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13.3.4: Appeal to a Typical Example

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    36893
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    If you like the first pineapple you eat, you don't have to eat forty-seven more pineapples to figure out whether you like pineapples. One example is enough. Similarly, if you are given a meal of lung fish and discover that it tastes awful, you might argue by analogy that you won't like eating any other lung fish if it is prepared the same way. This inference makes use of the assumption that one lung fish is like any other as far as taste is concerned, especially if the preparation is similar. You assume that your one lung fish is a typical example of lung fish. In doing so, do you commit the fallacy of jumping to conclusions? No, but you would do so if you did not implicitly rely on background information that kinds of food don't usually change their taste radically from one meal to another. Without this background information, you really ought to try some more examples of lung fish before concluding that you don't like this seafood. The same goes for the pineapple.

    These examples about pineapples and lung fish are a special kind of argument from analogy; the argument relies on the fact that nearly all the members of a group are analogous to some typical member of the group. This kind of argument by analogy is often called an “induction by appeal to a typical example.”

    The following argument also tries to make its point by giving only one example, expecting the reader to accept the generalization from that example. What is typical of what here?

    Although it is true that intending to do something usually does not bring about the same consequences as doing it, morally it seems no different. Suppose I intend to kill my rich uncle for my inheritance. I am hiding in his house behind the door, with my axe in my hand, waiting for him to enter, but as he walks up the front porch steps, he has a heart attack and dies. Hey, it's my lucky day! I get the inheritance and I don't even have to clean the blood off my axe. Surely you will say that the fact that I did not carry out my intention to kill my uncle does not absolve me morally, for had he entered the house I would have killed him. Whether or not I actually killed him, I'm still immoral. It seems, therefore, that the intention is always as wrong as the action.1

    The main generalization the author wants the reader to accept is that all cases of intending to kill are as wrong as actually killing. The strategy of the argument is to present a single case, suggest that it is an example in which the generalization applies, and then imply that the example is perfectly typical and thus that the generalization holds for all cases. The arguer is counting on the fact that the audience will be reminded from their own experience that the example is typical.

    To evaluate the quality of this argument we need to ask ourselves whether this really is an example. Is the case of the potential axe murder really an example in which the person would be just as immoral whether he or she followed through with the crime or not? Second, even if it is an example, is it really typical of all other cases of intention to commit a crime?

    Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

    Which one of the following arguments is an induction by analogy, using an appeal to a typical example?

    1. John is a typical example of a farmer. He doesn't wear a suit to work. He understands about raising animals, planting crops, building fences, and so on. Yet all farmers are going to suffer with this new legislation, so John is, too.
    2. We checked it out for ourselves. After drilling the right-size hole in the plastic, we poured the liquid hydrofluoric acid down the hole onto the steel and noticed that a perfectly circular hole in the steel appeared within a minute. So, hydrofluoric acid will always react with steel, at least if the acid is a liquid.
    3. All boa constrictors are reptiles, and Matt Rasmussen's pet boa constrictor is a typical one, so it's a reptile, too.
    Answer

    Answer (b). The phrase typical example in answer (a) isn't enough reason to say that the passage is an induction by analogy, using an appeal to a typical example. Only (b) makes use of the example being typical. Arguments (a) and (c) would continue to be strong even if the example were atypical. Also, argument (b) is inductive, whereas arguments (a) and (c) are deductively valid.

    Below is a more controversial example of an argument that appeals to a typical example. It assumes that we humans, and all other species, are like the example of bacteria, in a special sense. Are we?

    If bacteria are left to grow in a petri dish, they'll multiply quickly, then consume all their resources and die. The same goes for all species adaptive enough to flourish unconstrained. At first, "the world is their petri dish… Their populations grow at a terrific rate; they take over large areas, engulfing their environment…. Then they hit a barrier. They drown in their own wastes. They starve from lack of food." – Joshua Rothman quoting Charles C. Mann in The New Yorker, July 23, 2018, p. 32.

    The conclusion you are supposed to draw here is that it is the fate of every successful species to wipe itself out. Does this hold for the human species? Critical thinkers want to know the answer.


    1 This example was suggested by Angela Scripa.


    This page titled 13.3.4: Appeal to a Typical Example is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Bradley H. Dowden.

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