Comments on: Re: Beginer to "logic" wants politically incorrect proven! Any help!

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:48 +0000

- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

Joseph Foster wrote:

> CHECK THE TRUTH OF EACH PREMISE BEFORE USING IT;(I.E.):"IN ORDER TO HAVE A
> STRAIGHT LINE, ONE NEEDS TWO POINTS"...
> "quisp" wrote in message
> news:umnw4.4166$z92.89030@news.swbell.net...
> > The conclusion that I seek is "All Affirmative Action programs and/or
> > supporters are racists.

> > 1st logic statement:
> > All people who discriminate based on race practice racism.
> > All people who willfully practice racism are racists.
> > Therefore all people who discriminate based on race are racists.

> > Second logic statement:
> > All Affirmative Action programs use racial quotas.
> > All racial quotas discriminate based on race.
> > Therefore all Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.

> > Conclusion:
> > All Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.
> > All people who discriminate based on race are racists.
> > Therefore all Affirmative Action programs and supporters are racist.

> > Thanks in advance.

In your first statement

Define what you mean by discriminate.
Define what you mean by race
Define what you mean by racism

Consider both the dennotation and connotation of each word.
Ambiguity is one of the biggest culprits in any attempt to be logical.

The next problem is that there is not necessarily a connection between
your first two premises in the first group.

The people who discriminate (what ever that means) based on race may do
so as
a matter of job requirement or some legal requirement. So you cannot
claim that
that the (All people) in the first statement are the same (All people)
in the second statement.

Therefore you cannot get to the All people who discriminate based on
race are racists statement.

Because of ambiguity of the terms discriminate, race, and racism we
cannot tell whether
your first syllogism is meaningful. Furthermore the All people in that
first syllogism
seems to go through the equivocation process.

I'm afraid you can't get passed your first set of statements.

Also to get to your conclusion you will have to define and categorize
affirmative action programs.
Not all affirmative action programs are alike. You are not allowed to
make gross generalizations.

You also introduce 'supporters' in the last statement this term also
requires definition in this context. What do you mean by supporters.
You have to define it especially if you want to include it in your
conclusion.

You are attempting to make a deductive argument here. It has a few
structural problems that prevent us from saying that it is valid. And
even when the structural problems are addressed the ambiguity issues
prevent us from saying that argument is sound.

This argument can be described as ad populum.

You should re submit your argument after you addressed the structural
and ambigious items.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:47 +0000

Here are some hints:

> "quisp" wrote in message
> news:umnw4.4166$z92.89030@news.swbell.net...
> The conclusion that I seek is "All Affirmative Action programs and/or
> supporters are racists.

> 1st logic statement:
> All people who discriminate based on race practice racism.

- If I'm a woman and a doctor rejects to do me a penis enlargement,
does not mean he's a sexist.
- If I go to a AA meeting, and I'd say "I never had a drinking problem,
I am here to talk about the cultivation of cucumber"
and they kick me out, this does not mean they are discriminating me.

> All people who willfully practice racism are racists.
> Therefore all people who discriminate based on race are racists.

Doesn't work anymore. There is an missing aspect here. "hate"
probably? "fear"? The feeling to need a penis enlargment?

> Second logic statement:
> All Affirmative Action programs use racial quotas.

- Aff.Actions in Europe are commonly based on gender.
I believe there are also Affirmative Actions in the US that are based
on gender, aren't they?

> All racial quotas discriminate based on race.

Check the difference between "discriminate" and "distiguish"

> Therefore all Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.

> Conclusion:

None.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:46 +0000

If you wish to clarify your logic, I suggest the following form.
Premise 1) >All Affirmative Action programs use racial quotas.
Premise 2) >All racial quotas discriminate based on race.
Conclusion 1) >Therefore all Affirmative Action programs discriminate
based on race.
This is a deductively valid conclusion from P1 and P2, although P2
should read "Any program using a racial quota discriminates based on race"
for clarity.
Premise 3) >All people who discriminate based on race practice racism.
Premise 4) >All people who willfully practice racism are racists.
Conclusion 2) Therefore, all Affirmative Action programs are racist.
This is also deductively valid, from P3 and P4, although you will want
to show that more plainly by the phrasing. It's confusing to mix talk of
people and programs. Better just to stick with programs, and replace in P3
and P4 accordingly. If you want to add a jab at persons, then add:
Premise 5) All persons who support racist programs are racist.
And you're done: C3) All supporters of AA are racist. This follows from
C2 and P5.
To simplify, argue more intuitively, but no less clearly. Try this: AA
programs use racial quotas, which must discriminate on race. But then the
programs practice racism, which is to say that they are racist. Moreover, it
follows that people who support AA programs are also advocating the practice
of racism, which means they're racist too. Racism is unjust, so AA programs
are unjust, and people who advocate injustice are unjust, so people who
advocate AA programs are unjust people.
That argument has all the content of yours, but is much clearer and
easier to follow.
I said that your arguments are deductively valid, but you should note
that mere deductive validity does not suffice to demonstrate the truth of a
conclusion; rather, it shows only that the conclusion is true IF the
premises are all true. Your premises are not true. In particular, it is not
true that discrimination based on race is all racist. "Discrimination" is
merely the noting of a difference, but merely noting that person is, say,
black is not racist. It's not even necessarily racist to pick someone out
for a certain benefit based on the person's race. The reason is that the
meaning of the word "racism" already includes the idea that the practice is
an UNJUST discrimination based on race. Obviously, you're trying to show
that AA is unjust. But you can't just assume that discrimination based on
race is unjust. In particular, note the following: the idea behind AA is,
obviously, at least partly to make up for unjust racism in the past. It is
at least plausible that it is just to discriminate based on race in order to
make up for past unjust discrimination based on race. Suppose a person had
spent a period of time inflicting harm among random blacks. If he then
suffered remorse and wished to make up for his misdeeds, it might be a good
idea to spend some time bestowing benefits among random blacks, assuming he
wouldn't be able to identify his former victims. Surely, while going around
bestowing benefits, he would be DISCRIMINATING BASED ON RACE when he chose
the targets of his beneficence. But it would be hard to think that what he
was doing was unjust. So discrimination based on race is not necessarily
unjust. What you have to show, if you want to prove that AA is unjust, is
that it discriminates UNJUSTLY. And to do that, it won't be enough to show
that, for example, slavery or Jim Crow were discrimination and they were
unjust. Rather, you would have to show the reasons that discrimination based
on race was unjust in the case where it was unjust, such as Jim Crow, and
then show that AA programs have the SAME RELEVANT FEATURES as your target
example. Then, it would follow that AA is unjust for the same reasons. But I
doubt you can do that, since, unlike prior practices, AA is always trying to
make up for a previous injustice, to restore justice. Now, we could argue
about whether they succeed or not, or whether it is just to try to do this
the way that AA tries to do this, but there's no way that you're going to
show that AA is unjust with a short, simple argument that trades on the mere
fact that, like certain unjust practices, it discriminates based on race.
----------
In article , "quisp"

- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

wrote:
>The conclusion that I seek is "All Affirmative Action programs and/or
>supporters are racists.

>Second logic statement:
>All Affirmative Action programs use racial quotas.
>All racial quotas discriminate based on race.
>Therefore all Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.

>Conclusion:
>All Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.
>All people who discriminate based on race are racists.
>Therefore all Affirmative Action programs and supporters are racist.

>Thanks in advance.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:46 +0000

CHECK THE TRUTH OF EACH PREMISE BEFORE USING IT;(I.E.):"IN ORDER TO HAVE A
STRAIGHT LINE, ONE NEEDS TWO POINTS"...
"quisp" wrote in message

news:umnw4.4166$z92.89030@news.swbell.net...

- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

> The conclusion that I seek is "All Affirmative Action programs and/or
> supporters are racists.

> Second logic statement:
> All Affirmative Action programs use racial quotas.
> All racial quotas discriminate based on race.
> Therefore all Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.

> Thanks in advance.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:45 +0000

On 06 Mar 2000 10:58:43 -0500, George Greene

wrote:

I know I probably should leave well enough alone, but hey...

> : However I can't help but to express my belief a little in that
> : you should never fight racism with racism and I'll leave it at that.

>You can't leave it at that. Saying that makes you an overt racist.
>Anything that is in fact fighting racism is in fact the opposite
>of racism. Calling affirmative action racism (as you are doing)
>just means you are insisting on propagating the poverty and
>oppression that was slavery into 300 MORE years of the same.

Not necessarily. This would only be true if affirmative action and
propagating the poverty and oppression that was slavery were the only
two possibilities. Showing even one more possibility would render this
statement a logical fallacy. If we insisted that government base all
of its decisions on merit rather than on color, it would *not* be
propagating the poverty and oppression that was slavery, nor would it
be affirmative action, therefore this statement is not logical.

>Black men born into some cities in America have lower life
>expectancies than those in some 3rd-world countries.

White men born into some cities in America have lower life
expectancies than women in some 3rd-world countries, therefore they
are discriminated against. I'm not saying that life expectancy is not
shortened by racism, just that the statement as presented is
illogical. (BTW, in which third world country do black men have a
longer life expectancy than in the U.S.? I'm not disagreeing, just
curious.)

>On average, black men in America probably shouldn't be
>paying social security at all because they don't live long enough to collect
>it. In Durham county, NC, only 30% of the black boys who entered
>what would be the high school class of 1999 thirteen years ago
>actually graduated. This makes the whole concept of white people
>whining about affirmative action simply laughable: more than half the
>potential black competitors for any job or college slot they
>might've wnated had already been excluded by racial discrimination
>in the provision of education and by being born into poor
>neighborhoods with an anti-educational culture.

Using statistics from one county in one state to show that arguments
against a nationally-mandated program are laughable is somewhat
suspect, logically speaking.

>TIME and HISTORY are what this is all about.
>And if you try to have a definition of racism that
>doesn't take them into account, you are simply going to be
>irrelevant to the problem. A problem whose discussion belongs
>on alt.discrimination or talk.politics.misc AND NOT on sci.logic
>in any case.

True enough, since the arguments on either side tend to be emotional
rather than logical.

Michael Rouse

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:44 +0000

"quisp" writes:
> I don't know if your saying the construction of the arguement was done
> correctly or you are just saying you believe Affirmative Action is racist
> but is done with good intentions? My intention on THIS forum is only to
> find if the construction of the arguement is constructed correctly not if
> the premises are true or if its still racist but ok because of good
> intentions.

The argument is logically valid, but it is irrelevant to the real
world. The single biggest problem with trying to sue logic on
affirmative action is: TIME. When Frege invented
first-order-logic-as-we-know-it, the whole problem of "indexicals"
(of statements whose meaning can actually differ depending on when
they were uttered or who said them, statements with terms like "I"
and "today") created a fairly sharp divide between antural and
logical language. Mathematical truths are basicall7y eternal; they
have no concept of space or time. 2+2=4 is true no matter when or
where we are. But whether something is racism simply IS NOT like
that. Whether something is aggression is not like that either. A
value judgment like "hitting people is wrong is not like that
either. If A hits B while B is sitting on the porch minding
his own business, A is probably wrong. If A hits B to stop B
from hitting A, A is probably right (and B was probably wrong):
hitting BACK is NEVER morally equivalent to hitting FIRST.
Affirmative action is no more reverse racism than capital
punishment is reverse murder.

: However I can't help but to express my belief a little in that
: you should never fight racism with racism and I'll leave it at that.

You can't leave it at that. Saying that makes you an overt racist.
Anything that is in fact fighting racism is in fact the opposite
of racism. Calling affirmative action racism (as you are doing)
just means you are insisting on propagating the poverty and
oppression that was slavery into 300 MORE years of the same.
Black men born into some cities in America have lower life
expectancies than those in some 3rd-world countries.
On average, black men in America probably shouldn't be
paying social security at all because they don't live long enough to collect
it. In Durham county, NC, only 30% of the black boys who entered
what would be the high school class of 1999 thirteen years ago
actually graduated. This makes the whole concept of white people
whining about affirmative action simply laughable: more than half the
potential black competitors for any job or college slot they
might've wnated had already been excluded by racial discrimination
in the provision of education and by being born into poor
neighborhoods with an anti-educational culture. Affirmative
action is nothing more than a band-aid over that wound, a band-
aid having the property that even AFTER it has been applied, the
society as a whole, viewed over time, is putting disproportionately
MORE white people (than their percentage of the population) into
positions of power.

TIME and HISTORY are what this is all about.
And if you try to have a definition of racism that
doesn't take them into account, you are simply going to be
irrelevant to the problem. A problem whose discussion belongs
on alt.discrimination or talk.politics.misc AND NOT on sci.logic
in any case.
---
"There are too many men and too many computer people."
--- Regis Philbin, profiling his contestants on
"Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:43 +0000

It's not a logic problem, but a philosophy problem: it hinges entirely
upon your getting the meanings of the terms being used straight, and
arguing for your assumptions about how they relate to each other. I
don't see how syllogisms (and similar forms of reasoning) would help
you do it.

Keith Ramsay

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:42 +0000

> Which is TRUE!!!

I don't know if your saying the construction of the arguement was done
correctly or you are just saying you believe Affirmative Action is racist
but is done with good intentions? My intention on THIS forum is only to
find if the construction of the arguement is constructed correctly not if
the premises are true or if its still racist but ok because of good
intentions. However I can't help but to express my belief a little in that
you should never fight racism with racism and I'll leave it at that.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:42 +0000

quisp wrote:
> The conclusion that I seek is "All Affirmative Action programs and/or
> supporters are racists.

> 1st logic statement:
> All people who discriminate based on race practice racism.
> All people who willfully practice racism are racists.
> Therefore all people who discriminate based on race are racists.

This would give, "Therefore, all people who willfully discriminate based
on race are racists."

> Second logic statement:
> All Affirmative Action programs use racial quotas.
> All racial quotas discriminate based on race.
> Therefore all Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.

This argument seems valid to me. (I assume you know that the first
premise is false.)

> Conclusion:
> All Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.
> All people who discriminate based on race are racists.
> Therefore all Affirmative Action programs and supporters are racist.

No, this does not follow, since Affirmative Action programs are not
people, as is required in the second premise. You would need to modify
the first argument to apply to supporters of discriminating policies,
rather
than people who practice discrimination. (One might support a policy
without putting it into practice).

By: admin

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:59:41 +0000

Your attempts to use predicate logic are noble, but I think you should be
worrying about the validity of your medium rather than the accuracy of your
"proof". Logic is designed for a world in which your universe of discourse
has clearly delimited "true" statements and "false" statements. Once
someone challenges a single statement in your argument like "All people who
discriminate based on race practice racism," we return once again to the
more three dimensional world I like to think we live in, and therefore
return to arguments that require much more than "three logical statements".

In a world where racism is undeniably rampant, your question becomes not one
of logic but one of compromises. If you are bound to the language of logic,
consider the world devoid of universal instantiation; rather, we can only
speak in terms of existential instantiation because the more we bind English
words and human beings to universal statements, the more we find that there
are exceptional interpretations of both.

I am not going to try to argue your views on affirmative action (which I
admittedly disagree with), but I will leave you with an interesting
argumentative response I received on one of my mailing lists that continues
to pique my interest. I love logic and discrete mathematics, so I don't
necessarily agree with it in all situations, but I find surprisingly
compelling in the context arguments like this one:

(quoting Bob Bernstein)

"I'm not making a claim. There's nothing to support. I know that doesn't fit
in with the reigning language game around here, where the debating club

paradigm holds sway. The whole dreary business of making claims and bringing

forth 'evidence' left me cold a long time ago.

What startles the shit out of me - still - is that the olde academic

claptrap of argument, claim, evidence, inference, etc is taken - especially

in otherwise hip internet circles - to be the only reasonable use of

language imaginable. All else, one is led to believe, is useless empty

'posturing' devoid of 'content.'

Other modes of expression are repressed with an imperialistic Procrustean

axe wielded with breathtaking enthusiasm.

Look. I offer a set of verbal responses. You are free either to exercise the

willing suspension of disbelief and muck around in the images I use, or to

move on. If my sensibilities are dissonant to your cognitive ear, so be it;

no harm done. But don't give me that crap about 'unsupportable claims.'"

(end quote)

Bret Taylor

"quisp" wrote in message

news:umnw4.4166$z92.89030@news.swbell.net...

- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

> The conclusion that I seek is "All Affirmative Action programs and/or
> supporters are racists.

> Second logic statement:
> All Affirmative Action programs use racial quotas.
> All racial quotas discriminate based on race.
> Therefore all Affirmative Action programs discriminate based on race.

> Thanks in advance.