Human Nature0322 What is ethics? Validity and soundness
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We can now reconstruct the argument as follows:
1. Most people from my ethnic background think that my action was not plagiarism.
2. If most people from my ethnic background think my action was not plagiarism, then it is not plagiarism and should not be reported.
3. Therefore, my case should not be reported.
Do the premises justify the conclusion? That is, is the argument valid? To assess validity, we assume all of the premises are true and then ask whether they entail the conclusion. In this case, if 1 and 2 are true, then 3 cannot be false. Therefore, the argument is valid.
We have been assuming that the premises are true. Are they? When we ask this question we are engaged in assessing the argument's soundness.
Let us grant that the first premise, 1, is true. Is the second? Let us assume that the arguer is correct, that most people from his ethnic background think that what he did is not plagiarism. Is it true that this fact makes it that case that what he did is not plagiarism? Obviously not, because plagiarism is defined by the educational community in which the arguer currently finds himself, not by the arguer's ethnic community. So, the second premise is false, and the argument is not sound.
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