Use the required reading & chapter 10 from the textbook
Step 1. Read an article that appeared in The Philosophers’ Magazine, entitled “The Drug Laws Don’t Work,” by Michael Huemer (attached as a separate PDF in the Unit 9 Learning Unit). The article contains some ingenious inductive argumentative strategies, including reasoning by analogy, causal argument, and enumerative induction. With minor modifications, a few of Huemer’s arguments could be reconstructed as statistical syllogisms. However, the article also comes dangerously close to committing some fallacies, such as weak analogy, false cause, hasty generalization, and slippery slope.
Step 2. Once you’ve read the article, find an instance of where the argument comes close to committing a fallacy (or outright commits it). Then identify the inductive inference pattern that the fallacy misappropriates, such as inductive generalization, statistical syllogism, analogy, or causal argument.
Step 3. On the Discussion Forum, respond to the following prompts: For the fallacy: • Name the fallacy that you were able to identify • Define the fallacy – based on the lectures and reading • Explain why you think it’s committed. For the inductive inference pattern: • Identify the type of inductive inference that the argument misuses • Reconstruct its premise(s) and conclusion in standard format (P1, P2, etc., /C). Regarding your personal opinion: • Do you think that drugs should be legalized, or perhaps that only certain drugs should be legalized? What are your reasons?
