore told a dirty joke or Russell was offended, or
both.
e. Moore didn’t tell a dirty joke and Ludwig didn’t have a laugh.
f. If Russell wasn’t offended then Moore didn’t tell a dirty joke.
g. Russell was both offended and not offended.
6. Translate the following argument into Standard Form and
evaluate it. To evaluate an argument, you ned to consider
whether each premise is plausible and whether any
conclusions are sufficiently supported by the premises (40
marks total):
The competence principle states that it is unjust to deprive people of
life, liberty, or property as a result of decisions made by an
incompetent or ill-informed body. We can see the competence
principle is true by considering the example of a jury. If a jury found
someone guilty, and sentenced them to prison, but it subsequently
came to light that only one or two of the juror’s had paid attention in
the trial, it would be clear that the accused had suffered an injustice
and the judge would order a retrial. The competence principle clearly
also applies to governments, for they have the ability to lock people
up, tax, take property, and even apply various kinds of force via a
policing system. This means that if a government is selected by an
incompetent or ill-informed population, that is generally unjust for the
population the government oversees. And there is good reason to
think our governments are selected by an ill-informed body. According
to the Hansard Society, 75 percent of individuals cannot name their
local MP. One way to avoid this infringement of the competence
principle is to have a basic competency test for voters, where they
answer simple questions about the government and parliament. That
is why voters should pass a test before voting. Besides, those who
don’t want a competency test for voters are probably just secretly
worried they won’t pass it.