1.I’m on my way to school. 2.I left five minutes late. 3.Traffic is heavy. 4.Therefore, I’ll be late for class. 5.So I might as well stop for breakfast.
Argument: Yes
Conclusion: If I’m going to be late for class I should stop for breakfast
Additional premise needed? I would have add something about not having time to eat and a need for health reasons to support the argument.
Identify any subargument: 1, 2 and 3 support 4. 4 supports 5.
Good argument: Not really. It seems like a personal dilemma, and the student is looking for justification to be late.
This was a fairly simple breakdown of an argument. We can see why each part of an argument is important, and that not many people are good at justifying why they do what they do. We can see that the use of therefore and because become valuable in terms of deciding whether an argument is valid.
Hey vacation, I chose the same exercise as you and definitely agree with all the parts of your break down. I really liked the additional premises you came up with. I thought up of a couple, but didn't think up of health reasons as a possible premise. That would definitely back up the argument for being late and give it a little more backbone. Your own health is actually very important, so it really works out with this argument, turning it from a very weak argument that really made no sense, to something I would agree to be a good argument.
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