Struggling to find the premises and conclusions of this text for Critical Thinking Assignment
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My professor hinted that it was in section 3 but I am struggling to convert it into a logical format. Thank you for any help
My professor hinted that it was in section 3 but I am struggling to convert it into a logical format. Thank you for any help
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In a well-written essay, the premise should be in the Introduction and the conclusion should be in the Conclusion.
No academic employed by an American university would ever suggest that racism or anything to do with racism is good. Therefore the author's position can only be that not only racism but anything associated with racism must be bad.
Therefore, both the premise and conclusion are implicitly included within the title of the essay: Racist Humor is Bad.
Conclusion indicator words: Hence, ergo, therefore, thus, for that reason, it follows that, etc.
That's my two cents.
There seems to be two different sets of premises and conclusions
Premise/Conclusion Set One
In the first paragraph of the Introduction, the author writes - "Given the weight of the consequences of being charged with making a racist joke and the possible harmful effects on the audience of racist jokes, it is a bit puzzling that more attention has not been given to this issue."
Premise - possible harmful effects on the audience of racist jokes
Conclusion - it is a bit puzzling that more attention has not been given to this issue.
Premise/Conclusion Set Two
In the last paragraph of the Conclusion the author writes - "Given the prevalence of racial humor and the real world consequences that result from engaging in humor, philosophers should be keen on developing views that answer these questions."
Premise 1 - the prevalence of racial humor
Premise 2 - the real world consequences that result from engaging in humor
Conclusion - philosophers should be keen on developing views
These two sets of Premise/Conclusion are different
These are different as the author distinguishes racist jokes to racial humour. In Section 1 the author writes - "I mean to distinguish racial from racist humor. The former is a broad category that refers to humor about race, while the latter, a narrower category, refers to racial humor that violates norms concerning the treatment of people based on their perceived race."
The conclusions are similar, in that the author writes in section 3 - "the categories we employ for classifying racial humor can be expanded beyond the racist/non-racist binary. In contrast to only being racist or not racist, a piece of humor might also be racially insensitive."
The author opposes both racist jokes and racial humor
The author opposes racist jokes.
He writes in Section 1 - "Assuming that racism in a joke counts as a moral defect."
The author also opposes racial humour.
He writes in Section 1 - "Lastly, much racial humor depends on the inclusion of racial stereotypes."
He writes in Section 3 - "In order for the view proposed below to work, an account of the badness of racial stereotypes must be given. "
Summary
The reader needs to understand the author's use of the terms "racist jokes", "racial humor" and "racially insensitive humor", as the lines between them sometimes seem to become blurred.
If you ask me, humor consists of patterns and off the top of my head I can identify one - contradiction. As you can see this means there's no such thing as racist humor or black humor, it's not the racist or immoral aspects of a joke that give it funniness but the logical structure, one of which is contradiction (reductio ad absurdum).
Yes, racist humor is all Greek to me.