Week 7 Discussion — Fair Point or Fallacy?

Hook

A fact about a speaker can be a fair reason to check what they say, or it can be a way to avoid their reasons altogether. A feeling or a crowd can ride alongside good reasons, or it can replace them. Both lines are hard to draw in a real case, which is why the course keys only clear passages and leaves cases like these to discussion.

Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: The running question asks whether the campus library should stay open around the clock during finals week (illustrative). A student senator who works paid overnight shifts at the library writes a letter in favor, giving reasons about quiet, safe study space. A critic replies: "Of course she wants the library open all night; she gets paid for those shifts." Argue whether the critic's reply is a circumstantial attack on the person, a fair point about how much weight to give her testimony, or partly both. Say in words where the reply would sit on an argument map of her letter, and what the critic would have to do to answer her reasons.

Option B: Choose one message from your own life that leaned on a feeling or a head count: an ad, a fundraising appeal, a sign, a review, or a team or club notice (no politicians, parties, campaigns, or news outlets, and no one's real name). Name the feeling or the number it offered, and argue whether that appeal replaced the reasons or rode alongside good reasons. Say what evidence would have to be there for the appeal to be fair.

There is no single right answer about where a fair point ends and a fallacy begins in a case like these. What the course settles is the test: a premise that, even if true, does not bear on the conclusion is beside the point, and a conflict of interest bears on how much to trust testimony, not on whether the reasons hold. The real work is applying that test to a hard case and defending your judgment with reasons.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 7 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. If a chatbot calls every remark about a speaker an attack on the person, or calls every emotional appeal a fallacy, check that against this week's definitions. Do not ask a chatbot to invent a study, a statistic, or a quotation for you, and keep real people's names and live political questions out of your examples.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory critical thinking
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me and never hand me an answer - you
ask questions that make me reason it through. Never invent a statistic, a
study, or a quotation. Never name a living politician, a party, or a news
outlet, and never use a political or religious question as an example. Take
no side on whether the campus library should stay open overnight. Do not
teach any fallacy of presumption, the slippery slope, or the after-this
fallacy; this week is about a fallacy versus a false premise, the attacks on
the person and the fair use of a conflict of interest, the straw man, the
appeals to fear, pity, and popularity, the red herring, and the appeal to
authority.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: The running question asks whether the campus library should stay
open around the clock during finals week (illustrative). A student senator who
works paid overnight shifts at the library writes a letter in favor, giving
reasons about quiet, safe study space. A critic replies: "Of course she wants
the library open all night; she gets paid for those shifts." I argue whether
the critic's reply is a circumstantial attack on the person, a fair point
about how much weight to give her testimony, or partly both. I say in words
where the reply would sit on an argument map of her letter, and what the
critic would have to do to answer her reasons.
Option B: I choose one message from your own life that leaned on a feeling or
a head count: an ad, a fundraising appeal, a sign, a review, or a team or club
notice (no politicians, parties, campaigns, or news outlets, and no one's real
name). I name the feeling or the number it offered, and argue whether that
appeal replaced the reasons or rode alongside good reasons. I say what
evidence would have to be there for the appeal to be fair.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I run the relevance test: if the fact about the speaker, or the
  feeling, were true, would it bear on whether the conclusion is true?
- whether I keep a point about how much to trust testimony apart from a
  refutation of the reasons
- whether I state the other side's reasons fairly before I judge the reply,
  as the principle of charity asks
- whether I describe where a reply sits on an argument map in words, with
  an arrow marked "against" landing on a real box or on no box at all
- whether I keep emotion that fits good reasons apart from emotion that
  replaces them

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint to my view, such as a version of the critic's reply
that is a fair point about testimony, a reason the senator's pay really should
lower the weight of her word, or a case where a feeling in an ad fits the
evidence. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made, such as stating
the other side fairly or answering the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
answer - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Every message you send before
the summary ends with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 7 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — running the relevance test, telling a fair point about testimony from an attack on the person, keeping emotion that fits good reasons apart from emotion that replaces them, stating the other side fairly, and using this week's terms accurately — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your judgment (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, state the senator's reasons fairly in one sentence, run the relevance test on the critic's reply, and say in words where the reply sits on a map of her letter. For Option B, quote the message in your own words, name the feeling or the number, and say what evidence it offered or left out.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best case against your judgment — for example, that the senator's pay really should lower the weight of her word, or that the feeling in your message fits the evidence after all. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying a reply is partly fair and partly a fallacy is worth more than defending everything.
4. One thing you would still check (one or two sentences). What fact would you want before you trusted your judgment?

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 7 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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