For Argument's Sake
Working on the OCR Legacy May 09 paper qu 32 asks for a flaw in the text.
However the markscheme identifies an appeal as the answer.
I appreciate this is legacy but I have 2 questions:
1. Can appeals be classed as flaws, as they don't always weaken arguments?
2. If the new spec outline lists them seperately and does not say that appeals should be recognised as flaws in some contexts, should we be telling students to consider appeals when asked to identify a flaw?
Thanks
Appeals are flaws only when the nature of the appeal is irrelevant or inadequate for the inference drawn. Thus the argument 'The majority of the UK population does not believe that climate change is as a result of human activity. Therefore climate change is not caused by human activity' is flawed because the appeal to popularity is irrelevant to the truth of whether climate change is caused by human activity. However the argument 'The majority of the UK does not believe that climate change is caused by human activity. Therefore the Government will find it difficult to get people to change their behaviour in order to reduce the impact of climate change' is not flawed. In this second example, the appeal to popularity is relevant to the inference being drawn. Thus appeals in themselves are not flaws. They are the source of a flaw only when they are used irrelevantly.
thanks for this Roy
Whilst marking the Jan 09 Unit 2 I have found the following in the examiners report which clarifies the situation regarding the specification..
"It is wrong to conflate appeals with flaws, and the specification treats them as separate."
That would certainly seem to clarify this point and it does represent a change from the old specification. Thank you for spotting it.
I noticed today that appeals were also conflated with Flaws on the Summer 2006 paper.
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