PHIL110 Critical Thinking – SPS CUNY Unit 9 Discussion Assignment Anything Wrong with this Argument? Step 1. Read an article that appeared in The Philosophers' Magazine, entitled "The Drug Laws Don't Work.” By Michael Huemer (see attached as a separate PDF). This article -- "The Drug Laws Don't Work" -- was written by Michael Huemer, a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado. It first appeared in The Philosophers' Magazine on July 20, 2009. The article contains some very interesting inductive argumentative strategies, including analogy, causal argument, and enumerative induction. It also comes close to committing some fallacies such as weak analogy, false cause, and hasty generalization. Step 2. Once you've read the article, find an instance of where the argument comes dangerously close to committing a fallacy. Then find inductive inference pattern that this argument uses (such as inductive generalization (enumerative induction), statistical syllogism, analogy, or causal argument. Step 3. On the Discussion Forum, answer the following questions: Fallacy: • Name the fallacy that you were able to identify • Define the fallacy -based on the lectures and reading • Explain why you think it's committed. Inductive Inference: • Identify one inductive inference pattern that it uses • Reconstruct its premise(s) and conclusion Your Opinion and Your Reasons: • Do you think that drugs should be legalized, or perhaps that only certain drugs should be legalized? What are your reasons? Step 4. Read and respond to other students’ posts with substantial comments that follow these commenting points: PHIL110 Critical Thinking – SPS CUNY • Do you think their reconstruction of the fallacy is well done? Does their explanation make sense? If not, what additional comments can you offer to clarify it. • Do you agree with the reasons they offer to answer the question about ‘legalizing drugs’? Which of their reasons do you disagree with and why? • Search the internet for a recent commentary (news article published within the last 3 years) about drug laws, legalization, punishments etc - and offer this article as a gift to your fellow student. Link to the article, then tell them why you are offering this article and how it related to their position (it might be supporting their view or contradicting it). • (NOTE: You can offer the same article to several students’ posts that you make comments on, as long as you connect the article specifically to their arguments on drug laws). Recommendations for Success and Grading Criteria: • Respond to the assignment with clear and detailed answers, organized thoughts. • Follow all assignment prompts and answers all prompt questions. • Incorporate relevant examples and evidence to support claims. • Write clearly and without errors a well-composed answer and post it on time. • Respond to other students w ...

1. PHIL110 Critical Thinking – SPS CUNY
Unit 9 Discussion Assignment
Anything Wrong with this Argument?
Step 1.
Read an article that appeared in The Philosophers' Magazine,
entitled "The Drug Laws Don't
Work.” By Michael Huemer (see attached as a separate PDF).
This article -- "The Drug Laws Don't Work" -- was written by
Michael Huemer, a philosophy
professor at the University of Colorado. It first appeared in The
Philosophers' Magazine on July
20, 2009. The article contains some very interesting inductive
argumentative strategies,
including analogy, causal argument, and enumerative induction.
It also comes close to
committing some fallacies such as weak analogy, false cause,
and hasty generalization.

2. Step 2.
Once you've read the article, find an instance of where the
argument comes dangerously close to
committing a fallacy. Then find inductive inference pattern that
this argument uses (such as
inductive generalization (enumerative induction), statistical
syllogism, analogy, or causal
argument.
Step 3.
On the Discussion Forum, answer the following questions:
Fallacy:
• Name the fallacy that you were able to identify
• Define the fallacy -based on the lectures and reading
• Explain why you think it's committed.
Inductive Inference:
• Identify one inductive inference pattern that it uses
• Reconstruct its premise(s) and conclusion
Your Opinion and Your Reasons:

3. • Do you think that drugs should be legalized, or perhaps that
only certain drugs should be
legalized? What are your reasons?
Step 4.
Read and respond to other students’ posts with substantial
comments that follow these
commenting points:
PHIL110 Critical Thinking – SPS CUNY
• Do you think their reconstruction of the fallacy is well done?
Does their explanation make
sense? If not, what additional comments can you offer to clarify
it.
• Do you agree with the reasons they offer to answer the
question about ‘legalizing
drugs’? Which of their reasons do you disagree with and why?
• Search the internet for a recent commentary (news article
published within the last 3 years)
about drug laws, legalization, punishments etc - and offer this
article as a gift to your fellow

4. student. Link to the article, then tell them why you are offering
this article and how it related
to their position (it might be supporting their view or
contradicting it).
• (NOTE: You can offer the same article to several students’
posts that you make comments
on, as long as you connect the article specifically to their
arguments on drug laws).
Recommendations for Success and Grading Criteria:
• Respond to the assignment with clear and detailed answers,
organized thoughts.
• Follow all assignment prompts and answers all prompt
questions.
• Incorporate relevant examples and evidence to support claims.
• Write clearly and without errors a well-composed answer and
post it on time.
• Respond to other students with interesting comments and
follow-up
questions. Acknowledge all students who commented on your
post.

5. 1
The drug laws don’t work
Written by: Michael Huemer | Appears in: Issue 41
July 20, 2009
Let me begin with a story, and see what you think about it. A
man named Flip owned a computer.
Flip, however, took very bad care of his computer. He often ate
and drank over the computer,
which resulted in his spilling Coke on the keyboard on three
occasions, ruining the keyboard each
time. He installed software that slowed the machine’s
performance and caused the operating
system to become unstable. Flip thought these programs were
“cool”, but most industry experts
considered them shoddy products whose drawbacks far
outweighed their usefulness. Finally,
three weeks ago, Flip got angry at his computer and threw it on
the floor. The motherboard and
several other components were fatally damaged, so that Flip no
longer has a working computer.
End of story.
Flip was an imprudent and irresponsible computer owner. He
made several bad decisions. It
would clearly have been better had he taken care of his
computer, not installed harmful software,
and never thrown it on the floor. This would have been better
for the computer, for Flip, and even

6. for society, for Flip would have been a more productive citizen
with a working computer. So a
question naturally arises: how might we prevent people from
behaving like Flip?
A solution fairly thrusts itself on our imagination (or at any
rate, on the imagination of those who
take their cue from modern politics): we could send the police
after Flip, to drag him off and
throw him in jail. That would send a message to other would-be
computer abusers.
What are we to think of this plan? Of course, as things stand,
Flip will not be sent to prison
because he has violated no law. But that just invites the
question: Should Flip’s behaviour be
against the law? It is clear enough that the behaviour was
foolish and without redeeming social
value. So why isn’t it illegal?
Here is why: because what Flip did, he did to his own computer.
If Flip had destroyed someone
else’s computer, say a computer in a public library, then he
would be held accountable by the
state, and rightly so. Likewise, if he had destroyed his computer
in a manner directly harmful to
someone else—say, by throwing the computer at another
person—then he would deserve to be
punished. But he does not deserve to be punished purely for
what he does, privately, with his own
property.
It isn’t that what Flip did was not sufficiently harmful. Flip
could have had a top-of-the-line,
$5,000 computer worth three months’ of his salary. It could
have contained the only copies of his

7. personal correspondence over the last twenty years, plus the
Ph.D. dissertation he was working on
for the last five years. None of that matters to assessing his
legal liability. Nor is the point that no
one else was made worse off by Flip’s behavior. Suppose that
scholarship in his field of study
2
will be set back thirty years by the tragic loss of Flip’s brilliant
dissertation. Furthermore, Flip
will be unhappy for the next several months because of the loss
of his computer, causing his
family and friends also to be unhappy. Again, none of this
matters to assessing Flip’s fitness for
public sanctions. As long as what Flip destroyed is clearly
understood to have been entirely his
own property, and as long as he did not in the process take or
damage anything that another
person had a right to, his deplorable behaviour would not and
should not be legally punished.
Almost no one would favor changing the laws in that regard.
This is our conception of property. When you own something,
you may do with it as you wish,
even including damaging or destroying it, up until the point at
which you violate another person’s
rights over what is theirs. This is what we generally accept
when it comes to our material
possessions—our computers, our clothes, our cars, and so on.
Now, what about our bodies? Shouldn’t we have at least as
much right to control our own bodies
as we have to control a computer? For what is more

8. authentically yours than your own body?
Somehow, the majority of people disagree. Consider the case of
Trip. Trip has a body. But like
many of us, Trip takes rather poor care of this body. He often
puts substances into it that damage
his health and have little or no nutritional value. He claims that
these substances give him great
enjoyment, but most medical experts consider the harms to far
outweigh any benefits of these
substances. By ingesting them, Trip greatly reduces his overall
life expectancy.
What can be done about Trip? Whereas nearly everyone is
content to leave Flip alone to make his
own mistakes with computers, most individuals and
governments would see Trip hauled away
and forcibly confined for years, in punishment for his
indiscretions. At least, they would if Trip’s
preferred “substances” include marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or
any of several other specific
substances named in the law. We would not, however, see Trip
punished if his preferred
substances include only alcohol, tobacco, and fatty foods.
Although more people are killed every
year by the latter substances than by illegal drugs—over twenty
times more in the case of
tobacco—most would consider legal sanctions for smoking,
alcohol consumption, and overeating
to be taking things too far.
Why this contrast in our attitudes? Why is consumption of
illegal drugs viewed so differently
from consumption of other harmful substances, or participation
in self-harming activities more
generally? One reason is the value of purity. Psychologist

9. Jonathan Haidt has identified five
broad kinds of ideas that influence people’s moral attitudes—
ideas about harm, fairness, loyalty,
authority, and purity. Conservatives tend to be more strongly
influenced than liberals by the last
three. In particular, many see illegal drugs as impure and as
pollutants of the body. But few see
alcohol, tobacco, or fatty foods in that way, even if they are
objectively more harmful. This is
partly because of social conditions created by the legal regime
itself: we see normal, respected
individuals drinking, smoking, and eating unhealthy foods in
public all the time. We see no such
thing for illegal drugs, which we tend to associate with sordid,
poor, dangerous neighbourhoods
and people.
What we should realize, when we are influenced by these
feelings, is that illegal drugs are not
inherently unclean, any more than alcohol, tobacco, or canola
oil. All of these are simply
chemicals that people choose to ingest for enjoyment, and that
can harm our health if used to
excess. Most of the sordid associations we have with illegal
drugs are actually the product of the
drug laws: it is because of the laws that drugs are sold on the
black market, that Latin American
crime bosses are made rich, that government officials are
corrupted, and that drug users rob
3
others to buy drugs. The drug laws create a regime in which
crime burgeons: because legitimate

10. businesses are prevented from providing the goods demanded by
the market, criminals step in to
provide the product, at greatly inflated prices. During
America’s experiment with alcohol
prohibition, organized crime grew bold and powerful from its
booming trade in illegal alcohol.
When prohibition ended, the alcohol business was taken over by
legitimate businesses. Today,
alcohol is sold in stores, not on the streets; it is shipped from
breweries in the daylight, not
smuggled across borders by criminal organizations; no
government is corrupted by alcohol
money; and virtually no one robs other people to get money to
buy alcohol. The difference
between the situation of alcohol and that of illegal drugs lies
not in their chemical or
pharmacological properties; it lies in the law. In the case of the
drug trade, we have created laws
that protect criminal organizations from noncriminal
competition, thereby granting obscene
profits to criminals.
None of this is to deny that misuse and overuse of drugs create
problems for the user and those
around him. The same is true, as I have said, of alcohol,
tobacco, and unhealthy foods. But
without prohibition, the problems created by drug use would be
mainly private problems; it is the
law that enables the drug trade to damage and corrupt society.
Most philosophers, in my experience, can be brought to agree
with the case for legalisation. But
there is another reason—apart from sentiments about purity—
why most non-philosophers do not
accept this case. That is that the legalization position strikes
many as defeatist. We have a

11. problem: drugs ruin many people’s lives. The legalisers’
position offers no solution to this
problem, counselling instead that we merely learn to live with
it. We hear this complaint often
from the prohibitionists’ side. As conservative U.S. Senator Jon
Kyl put it, “What [the
legalisation advocates] all have in common is a defeatist
mentality that America is losing the war
on drugs, and a shared faith that we can somehow win it by
surrendering.” The Senator’s last
remark is of course a misstatement: legalisers do not propose to
win the war on drugs by
surrendering. They propose no way of winning at all. Those who
advocated the repeal of alcohol
prohibition likewise offered no way of winning the battle
against drunkenness. Rather than trying
to win that battle, we have learned to live with the enemy as
best we can.
Many conservatives feel repelled by this cynical approach.
Those who feel this way would do
well to learn from the views of their conservative colleagues
about economic policy.
Conservatives have long pointed up the unworkability of
socialism. Many socialists find this
critique cynical and defeatist: market economics offers no
solution to the problems of human
greed, poverty, and inequality. How can we be content to
acquiesce in these problems, when
another ideology offers a plan to perfect society and human
nature?
The key insight that these sentiments are missing is that
expressed in Voltaire’s dictum, “The best
is the enemy of the good.” Seeking the best imaginable result—
seeking to eliminate a social

12. problem—often leaves us worse off. That is because the best is
almost always unattainable, and
our pursuit of it interferes with more modest strategies that
could have achieved a good result,
reducing the problem’s size and its collateral effects. The
insight conservatives bring to the
discussion of at least some social issues is that human society is
imperfect because
human nature is imperfect. As long as there are human beings,
there will be selfishness, there will
be crime, there will be foolish choices and people who ruin
their own and others’ lives. The root
of the drug problem is not that there are too many drugs around,
or that they are too cheap, or that
people have yet to be sufficiently educated as to their harmful
effects. The root of the problem
lies in the fact that some human beings desire escape from their
troubles, and that human beings
are tempted more by immediate pleasures than by the long-term
good. Until humans are replaced
4
by angels, that problem will not be solved, and to declare “war”
on it is to declare war on human
nature.
This is not to justify complacency in the face of vice and
suffering. The point is rather to reframe
our task. Our goal should not be to solve problems or to win
metaphorical wars. Our goal should
be to mitigate problems. We should not ask “What will stop
drug abuse in our society?” but
“What will reduce the problems associated with drug use in the

13. most cost-effective manner?”
The war on drugs is not the answer to the latter question.
Legalisation would reduce the social
costs of the drug trade, for the reasons I have mentioned. It
would greatly reduce crime and
corruption, free up state resources, and restore respect for
individual rights. Once we properly
frame our task in confronting social problems, this will strike
us, not as a defeatist appeal, but as
the realistic and responsible approach.
Michael Huemer is professor of philosophy at the University of
Colorado at Boulder
The drug laws don’t work