Q2 - Pacifist: It is immoral

[sranksonly]

I hate when I get stuck in the intial questions
I was down to b and e.But I am nto sure why e is wrong?
Is it because the question never talks about the threat being immoral ?

The mention of self defence also through me off and think too much.

How can I prevent the early question tangles?

[timmydoeslsat]

This question is really not going to be favorable for diagramming, although you could, it just will not be worth the trouble.

This is a "insert a principle to justify the given conclusion" type of question stem.

Upon reading the first sentence, I was prepared for the possibility that the first sentence was going to be my conclusion. The next sentence, however, is introduced by "But since..." so I know that the since part will give me a premise for sure, to be followed by some type of conclusion. At this point I am not sure how it will play out.


The sentence is: "But, since using force causes harm to another person, it is also immoral to threaten to use force, even when such a threat is made in self-defense."

The part about it being immoral to threaten to use force is going to be our conclusion of this argument.

So we have a core that looks like this:

Immoral to do anything that causes harm to another person

+

Using force causes harm to another person

----> Therefore...

It is immoral to threaten to use force.


Obviously, this argument needs some help. We could conclude that using force is immoral. But we cannot conclude that threatening to use force is immoral. We can expect to see an answer choice that uses this idea to help justify this idea of it being immoral to threaten to use force.

Answer choices:

A) Self defense and aggressive force is always vague. Does not justify that threatening to use force is immoral. Eliminate.

B) I like this one. It is immoral to threaten to do what is immoral to do. We know that using force is immoral. This is because using force causes harm and we know that causing harm is immoral. This gives us that link that threatening to do an immoral act is, in fact, immoral.

C) A comparative statement. Does not justify.

D) Depends on circumstances will not justify that threatening to use force is immoral.

E) Let us diagram this conditional statement in this answer choice:

If making threat itself is immoral ---> It is immoral to carry out threat.

Do we know whether or not we have a case of "making threat itself is immoral?" No!

We are trying to get justification for the idea that threatening to use force is immoral. This answer choice is giving us, as a sufficient condition, that threatening is immoral! That does not link us to anything!

[bbirdwell]

Thanks for the thorough analysis, timmydoeslsat!

My quick two cents on the argument:

Premise:
causes harm --> immoral
+
using force causes harm (using force --> immoral)

Conclusion:
immoral to THREATEN to use force.

The "even when..." phrase is just smoke and mirrors here.

They key is the notion of THREATENING.

What we know: it's immoral to use force.
What we want to prove: it's immoral to THREATEN to use force.

This is (B).