About this video
A philosopher argues that the claim that only humans can obey moral rules, used to deny animals rights, is false. The argument does this by giving counterexamples: wolves, foxes and dogs show submission rules. The video shows the method is to refute a premise, not to establish a broad claim about animal morality, and the correct answer is A.
You'll be able to
- identify the premise and conclusion in an argument that uses counterexamples.
- distinguish refuting a premise from establishing a new claim.
- explain why answer choices that only give examples or make a broad claim do not match.
Key words
- Counterexample
- A specific case that shows a general premise is false.
- Premise
- A statement assumed to support a conclusion in an argument.
- Refute
- To show that a claim or premise is false.
- Necessary condition
- Something that must be true for another thing to be true.
Transcript
- [Narrator] So a philosopher says or writes, Wolves do not tolerate an attack by one wolf on another if the latter wolf demonstrates submission by baring its throat. The same is true of foxes and domesticated dogs. So it would be erroneous to deny that animals have rights on the grounds that only human beings are capable of obeying moral rules.
So before I even look at the choices, let's just dissect what this philosopher is saying. It would be erroneous, it would be erroneous to deny that animals have rights on the grounds that only human beings are capable of obeying moral rules. So it would be erroneous to make the conclusion that you need to deny animal rights, so the conclusion, the erroneous conclusion according to this author, is denying, deny animal, animal rights on, and this is on the grounds that only human beings are capable, so the premise, and this is the erroneous premise and conclusion, that, according to this author, so only, only humans capable of moral rules, of moral rules.
So, I would call that the premise. And what the author seems to be doing here, he is like hey, look, this premise is wrong. It's not the fact that only human beings are capable of moral rules, and he's giving examples. Wolves, dogs, foxes, so let's look at the choices.
The philosopher's argument procedes by attempting to provide counterexamples to refute a premise on which a particular conclusion is based. Well that's exactly what we just said, it doesn't always work out that nicely but it did this time. Where there's this conclusion on this premise, he wants to refute the premise by giving, on which this conclusion is based by giving counterexamples, just saying, hey, well it seems like wolves and foxes, according to him, and dogs do have some type of moral rules.
So this is, this looks like a pretty good choice. So, he's refuting this, so he's refuting, and he's refuting it with this first part of our little passage, or our little statement. He refutes this premise which would then undermine if someone makes this conclusion from this premise, they wouldn't be able to make that conclusion, if they're going off this premise.
So let's look at the other choices. Establish inductively that all animals possess some form of morality. No, he's just trying to give some examples of animals that he knows that, at least he perceives to have morality, to undermine this premise. He's not making a case that ants and everything else must have some morality just by giving a few examples.
So, this is not gonna be, this is definitely not gonna be our choice. Cast doubt on the principle that being capable of obeying moral rules is a necessary condition for having rights. So he's not attacking this premise conclusion, he's not saying that, well, you need this premise, you need to have moral rights in order to make this conclusion, he's, he's refuting anyone who goes through this logical chain right over here by refuting the premise.
So he's not casting doubt on the principle that being capable of obeying moral rules is a necessary condition for having rights, he's showing that, hey, there's some animals that have moral rules. So let's rule this one out. D, establish a claim by showing that the denial of that claim entails a logical contradiction.
No, he's not actually trying to establish a claim, I mean, it's starting to feel that he's trying to by saying, it looks like this is someone who would argue for animal rights, but he's really just trying to undermine someone else's claim, someone else's claim to deny animal rights.
So he's not trying to establish his own or she's not trying to establish her own. Provide evidence suggesting that the concept of morality is often applied too broadly. No, it's in fact, the philosopher's, I think, trying to get to a place that's the opposite, trying to assume that it's too narrowly applied only to humans, he's making a case or she's making a case, that, hey, or starting to make a case that, this, you know, some logic for applying it only to humans, to denying it to animals is false.
So this is definitely not gonna be the case. So we're gonna feel good about picking A.
Video © Khan Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA. Watch on Khan Academy. Puzzicle is not affiliated with Khan Academy.