For Wednesday, read chapter 1'

1

• For Wednesday, read chapter 1.
• The first graded homework assignment is being
  passed around. It is due at the beginning of
  class on Friday.

2

• What is the function of a university education?
• --it makes people more well rounded
• --it is a good in itself
• --it helps people to make better decisions in
  their personal, professional, and public lives
• --it trains people for the workforce
• This is a public university. Does that have any
  special implications?

3

• Two kinds of Democracy
• Mob-rules each person decides what is best for
  him or herself and votes accordingly
• Jeffersonian Each person decides what is best
  for the country overall and votes accordingly
• Jeffersonian Democracy expands the ruling class
  public education increases the chance that the
  rulers (the citizenry) will make wise decisions.

4

• Where does logic fit in?
• --helps you to reason effectively with the
  information you get
• --helps you to recognize deceptive reasoning
• Many people in our society benefit when their
  audience cannot think critically advertisers,
  politicians, religious leaders, professors,
  sales-people.
• Often, deceptive reasoning works by an appeal to
  irrational aspects of human psychology (for
  example, wishful thinking). But logic is blind
  in the way justice is supposed to be.

5

• Leviticus 18, verse 22 Thou shalt not lie with
  mankind, as with womankind it is abomination.
• Corresponding Argument
• Premise 1 If the Bible says something, it is
  true.
• Premise 2 The Bible says that (male) homosexual
  behavior is wrong.
• Therefore, (male) homosexual behavior is wrong.

6

• But if you accept premise 1, you must endorse
  the following arguments (or show that these cases
  are somehow different)
• Leviticus 20, verse 10
• If a man commits adultery with another man's
  wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the
  adulterer and the adulteress must be put to
  death.
• Premise 1 If the Bible says something, it is
  true.
• Premise 2 The Bible says that adultery is wrong
  and those who engage in it should be killed.
• Therefore, adultery is wrong and those who engage
  in it should be killed.

7

• Leviticus 20, verse 9
• If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be
  put to death.
• Corresponding argument
• Premise 1 If the Bible says something, it is
  true.
• Premise 2 The Bible says that cursing ones
  parents is wrong and those who do it should be
  killed.
• Therefore, cursing ones parents is wrong and
  those who do it should be killed.

8

• You might accept all of these, but logic says you
  cant pick and choose. If you reject premise 1
  in any argument, then you must reject premise 1
  in the others. One and the same statement
  cannot be both true and false logic requires
  consistency.

9

• What is Logic? Logic is the study of methods for
  evaluating arguments.
• An argument is a set of statements, one of which
  is the conclusion and the rest of which (the
  premises) are meant to provide rational support
  for the conclusion.
• What is a statement? Its the sort of sentence
  that could be true or false.