LR Question 10 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Television host: While it’s true that the defendant…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: There’s a good argument that the defendant is not completely innocent.
REASONING: Why would the prosecutor have brought the case if the defendant was completely innocent?
ANALYSIS: This is a very bad argument. It relies entirely on the authority of the prosecutor.
The defendant has an alibi. There is much evidence in their favor. The jury agrees. So literally the only thing left is the prosecutor’s initial decision to press charges. That’s pure argument from authority.
___________
- This is a different flaw.
Example of flaw: You have no evidence that there are people in that building. So the building must be empty. - This describes circular reasoning. That’s almost never the correct answer, because it’s very obvious.
Example of flaw: The defendant must be guilty, because clearly they are guilty. - CORRECT. The prosecutor is the authority figure. The television host is relying on the prosecutor’s authority despite the mass of evidence that the defendant is innocent.
- This is a different flaw.
Example of flaw: It was technically legal to take all the money out of the retirees’ bank accounts even though the retirees wouldn’t have wanted that.
So therefore it was morally fine to do so. - The author didn’t say this! Something can’t be a flaw if it didn’t happen.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
On questions like this can we assume that all of the answer choices constitute reasonable “flaws of reasoning”? I was between B and C but chose B since reliance an authority figure sounded like it wasn’t a good enough example of a flaw of reasoning…
Actually no, sometimes flaw answers will be wrong because what’s described is not a flaw! This is rare but it does happen.
I find this one very interesting because I think there’s a more subtle layer to it that should make (B) correct over (C).
First you’d have to ask yourself what is the authority held by a prosecutor being appealed to. By initiating a case a prosecutor isn’t exerting a specific power or right beyond what other folks may have the standing to do. They are providing a service not presiding over decisions or levers of power. That should make us circumspect of (C).
Conversely, the TV host sets up a conditional in the last sentence that merely provides a contrapositive avenue back to restating their conclusion… “otherwise the prosecutor would not have brought charges…” They did bring charges. That’s why the topic is being discussed by the TV host in the first place. The commonsense assumption here is that prosecuting charges against a defendant entails the belief by at least some entity that this person is guilty of something.
In this way the TV Host’s argument at large simply becomes: the defendant was believed guilty of something, so I believe they must be guilty of something. That looks pretty circular.
Regarding your first point, I’d argue the prosecutor is clearly established as an authority figure here. The TV host suggests that he/she is placing their confidence in the prosecutor as a legitimate source of legal information; common sense dictates that this isn’t something that one would say of someone who wasn’t at the very least a legal authority figure, i.e. we don’t need to say that the prosecutor is an authority figure that must be answered to by everyone, we just need to show that he has authority in at least one area.
As to your second point, circular reasoning assumes what it is trying to prove. This means that your premises are the same as your conclusion, no new evidence or reasoning is being brought in. An example of circular reasoning would be if the TV host said, “The defendant was believed to be guilty by the prosecutor, therefore the prosecutor believes him to be guilty.” It’s not circular to say that because someone else believed the defendant was guilty, I believe the defendant is guilty. That reasoning contains a tacit premise:
(1) The prosecutor believes the defendant is guilty
(2) I believe the prosecutor is a trustworthy source of information
(3) Therefore, I believe that the defendant is guilty
The TV host is just providing grounds for his or her own reasoning, in the same way that you might say “I believe this TV show is good because a pre-eminent critic says it’s good, and her opinion is trustworthy.” It’s faulty reasoning, but it’s not circular.