Page 174 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

ANSWERS, DISCUSSION, AND FURTHER ADVICE 16 1
Exercise 4.2

Here is one possible answer. Each premise functions as a different reason for the
conclusion (one concerns economics and the other morality), unlike the
previous exercise, in which two premises worked together to provide just one
reason.
1 Australia should continue to spend a proportion of its national budget on
foreign aid.
2 Providing economic aid is a prudent economic investment.
3 Australia is morally obligated to provide foreign aid.

Exercise 4.3

a If one is sick, then one should not come to work.
b When someone abuses your trust, they should be punished [another way of
saying 'if someone abuses your trust, then they should be punished'],
c All human life is worth protecting.
In each case, notice how these premises tell us why the particular evidence given
leads us to the stated conclusion. On that basis, here are the missing framework
premises for the answers to exercise 4.2:
1 Claim 2 needs claim 4: All nations should make prudent economic
investments' (alternatively, 'if an action is economically prudent, then it
should be pursued').
2 Claim 3 needs claim 5: A nation should act on its moral obligations'
(alternatively, 'if a nation has moral obligations, then it should act upon
them').
And the diagram for these claims is:

Exercise 4.4

Here are four definitions. Which example relates to which method?
a Studying critical thinking is like learning to play a difficult sport well: you
have to break it down into its components and practise each one.
b By 'studying critical thinking' I mean learning to use reasoning for arguing and
explaining and then learning about the context in which reasoning occurs.