!2 TERRORISM I recall Ihal sUlne lime alO a yount rcYolulio/l.1ry .. ho slill claimed 10 bcli~e in God lold me: "Some bit polilician ... nledlh.1 hi,hw,y buill Inar Padua I. and il eo~ I.~ Ifill ion lirc IMI could have been used for Qrdiac or dialy~s cenlm ... hich wc still don'l havc .... SUI Ihc hi,hw.y WII "OIlh more yOlCS Ihan a Iiospilal or cardiac ecnler. and Ihcreforc somCOM who CDuld h.ve been Ioaved I, d)int bcausc IMI fOld WII buill. Now ... ho is 1M wone killer? I who shoot lilal pol- IIici.n and maybe prevent his crimc rrom bcin, rq,Qlcd, or Ihat polili. cian who kiUs every 401ay'" t{!:!£ '(D±c 'P;.W\·&I(I ~ $-lCs A ...... I ~, I cr r ., 1",2.l C~~"tfa ~. 0.-11' abovt-t&-.", .... I~ ZtI~'1') rH~USTI rhe young revolutionary is defending the stooting of a politician. r~e structure can be represented as follows. at least as a first approximation. ----- - - --.-,------------- rhe politiciL~ ~ rhe hospitals would ~ut money into ~ have saved lives a higr.way instead of hos'Oi tals. The politician ~ has killed many CJ7 people rhe politician had a bad motive. Killing the politiciar. might cause the next one to act better It Is OK for the revolutionary to shoot the politician On this analysis, there are f~ve intercor~ected arguments. I. rhe premises of argucent I are very likely true, but they do not give adequat9 su~~ort to the conclusion. The arguer seems to suppose that if A mL~es a'decision L~d ~~at decision is part of the cause of the death of 3. then A has killed B. Bu~ that is wrongJ you have to de more than tha-: in ~ .. ~e:- '";: 53 sc::eone'g ~il1er. (Just exactly ... ha.-: that 'more' is, however, is "a di!ficult question in ethics and law.) So it is HASTY COllCLUSrON. II. Here a£ain the conclusion doesn't follows. at least in a democratic system. Politicians are su~~osed to do things for votes (though not just anythin2:.) I'd oall thu IF.RELEVANT REASON. III. Here the inference to ~he conclusion seems OK, but neither premise has been adequately esta~l1shed. PROBLEr.IATIC PREi,:ISE. IV. Here the ~re~ise. if tr~e, would give a little support to the concluaion, but not nearlll e::ough. HAS~Y CONCLUSION. And anyhow, the ~remise is probaclv !alse. The effect of the shooting on the next ~olitic~an w9uld il~Jst certainly be to make him or her clamp down on the l~bertles ot the people and spend more money on pol1ce~ PROSLE:.:lTIC PREMISE. V. The conclusion sioply doesn't follow. Two murders are not better than one. It loo~s very much 1i~e the T.iO WRONGS fallacy, though it is possible that some other interpretation might be better. This argulCent, no~heless thinking them to do terrible logic. then. gets a~solutely nowhere. It is sad that like this does in!luence some people and cau~e actions. If only soceone would teach them some 'R.kJfo~kl~ j,z. {rl.' 7 'f R.W. Binkley i~ Pro~essor Robert W. Binkley, Department of Philosophy, Un~ vers~ ty of \"estern Ontario publisher of ~he f>ndon. Clos~ Reas~mer--which he ~osts' on a bulletin oar outs~ae.h~s orr~ce for his log~c students 've are grateful ,to h~m for the material found on pp. 822-28. 3', TI t DUBIOUS ASSUMPTION I A pebt to Smokers To the Editor: Recent news stories told us that: • Thiny-th1'ee percent of all Ameri- cans smoke. • An actUarial study by State Mutual Ass~ce Company con- cluded that a healthy. non-smoking 32- year-old man can expec:t to live 7.3 years longer than a healthy. smoking 32-year-old man. If we assume that smoking is only half as hazardous at other ages and to women. we need merely multiply 220· million by one·third by 7.3 by one-half to come up With the number ot years that smoking is taking from the ends at the lives. of Americans who are living now: 267.6 million. During. most at these lost years, say 80 percent ot them, the victims could have drawn Social Security and other Government benetits. If we can estimate Social Security. Medicaid and possibly food stamps and related costs at a conservative $S.OOO per year per person, we come up with a 1979 figure of $1.07 trillion. That amount, so vast that it is hard to com- Notice: TIle SIrgeat 6eMnI Has ileterriMd i !hit ~ SmoIiro9C»fJimiNte OW Ate. r 1 prebend. is the money smokers are sa viag non-smoking taxpayers. The dissembling miscreants at the Tobacco Institute should use this argu- ment in their lobbying tor Government subsidies, advertising media access, etc. It's the only case that can be made tor smoking. RICHARD A. AHERN Forest Hills, N.Y., Oct. 23.1979 The. a~e."t hc-rc.. is To~l, rlu.s: J (.16mclr~r.s h;lVL ~h~ 7;v.L$ (t/,2JJt 1HA1-~4fe~k~) ,:~)SmcJc~"', C,,;t- ~ ~P"~ Jes.l i"1 SC1C{~{ S~~""i~, ek. '~'k.w! U,t--I-/.. ~1W';)w-les,.. iJl.J..yfh«-, • "k~ sklA '"~;- b~ dj)~,,'Y~d., TJr,- s-bp ~ (b) +:. (e») Ju,W~Y~t ;".,,~/"Lj +k .,~,.,.~..JlJ­ Ss,~~f S~,~,,:.J., ~ ..st1H,1~"Y ag"- ~AM beu~kn ;Jr~ +k ~/~ c~.m ~+- /)1-l"~ * b" (!JH$l~1.t,,~t!. But +-Iu ~~T;j -I-J,-,r ~k4'1 di1",'t- j~i+ 11e d"wlJt ~) ~;~; tJ,~1 aIL ,",/~ 3ff~y ''"t-, ~;IHJ..,,(, ~ ?:tP~fI1$;"'L i "1f~jJt'$. n~ h t ~/+4 ~"S+J t1Ul~ I t p-< ~~"y~ iA1, .$,116:1& +/tL, t1tt/jJrt (!t. ;JJfc. -flu h;J'M4~a:- 1\ w.:Bt!f Jd~'1 /lJ,,,, ICf11 # S23 524 HASTY CONCLUSION, ETC. to r dO. hoWever.' differ with Mr. Clark in parts at his analy~;j~. For example, he 5ClyS he doL's not fe~l/.i\ that the Muzorewa GovernmL'nty.JI has sufficient authonty to guaran- tee stahility and secunty in the country'1In a mIlitary s~nse, this i!f undoubrcdly true. The Government is locked in a savage guerrilla war With the forces of the Patnotic Front and, if the Government has the upper hand it is not by much. nn a political se~. however, th~ ~uzorewa admInIstration seems trJ61 have good support in the country). ~eople with whom I talk~ in my tour days in Zimbabwe ~hodesia,1i\ were generally agreed that thaa! April election results were a fair reflection of the public will] Mr. Clark is also concerned about the continued presence of Ian Smith in the ~uzorewa Cabinet (he is a minister without portfolio). It's a resonable concern. It is un- derstandable that other African .leaders should, as Mr. Clark says. suspect that Mr. Smith is still in control af the police, the anny and the civil service. That's an impossible question for any outsider - white or black - to judge. When I talked to Gen- eral Peter Walls, who runs the military, he - as one might expect - denied that he takes his. orders from Mr. Smith. The blacks whom I met in Zimbabwe Rhodesia did not seem concerned. about Mr. Smith's influence. I talked to pe0- ple who attend Cabinet meetings. They say Prime Minister Mw:ore- wa values Mr. Smitb's counsEl. Bue ll1ey ~ say he does not hesitate to reject Mr. Smith's advice if it does not coincide with his own ~inioa. trom a column by Geoffrey stevens in The Globe and !!!d. :3 August, 1979.- The main thrust ot the :first paragraph 1s to argue. in opposition to a view attributed to Clark, that the ~~zorewa Government does have sufficient political authority to guarantee stability and security. The argument may be represented as a two step one, as fol~owsl (J)People with whom stevens talked agree that the election reflects the publicwill Therefore, (2)The Muzorewa Government has good politica support in the country. Therefore, (l)The MUzorewa Gove~as sufficient authority. in the political sense, to guarantee stability and security. In the first step~ from (3) to (2), we seem to have a case of HASTY CONCLUSION, and perhaps also of IMPROPER APPEAL TO AUTHORITY. In four days stevens could hardly have carried out an adequate survey of publio opinion throughout the country. Insofar as he attempted such a thing, his sample must necessarily have been very small l and without any guarantee of its being representative. He seems instead to have relied on what was said to him about publio opinion by those to whom he talked. But he does not say who these people were. or why their statements about public opinion should be acoepted. (In the later paragraphs he does mention some of the p~ople he talked to, but thes~eneral Walls, and some persons who attend Muzorewa cabinet meetings, have an obvious bias.) In the second step. from (2) to (1), there appears to be ser~ous VAGUENESS. What can it mean to say that the government's authority !n !h! political sense is suf-. ficient to guaran~ee stab~lity and secur~ty when the ~eat to stability and security is a military one? Perhaps he means something to the effect that if the military threat were somehow to vanish. everything would]) be finex as far as stabili ty and security go. But then it is not clear that he is disagreeing with Clark, and in professing to be he would be guilty of STRAW MAN. ~.W I ifY\ kit . , aph cal a ee icwi11 litica we ~N , I .d lrVey :ry. his , small. I what )y ; not .r l be ~e does ;0, ~ons have , :nment's 1f- :uri ty lty effect tlow as then 19 with 11d be Who is Castro fooling in 'non-aligned' claim? '3 8 t was heartcn~ to read Yl)ur edi- • Corial Whr,se Man In Ha"';lna? (Sept. 6) commenting on Fidel Castro's claim that he IS "non-aligned." If ever there was a case of someone calling "white" "black." this is it. Unfortunately, many Ignorant lead- ers of the Third World countries want to believe what Castro tells them and would like to pretend that they. too, are "non-aJigned." Q) (ffstro is the I~ey of MOSCOW~ mouthpieceJandll'!'! recipient of vast ~ amounts or aid to further ~toscow's a> policies in Africa and Latin America and even here in training subver- sives in Q~ebecJ I only wish more Canadians woula'realize this and not go on travelling to Cuba for a cheap holiday and put money into the hand that will slap them. David J. Moore Thornhill GI.,k. ~ M6;1 :J..:J,. Sept, '".If. (TOro" to) .~" ~;"- .-\ .t "nOPSense" thf view "hat thert' lire f~w~r police in South Afr-ka than in New Yo . Clty,mereas Gann and Duignan POint) out:-trlie proportion of policemen to civil- ians in South Africa is smaller than it is in the United States. ':1 . . As for Mr. Stevens' description of the ac:epmmodatlon for BasteN at the Oa· maes mine in South West Africa/Namibia (Xfternoon Budj!ftt - July 31)). I myself visited· the housing -In ques'tion- laSi- oe:.- cember and cannot agree that the w~rd "slum" is justified even by "Canadtan st.ndards." (True. housing in Namibia Is nor designed for Canadioln winters!) It was not quite cricket for Mr. Stevens to mention the cars and driveways at the whitt.s' humes, without revealing that cars and driwwa\'s can be ~>en (or could be eight months- ago) at many of the Basters' homes as well. Kenneth H. W. Hilborn Associate Pror~ssor of History University of Wt>stern Ontario London to~ term members ot the U.W.O com- munity are familiar with Professor Hil- born's views on southern A~rica because o~ his many public statements on the matter. What is of particular lo«ical interest in the present example is the occurrence of two STRAW MAN fallacies in immediate succession, one does not often find them coming so thick and fast. In the first STRAW MAN, Hilborn offers statement ®. trom his alleged authorities Gann and Du~gnan, as a refutation of Stevens' statement~. thus implying that in statement I Stevens was d'enying statement .2. But in fact Stevens was doing no such thing. since the two statements are perfectly consistent. Roughly speaking. Stevens is saying that the situat~on is bad, G~D are saying that it is improvin~1 Stevens could quite consistently reply that even s.o it is still bad. In addition. it is not clear that Stevens' ~good jobs in business and in- dustry" means the same as ~D's "skilled and even submanagerial nositions". Per- haps Stevens was referring to mana£erial 'Dosi tiona. in which case the STRAW IriAN would· be even more gross. In the second STRAW MAN, Hilborn offers statement ~, which concerns the police/population ratio for the U.S. as a whole, as a refutation of Stevens' statement Q), which concerned the number (not ratio to population) of police in New York city: Here again Hilborn attributes to Stevens the- the denial of a claim made by G&D, when he is not really committed to that denial at all. R w B. L} • • IlYirr e&.( AIII.j'7o/ J '10, com- :11- nse al - acies t {ast. offers orities g ce sistent. that that at in- lled Per- rial -r:;-- I\~' n the • nsf n hen enial 'fo. .flaT BECAuSE" rr5 SAfE, - ....... ~ -" ... fI'J ~ CLEAU, 1) GUtl.t by As socia tlon This is from the September, 1979, issue of FUsion: ~agazine of the Fusion Energy Foundation, p 2:-- (The Fusion Energy Foundation a~nears to be some kind of pro-nuclear -. pressure group. but it seems to have other axes to £rind as well: it is nro-Plato. anti-Aristotle. Anti- Malthus, anti-Britain, anti-drues, anti-environmentalism. pro-~owih, etc. I can't quite make it all out. ) In context, this cartoon must be seen as a criticism of President Carter's proposal to develop a coal- to-,gas technolo~y a:3 a repla.cement I for oil. It seizes on the fact tha~ such a technology was developed in Germany during the Nazi reriod, and seeks to set up an assoc ation in our minds between coal ~asification and the Nazi ~as chambers, so that our condemnatlon of the latter will spread to the former • There is, of course, no logical connection between the two at all. This is a flagrant case of GUILT BY ASSOCIATION, in the sense of Johnson and Blair. Indeed, it is the worst that I have seen in some years. 1tw, ~imk"I(~ Oc1:... '1-tf 528 'fl. the rohin and the worm a robin said to an angleworm as he ate him i am sorry but a bird has to live somehow the worm being slow witted could not gather his dissent into a wise crack and retort he was effectually swallowed before he could turn a phrase by the time he had reflected long eno~gh to say but why must a bird live he felt the beginnings of a gradual change invading him some'new and disintegrating influence was stealing along him from his positive to his negative. pole and he did not have the mental stamina of a jonah to resist the insidious process of assimU ation which comes like a thief in the night d.emons and fishhooks he exclaimed i am losing my Dersonal identity as a worm my individuality is melting away from me odds craw i am becoming part and parcel of this bloody robin so help me i am thinking like a robin and not like a worm any longer yes yes i even find myself agreeing that a robin must live i still .. do not understand with my mentality why a robIn must live and yet i swoon into a condition .:of belief .... . .. archy (From archy and meh it abel;' "by Don rt:arquisej _ On Cna11englng DOubtf ul Premise.): From this example we ma9 Jearn how irn.portant it 1S Foy us to detect and c.na11~ dUbioUS premises and assu-mptlons at an e a )-1 ~ s ta£e. Otherwise we. may lose tyacR of them) and 'swoon 1nto a conclttlon of be1ie~.1. J c DI~ AN)! CHE ANN CON BOO JOU