QUESTION TEXT: To hold criminals responsible for their crimes…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: People who obey the law are entirely responsible for criminal behavior.
REASONING: The social environment is responsible for crime. And law abiding people are most responsible for creating that environment.
ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument. Law abiding people may have most of the responsibility for creating the environment. But they don’t have all of it. Criminals presumably share responsibility for creating the environment they live in.
Further, if everyone’s actions are the result of their environment, then we can’t blame law-abiding people for their actions. Their actions are caused by their environment too. In fact, we can’t blame anyone! This argument contradicts itself.
___________
- Environment always means the same thing: the world someone experiences around them.
- The argument implies that crime is socially unacceptable and obeying the law is socially acceptable.
- The argument hasn’t said or implied anything about what makes someone a criminal. This is irrelevant. The argument is about who is responsible for crimes.
- The argument talks about the entire population. All criminals and all law abiding citizens.
- CORRECT. The argument claims that criminals aren’t responsible, because the environment causes their actions. So it blames people who are law abiding. But surely, the actions of people who obey the law are caused by their environment as well. So nobody can be responsible, if we accept the argument’s reasoning.
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