Asking the Right Questions, A Guide to Critical Thinking, 8th Ed

CHAPTER
13
WHAT REASONABLE
CONCLUSIONS ARE POSSIBLE?
By this stage you should be better equipped to pan for intellectual gold—to
distinguish stronger reasons from weaker ones.
Consider the following argument:
Large corporations spend far too much time and money advertising to children.
Children's programming is riddled with commercials trying to sell them the latest
toy, telling the children they will not be happy unless they have it. The practice
of advertising to children is horrendous and should be illegal. Advertising to
children, who cannot critically evaluate the ads they see, puts a strain on parents
to either say "no" to their children and have them get upset, or to give in to their
children's demands, ultimately spoiling the children.
Should you urge your local congressman to criminalize advertisements
to children? Suppose you checked the author's reasons and found them
believable. Are there other conclusions that might be equally consistent with
these reasons as the author's conclusion? The chapter summary will suggest
several possible alternative conclusions.
Very rarely will you have a situation in which only one conclusion can be
reasonably inferred. In an earlier chapter, we discussed the importance of rival
causes. The point there was that there are different possible causal bases for a
particular conclusion. This chapter, however, focuses on the alternative conclusions
that are all possible outcomes from a single set of reasons.
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