Prepare: To prepare to respond to this prompt, reread the section from Chapter 2 of our book titled “Extracting Arguments in Standard form,” all required portions of Chapters 3 and 4, as well as the guidance and required media for this week. Further assistance in the filling missing premises can be gained from the document How to Construct a Valid Main Argument and the video Constructing Valid Arguments. 

Reflect: Look at the list of argument options below. Choose an argument that has not yet been chosen by any of your classmates. Think through the reasoning and determine what premise is (or premises are) missing that would be needed to make the argument valid. You might also consider challenging yourself by choosing from the more difficult examples in the list (at the bottom). 

Choose from the following list of argument options. 

1. Flipper is a dolphin, so Flipper is a mammal.

2. Football is dumb because it is a waste of time.

3. If he loved you he would have shown up on time with flowers. He must not love you.

4. All mammals bear live young, so dragons are not mammals.

5. Abortion kills a human being, therefore abortion is wrong.

6. He broke the record for rushing yards in a game on that last play. Therefore he holds the record.

7. He won the election. So he will be the next governor.

8. He won’t go to the wedding since he doesn’t like mushy stuff and weddings are mushy.