Surreal things students say...

[a_t_rain]

So we're having a rousing round of Spot the Fallacy in one of my evening tutorial sessions, and we get to the sentence Marijuana should remain illegal because its use is morally wrong. If it weren't wrong, the government wouldn't have outlawed it in the first place.

Student: It's that circle-thingy, isn't it?

Me: Circular argument? Good, tell me why.

Student: Because the government can't have outlawed marijuana. It was never legal.

Me: Well, actually it was legal, up until the 1930's or so.

Student: Really?

Me: Well, yeah. They hadn't passed any laws about it yet.

Student: Well, that doesn't make it legal, right? Just sort of undefined? Like, there aren't any laws against me going out and smoking the leaves off that oak tree :: points to window :: so it's undefined.

Me: Um, that means smoking oak leaves is legal. Weird, but legal.

Student: Oh. :: long pause :: So it isn't a circular argument, then?

:: blink ::

Comments

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

I had a friend in college who once tried smoking oregano.

But that is neither here nor there.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I tried smoking banana peels once. (I was an extremely stupid tenth grader whose head had somehow gotten stuck in the sixties.) I don't recommend it.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Haha, I sold oregano to some dipshit fake 'surfer' in my class in eighth grade, telling him it was the dopest dope I'd ever picked. I lollered at him till I could loller no more. Then I spent my thirty dollars on surfboard wax and lollies.

Ah, the follies of innocence.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of history tuts last semester. Given that many of them devolved into theology sessions (as it was medieval history and my tutorial group were all exceptionally unexposed to any Roman Catholic traditions) our tutor used to comment on the weirdness of teaching first-years a lot.

Then again, when you get to questions like "But why did Lucifer fall?" you know you've left normality.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Then again, when you get to questions like "But why did Lucifer fall?" you know you've left normality.

And when the surrounding discussion would seem to suggest that it involved a banana peel....

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

I believe one of the class did suggest that he had tripped.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

There are times when I forget how...bizarre...first-year undergraduates are. And then I feel old. But that's neither here nor there.

And smoking banana peels? How exactly does one *do* that?

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

And smoking banana peels? How exactly does one *do* that?

Well, in theory you're supposed to scrape off the white stuff from the inside of the peel, dry it out in the oven, and flake it. But as I said, it doesn't work very well. (The fact that I got this recipe from a newspaper trivia quiz about the sixties that my cousin had taped up on the wall of his bedroom should have tipped me off. Duh.)

[catkind.livejournal.com]

This course you're teaching sounds like a lot of fun.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I'm not exactly teaching it, merely tutoring -- Laura, the primary instructor, is the one who gets to make all the decisions (and gets the fun of grading the papers). I run tutorial sessions on alternate evenings, and hang out in the dorm the rest of the time to offer help to anybody who asks for it. It's a good job :)

[snorkackcatcher]

Hmm ... skipping over the subsequent conversation (which is admittedly a trifle comic), I do actually have a little sympathy with the student, you know? Because I'm not sure the original sentences as written are technically a completely circular argument? In other words, it doesn't read strictly "A because of B, and B because of A" but more "A because of B, and B and A because of some posited C in the past". If it had been something like "Why is marijuana illegal? Because it's immoral. Why is it immoral? Because it's illegal" then the circulatity would have been complete (and, one would hope, too obvious to be worth asking questions about even for students).

Admittedly, there is a degree of practical circularity about it, and for it to be a good argument for marijuana being illegal that hypothetical C (being the reasons it was considered immoral in the first place) would need to be explained convincingly (as I remember reading the history of it, they weren't), but I do think there's a loophole in the phrasing!

OK, I would have just flunked this class. Sorry. :)

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Nah, you don't flunk for thinking :) I may rephrase that one if I ever use this exercise again.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

And after much consideration, of course you're right. What I was trying to say was something along the lines of "Marijuana should be illegal, and my evidence for this claim is that it is immoral, and my evidence for that claim is that it is illegal." However, thanks to the ambiguities of our lovely language, what I actually wrote can be interpreted just as easily as "Marijuana should be illegal, and my evidence is that it is immoral; furthermore, it is illegal, and the reason is that it's immoral."

Which goes to show that I should really get a computer programmer to check all my exercises before I hand them out.