Assignment Exercise: Representing Arguments from Analogy in Standard Form
Exercise Instructions: represent each of the following arguments in standard form using the General Form of Argument from Analogy.
1. Imagine the parents of an anorexic daughter did everything they could to help their child starve herself. Those parents are not being supportive of their daughter. Rather, they are harming her by nurturing in her a misguided self-conception. Parents should not help their children be anorexic. Schools that accommodate transgender students by allowing them to express whatever gender identity they choose are doing the same kind of thing. Schools shouldn't help children be trans.
2. Suppose that Jones lives in a time of serious inequality between racial groups. One racial group has much more wealth; many opportunities for better jobs, better living conditions, better food. Jones, luckily for him, is a member of the much-better-off racial group. Imagine that Jones consistently gives preference to members of his own racial group. When he has jobs to offer, he offers them to people of his race. When he gives to charities, he gives to charities that benefit people of his race. Jones's behavior, it seems to me, is morally offensive. American patriotism, understood as the practice of giving preference to the interests of one own country and compatriots over those of people in other countries, is not importantly different. Patriotism perpetuates unjust inequality between groups by giving preference to people who are already benefiting frism that inequality. Patriotic, "Americans first" behavior, like Jones's behavior, is morally offensive.
3. That a morally acceptable form of patriotism is possible can be seen by comparing patriotis to love or family loyalty. People may (and, one hopes, typically do) have a special interest and concern for their parents, spouses, and children. They really do care more about those "near and dear" than about strangers. Yet, so long as this concern is not an exclusive concern, there is nothing the matter with it. That is, so long as family loyalty does not violat the rights of nonmembers of one's family, then actions inspired by family loyalty or love are perfectly permissible and may reveal important virtues in a person Patriotism is exactly like other forms of loyalty. My loyalty to my family may lead me to strivi for its well-being in many laudable ways and so may be counted as a virtue. Nonetheless, may not do anything on behalf of my family's well-being. I may not legitimately kill my child competitor for a school prize or threaten a neighbor whose house we would like to own. When one engages in immoral actions in order to promote one's own family's well-being, then family devotion is excessive and is no virtue. It remains a virtue so long as it is constrained by other moral principles.