Peikoff Homework on Mill's Methods & Analogies

The following consists of my answers for one of the homework sets in Leonard Peikoff's Introduction to Logic course. The handout with the exercises is freely available on the Ayn Rand Institute's website for the course. The Mill's Method exercises start on page 15 in the handout and the analogies problems start on page 19.

I used ✅ in the table of contents where Peikoff agreed (basically, on the essential point) with (at least some portion of) my answer and ❌ where I got a (at least partially) different answer from Peikoff and agreed with Peikoff's reasoning at the end of the day. I used 🤔 for disagreements with Peikoff's answer or for stuff I was unclear on. For some questions I may use multiple emoji in the table of contents and the reason why should be clear upon reading my answer (typically, it's something like I got one point correct but missed another). When I put a ✅ or ❌ in a particular place within my answer and not others, it means that Peikoff spoke to that part specifically. I didn't mark specific parts every time, and instead just marked some questions generally.

Interesting Substantive Philosophical Note: Peikoff made some interesting comments towards the end of the lecture re: epistemology. He basically said that he thinks even when induction was better understood, there would always be some element of creativity in the application of an inductive method. I thought that was an interesting admission, because it basically concedes that induction isn't a complete working method for knowledge creation (even stipulating unknown future knowledge/improvements/corrections to the theory).

Mill's Methods Short Summary

Mill's methods are supposedly methods of induction. I disagree with the epistemological premise but will nonetheless analyze the problems according to the description of the methods as best as I can. I do think that Mill's Methods can be a useful framework for analyzing certain arguments given certain very strong assumptions – I just don't think they're some form of induction.

Method of Agreement

If, in two or more cases where an effect occurs, one and only one of the antecedent factors is common to all of the collections of antecedents, then that factor is the cause – or an indispensable part of the cause.

You have several cases that agree in that in all those cases the effect occurs. If in a number of cases there is agreement in the same effect, and given Mill's assumption that there can only be one cause, then you infer that there must be agreement about some factor which is the cause.

Peikoff notes that you have to hypothesize different potential causes to use this method. He also admits you can't come up with every possible causal factor and just eliminate all but one. He says creativity is involved in identifying causal factors.

Method of Difference

If a case in which an effect occurs, and one in which it does not occur, are alike in all relevant respects, except for the presence or absence of a single factor, the effect occurring when that factor is present, and not occurring when it is absent, then that factor is the cause – or an indispensable part of the cause.

Concomitant Variation

If a certain factor alone varies concomitantly with the variations in the effect, then that factor is the cause of the variations in the effect – or an indispensable part of the cause.

Can be direct or inverse relationship.

Method of Residues

Subduct from any phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the effect of certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedent.

Suppose you have an effect consisting of parts A B and C. Suppose you hypothesize that the relevant factors are L, M and N. Then you realize that L and M cause A and B. You then conclude that's what left of the antecedent (N) must cause what's left of the effect (C).

Neptune was supposedly discovered by this method. They could explain most of Uranus' orbit but couldn't explain (simplifying) a wiggle so they had to hypothesize a planet.

Rules of Elimination

For Agreement: Nothing can be the cause of effect X in the absence of which X occurs.

For Difference: Nothing can be the cause of X in the presence of which X does not occur.

Mill's Method Problems

Peikoff notes that for these we are leaving aside issues of whether all relevant factors were included and just focusing on applying Mill's Methods.

Problem 1

The results of a scientific experiment, when all appropriate factors are symbolized, are as follows:

1(a) ❌

(a) A scientist infers, from the above information, that neither a nor b is the cause of E. Which one of Mill’s Methods is he using here?

❌Mill's Method of Difference.

(I initially had a wrong method of how to do these assignments).

Peikoff indicates as follows:

Regarding comparing Case 1 to Case 2 in order to eliminate a, the method is Difference. We can eliminate a (my note: and d, g, j) as a sufficient condition. But maybe a is a necessary condition.

We can eliminate a from being even a necessary condition by looking at case 3, because a is absent but the effect occurs. a is not present in case 3, but the effect occurs. Thus, by the rule of elimination for the Method of Agreement, we can rule out a.

What about eliminating b?

We can't eliminate b via case 2 because we didn't have the effect in Case 2. We can't eliminate b via case 3 because b is present and so is the effect.

We can eliminate b as a necessary condition by looking at Case 1, because b is absent but the effect occurs (Method of Agreement).

1(b) ✅

(b) Assuming the complete irrelevance of a and b has now been established, what causal conclusion can the scientist come to? Which one of Mill’s Methods is he using here?

Case 1 and 3 would have identical antecedent factors of d, g, j, and x and are cases in which Effect E occurred. Case 2 would have antecedent factors of d, g, j and Effect E did not occur. Per the rule of elimination for the method of difference, nothing can be the cause of X in the presence of which X does not occur. d, g, and j are present in Case 2 and yet x did not occur. Thus, they cannot be the sufficient cause by the Method of Difference (edit: and thus x is the cause or an indispensable part of the cause).

Problem 2 ✅❌

Mr. Smith lost his glasses one morning, and used his wife’s pair for the next several days. The first day, he had to read for six hours at work; that night he had a violent spell of dizziness. The next day, he read for four hours, and that night he had a dizzy spell that was not so intense. The next day, he read for only two hours, and at night he had only a mild sensation of dizziness.
A further series of facts: just before his first dizzy spell, Mr. Smith received some profoundly upsetting news. Just before his second, he received some moderately bad news. Just before his third, he received some slightly disturbing news. Given all the above, and assuming all other relevant factors remain constant, what causal conclusion would Mill’s Methods permit one to draw?

❌I don't think we can draw any conclusions here. ✅One might think of the concomitant variation method, but the issue with using that is that there are two factors that vary in proportion to the severity of the effect, so you can't rule either one out.

Peikoff: Agrees that you can't rule either one out, but says you can conclude that the effect is caused either by the reading, the bad news, or some combination of both.

Problem 3 ✅🤔

“Science and the Citizen,” in Scientific American, Vol. 214, No. 2, February 1966: “A series of tests . . . has substantiated the common complaint of air travelers that swift transition through several time zones disturbs their bodily and even their mental functions. . . . The tests involved healthy male volunteers, who were carried by jet airplane from the U.S. to such cities as Tokyo, Manila, and Rome, passing through as many as 10 time zones. As a control to make sure that the effects resulted from changes of times and not merely from jet travel, there was a flight from Washington, D.C., to Santiago, Chile; it covered a long distance but was all in the same time zone. On the outbound flights that crossed a number of time zones, the passengers underwent physiological changes—in heart rate, temperature, and perspiration—that persisted for several days. They also showed a deterioration, for about a day, in mental acuity as indicated by difficulty in doing simple problems in arithmetic and by slowed responses to sensory stimuli. Similar effects appeared on the return trips but did not last as long. In contrast, the flight to Chile produced only a sense of fatigue.”

By the method of difference, nothing can be the cause of X in the presence of which X does not occur. Thus, we can eliminate the set of volunteers, jet travel, first trip, and the long flight as the cause of the physiological changes and reduction in mental acuity, since those factors are present on the US to Chile flight (which lacked the physiological and acuity changes). This leaves the crossing of time zones as the sole possible sufficient factor causing the physiological and acuity effects. It's also possible that being an outbound flight and being the first trip aggravates the issue in the presence of crossing time zones, since the outbound flights and first trips had more pronounced effects. This would be an application of the method of residues. We've established (given huge assumptions) that the crossing of time zones is the cause of the physiological and acuity changes. And long flight, jet airplane, flight, and healthy male volunteers are present in the Inbound Flights that cross time zones, without leading to increased physiological or acuity changes. Therefore, the additional effect in the case of the outbound time-zone crossing flights must be attributable to their outbound nature or to being the first trip.

Peikoff mentions the issue that people may have gotten used to the traveling but doesn't mention the method of residues. He explains that IRL there are various limitations with the data as presented that would make generalizing problematic (e.g. they didn't do any tests with women).

Problem 4 ✅

Violent movies cannot be the cause of moral degeneracy. What about all the degenerates who have never seen such movies?

By Mill's method of agreement, we can say that nothing can be the cause of effect X in the absence of which X occurs. Degeneracy occurs in the absence of violent movies. Therefore, viewing violent movies cannot be the cause of degeneracy.

Caveat: violent movies might affect the culture at large and cause degeneracy even among people who don't view the movies directly. They also might make degeneracy worse in some way.

Peikoff: This is not an attempt to establish a cause but an attempt to refute a hypothesis.

Problem 5 ✅❌

G. Gore, The Art of Scientific Discovery: “In H. Davies’ experiments on the decomposition of water by galvanism, it was found that besides the two components of water, oxygen and hydrogen, an acid and an alkali were developed at opposite poles of the machine. Since the theory of the analysis of water did not give reason to expect these products, their presence constituted a problem. . . . Davies conjectured that there might be some hidden cause for this part of the effect—the glass might suffer decomposition, or some foreign matter might be in the water. He then proceeded to investigate whether or not the diminution or total elimination of possible causes would change or eliminate the effect in question. Substituting gold vessels for glass ones, he found no change in the effect and concluded that glass was not the cause. Using distilled water, he found a decrease in the quantity of acid and alkali involved, yet enough remained to show that the cause was still in operation. He inferred that impurity of the water was not the sole cause, but was a concurrent cause. He then suspected that perspiration from the hands might be the cause, as it would contain salt which would decompose into acid and alkali under electricity. By avoiding such contact, he reduced the quantity of the effect still further, till only slight traces remained. These might be due to some impurity of the atmosphere decomposed by the electricity. An experiment determined this. The machine was put under an exhausted receiver and when it was thus secured from atmospheric influences, no acid or alkali was produced.”

"Exhausted receiver" apparently means a vessel the interior of which is a vacuum.

I interpreted the experiment changes as occurring in the order in which they were mentioned.

❌I initially skimmed and misread the glass as having an effect.

✅I think this would be method of residues by multiple steps. Based on the third experiment, we hypothesize that the use of a distilled water resulted in the difference in acid and alkali between the initial and second experiments, and then we repeat that pattern for hand contact and atmospheric contact.

Peikoff: The primary method is residues but there are additional methods involved in the steps. In eliminating the glass as a relevant factor to the effect, the method of agreement is used. In establishing that the distilled water, atmosphere and hand contact as factors, the method of difference is used (don't think I knew that that was applicable in cases of a lessened effect).

Problem 6 ✅

If poverty is the cause of crime, why doesn’t everyone who is poor become a criminal?

This appears to be another refutation of an argument like #4. By the method of difference, nothing can be the cause of X in the presence of which X does not occur. Person B is poor but a non-criminal. Thus, poverty cannot be the cause of crime.

Problem 7 ✅

J. Dollard and N. E. Miller, Personality and Psychotherapy: “It is interesting to note that one of the frequent symptoms of extreme combat anxiety cases is an interference with speech that may run from complete muteness to hesitation and stuttering. Similarly, the sufferer from acute stage fright is unable to speak. Many animals tend to stop vocalizing when frightened, and it is obvious that this tendency is adaptive in preventing them from attracting the attention of their enemies. In the light of this evidence one might suspect that the drive of fear has an innate tendency to elicit the response of stopping vocal behavior.”

This is arguing based on method of agreement due to the presence of fear whenever the problem vocalizing occurs.

The argument is very dubious for various reasons. First, it seems to indicate that the combat anxiety sufferers don't all actually experience an interference with speech in discussing "one of the frequent symptoms". If a symptom occurs frequently in some context, that implies that it does not consistently occur. That means that some people who experience extreme combat anxiety don't have the problem vocalizing, which calls into question the argument that there's a strong relationship between fear and having problems vocalizing. A similar issue comes up with animals. We're told "[m]any animals tend to stop vocalizing when frightened." Well, which ones, and how strong a tendency?

There's also the issue that it basically treats animals and the effect of fear on their vocalizing as the same sort of thing as humans. Also, whatever you think about animals, their manner of "vocalizing" or "speech" is different than ours. It's plausible that even if there is some relationship between an animal being in a stressful situation and not vocalizing, it functions on entirely different principles than in the human case.

Also, the manifestation of the problems vocalizing is different/unclear. With the combat anxiety people, we're told that the issues "may run from complete muteness to hesitation and stuttering". For the next case, we're just told that "the sufferer from acute stage fright is unable to speak", which sounds pretty absolute (more than I would think is likely warranted by the facts but whatever). Then we're told, as mentioned above, that "[m]any animals tend to stop vocalizing when frightened", which is vague and non-specific.

Peikoff was very critical of the argument too.

Problem 8 ✅

A refutation of astrology by Pliny the Elder: “If a man’s destiny is caused by the star under which he is born, then all men born under that star should have the same fortune. But masters and slaves, and kings and beggars are born under the same star at the same time.”

By the method of difference, nothing can be the cause of X in the presence of which X does not occur.

In the different cases, being born under a given star and born at the same time are present. And yet, for person 1, neither the Slave, King, or Beggar effect occur – only master. And likewise with the other people. So we can say from looking at Person 1, by the method of difference, that being born under star A and at time A cannot be the cause of being a Slave, King, or Beggar, because the factors are present and those effects are absent. And then, looking at person 2, we can say that being born under star A and at time A cannot be the cause of being a Master, King, or Beggar. And so by Person 2 we've eliminated the factors under consideration as the cause of being a master, slave, king or beggar.

Problem 9 ✅

Bernard Jaffe, Outposts of Science: “For many years, there appeared to be some connection between body growth and the functioning of [the pituitary] gland. In 1783 John Hunter had bargained with an undertaker for the body of an Irish giant of eight feet, four inches—Charles O’Brien, who had died at the age of twenty-two. The physician finally bought the body for twenty-five hundred dollars, and found a pituitary almost as large as a hen’s egg. That of a normal adult man weighs hardly more than half a gram. A century later, acromegaly, an enlargement of the hands, feet, nose, lips, and jaw, was declared to be due to a tumor of the pituitary. The pituitary glands of dwarfs, some of them only eighteen inches high, all showed relatively small development or partial atrophy.”

The method being applied here is concomitant variation. If a certain factor alone varies concomitantly with the variations in the effect, then that factor is the cause of the variations in the effect – or an indispensable part of the cause. The factor that varies is pituitary gland size (or whether it has a tumor), and the effect is the size of the body or its parts.

Peikoff notes that you'd have to consider and rule a bunch of stuff out to validly make this connection IRL.

Problem 10 ✅❌

Henry Hazlitt, What You Should Know About Inflation: “It is sometimes thought that it is ‘war’ that is responsible for all inflations. But . . . some of the most spectacular recent inflations have occurred in countries relatively untouched by the war. Between 1950 and the end of 1959, the money supply in Chile increased nineteen times, and the cost of living there increased twenty times. In Bolivia, between 1950 and 1959, the money supply was increased seventy times, and the cost of living there increased a hundred times. Similar records could be cited for other countries.”

❌ Hazlitt is refuting the idea that war causes inflation by showing cases where there was no war (or a country was "relatively untouched by the war") and there was still inflation. By the method of difference, nothing can be the cause of X in the presence of which X does not occur. War is not present in the cases, and yet large cost of living increases are present, and thus by the method of difference, war can be rejected as a sufficient cause of inflation.

Peikoff: This is actually the method of agreement. War is absent, and yet the effect occurs anyways.

✅ Concomitant variation is also relevant. If a certain factor alone varies concomitantly with the variations in the effect, then that factor is the cause of the variations in the effect – or an indispensable part of the cause. Money supply increases vary (very roughly) with the variations in the effect, and they're the sole factor (of the factors we're looking at) that so varies.

Peikoff: You'd need to look at a bunch of other countries to actually validate this approach.

Analogies Short Summary

An analogical argument is an argument which infers, from the similarity of two or more things, situations, or relationships, in one or more respects, a similarity among them in some further respect.

Peikoff recommends the following procedure in analyzing analogies:

• Find the things being compared.
• Enumerate the known similarities.
• State the inferred similarities.
• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."
• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

Analogies Problems

Problem 1 ✅❌

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: “Look round the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine. . . . The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance—of human design, thought, wisdom and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble and that the Author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties. . . .”

• Find the things being compared.

❌ The creations of nature and the creations of human beings.

(A machine and the world/universe is what Peikoff was looking for).

• Enumerate the known similarities.

✅ They involve means adapted to ends.

• State the inferred similarities.

✅ Because both the creations of nature and the creations of man are adapted to some purpose, they must have been so adapted by some conscious entity.

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

❌"All creations which are adapted to a purpose are adapted to that purpose by a conscious entity."

Peikoff's version: Everything which is lawful/orderly/regular is so because a mind has ordered it.

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

(I changed my original answer in light of the above)

No. It's basically primacy of consciousness. You need an orderly universe for anything to exist in a stable way over time in the first place. If everything is a chaotic flux, you can't have advanced things like intelligent entities. So saying the order in the universe must have been created by an intelligent entity is putting the cart before the horse.

Peikoff: Means and ends is a concept only applicable where purpose is applicable. This would be begging the question. So you want to reformulate a better version that says something like a machine and the universe are both lawful, orderly, regular etc.

Peikoff: Causality is the source of the laws of nature and causality is an expression of the law of identity.

Peikoff: Only a special type of order requires an intelligence. The type of order is the type that involves the expression of purposeful action. This type is present in machines but not in the universe.

Problem 2 ✅🤔

Why bother about the cause of mental illness? The important thing is to cure it. After all, as Dr. William Menninger has said, “One does not have to know the cause of a fire to put it out.”

I think what the argument is getting at is vague. It's unclear to me if the author thinks that solutions already exist for mental illness, or is just saying that the key issue is to find a cure and not worry about causation. Below, I analyze according to the solutions-exist interpretation.

• Find the things being compared.

✅ Mental illnesses and fires.

• Enumerate the known similarities.

✅🤔Mental illnesses and fires both have causes and at least potential solutions (cures). (implied)

Peikoff says that they're both eradicable. He doesn't mention them having causes. I think that causation is implied.

• State the inferred similarities.

✅ The solution (cure) to fires works without knowing the cause of a fire. Therefore, a solution to mental illness should work without knowing the cause of the mental illness.

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

✅ If something has a solution, one should be able to apply it in the absence of knowledge of the cause.

Peikoff: Knowledge of the cause of a phenomenon is dispensable in the effort to eradicate it.

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

I think it's invalid. First of all, we do have knowledge of the causes of fires at a general level. We also have an understanding of how to put them out, and we know that in some cases (like oil fires) water isn't a good option and we need to use something else.

Apart from that, fire is a relatively simple case compared to what people consider mental illness.

Peikoff: If you had an epidemic of fires, you'd need to understand the cause.

Peikoff: On Oist theory, curing mental illness involves removing certain premises and psychoepistemology and whatnot which are the cause. You can't do this without understanding.

Problem 3 ✅

Plato, Republic: “Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch, and in the other duties of dogs? Do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling of their puppies is labor enough for them? No, they share alike in the various duties, the only difference being one of strength. Then, since the difference between men and women consists only in the fact that men beget and women bear children, women ought to follow the same pursuits which men follow, and they ought to receive the same education and training.”

• Find the things being compared.

✅ He's comparing human men and women and male and female dogs.

• Enumerate the known similarities.

✅ Both humans and dogs have females bearing the children and men begetting them.

Peikoff: Both dogs and humans have two sexes and are differentiated only by strength.

• State the inferred similarities.

Since male and female dogs share in their duties, men and women should share in their duties.

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

✅ All entities who are differentiated only by whether or not they bear children should share in the allotment of duties.

Peikoff added in a point about strength and put things more generally as sharing in the pursuits of life (instead of just focusing on duties) but got at the same basic point.

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

I think it is bad. There are a few problems I have with it, despite viewing women as being just as capable as men.

• ✅ Dogs and people are very different, and so the fact that something is true for dogkind does not prove that it's likewise for humans.
    – Someone in the lecture brought up a similar point and specifically mentioned humans having free will. Peikoff said he didn't think the person had shown grounds to reject the analogy but that there was a problem in the analogy's failure to state the essential characteristic of man (namely his rational faculty).
        – Peikoff gives an example of what he thinks would be a bad analogy. The analogy runs: Dogs are divided into male and female, differ only in strength and reproductive activity, and we chain both up at night, and thus should do the same with humans. In this case, per Peikoff, a reference to the rational faculty of man (as compared to dogs, who are animals) would destroy the analogy. – Peikoff says the analogy as such proves nothing and you need to get into a discussion about whether sex is relevant to human ethics.
• Lots of people would find "the difference between men and women consists only in the fact that men beget and women bear children" a controversial premise that needs more elaboration (I forget if Plato goes into detail on that in The Republic.)
• There is a collectivist premise of there being some central assigner of duties out there deciding what people do, which I disagree with. (I think men and women should both be free to choose to do whatever).

Problem 4 ✅

George Jean Nathan, Testament of a Critic: “Any critic who goes to the trouble of explaining laboriously why a piece of out-and-out tripe is out-and-out tripe is not a critic so much as he is a pretentious and imbecile space-filler. All the constructive criticism this side of Beverly Hills, California, that concerned itself with The Blue Ghost, Oh, Professor, House Afire and a hundred other such doses of claptrap would not be of half the critical service and merit that the single exclamation ‘Junk!’ is. When a house has smallpox in it, the best and most sufficient thing to do is to tack up a card on it reading Smallpox. There is little sense or need to put up a three-sheet explaining in detail what smallpox is, its contagious quality . . . how the disease can be cured, the diet of the patient . . . etc.”

• Find the things being compared.

✅ Some sort of plays, literature, or other literary art and a house whose residents have smallpox.

Peikoff: You could also look at it as an analogy between a doctor and a critic.

• Enumerate the known similarities.

✅ The art is bad and it's implied/taken as a premise that diseases like smallpox are bad.

Peikoff adds that both things involve an evaluation by a specialist.

Or with doctor/critic framing: the doctor and critic both encounter things which are clearly bad.

• State the inferred similarities.

If something is really bad, you can just state that it's bad directly. It doesn't need a long description of what's wrong with it.

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

✅ All really bad things can just have their badness pointed out. You don't need a long description of why it's bad.

Peikoff: Whenever a specialist encounters a negative case, al he should do is give it a one-word label without explanation.

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

✅ I think the analogy between bad literary art and smallpox is flawed. Smallpox is widely viewed as a bad thing, but there is considerably more disagreement in things like art. Where there is more disagreement, more explanation is necessary.

• Peikoff: state of medicine is more objective than state of artistic criticism. There's also no way of knowing on what philosophy a verdict is based if you give a one-word verdict.

I also think that the argument is mistaken even if the analogy were a good one. In general, it's often very worth going into more explanatory detail on things (good or bad), because people often have mistakes or misconceptions that can benefit from the correction provided by such an explanation.

Problem 5 ✅

“Government by the consent of the governed” is ridiculous. Should babies elect their own nursemaids? Do you think even college students have the ability to elect their own teachers?

• Find the things being compared.

✅Citizens and their government, babies and their nursemaids, college students and their teachers.

• Enumerate the known similarities.

✅ These are situations where somebody is in a position of power and authority over somebody else.

It's implied that they all lack the competence to do so.

• State the inferred similarities.

✅Nobody in the subordinate position relative to some authority (e.g. citizens, babies, college students) has the ability/competence to choose the people governing them.

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

✅All people in a subordinate position to some authority lack the ability or competence to choose their rulers.

(Peikoff frames stuff in terms of guiding or supervising rather than subordinate/superior position, but same idea).

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

It is very bad as far as comparing citizens and babies. Babies are helpless and can't communicate well, so it's not even clear how babies electing their nursemaids would work. A citizen is a grown adult with rights and responsibilities, and does not stand in the same position as a baby.

IMHO, the issue is different with the comparison to college students. College students already exercise some control over what professors they interact with in terms of course and major selection, and one can imagine a system of exercising more direct control (e.g. where the students act as a body together with the school to hire a particular person as an instructor in some subject) and it's not clear why that should be a ridiculous notion. An implicit idea might be that all college students are non-serious or something and would make hires based on absurd grounds, but I don't think that's the case.

Also, there's a collectivist premise I disagree with here, as I would say that in a free society the government is subordinate to the people, and not vice versa.

• Peikoff says that nursemaids and professors have their positions by being older and wise then those who they are guiding, and that's not true of the government.
• Peikoff says that in college case, relationship is voluntary. In nursemaid case, there is voluntary relationship with parents. There is not voluntary relationship with government.

Problem 6 ✅❌

Newell Dwight Hillis: “The canvas Raphael painted has endured for three centuries. But has God ordained that the canvas shall be preserved while the artist has fallen into dust? Is “In Memoriam” more than Tennyson? Is St. Paul’s Cathedral more than Sir Christopher Wren, its architect? Is the leaf to live, while the tree dies? Reason and conscience whisper, ‘It cannot be. If thoughts live, the thinker cannot die. To suppose that death ends all is intellectually as absurd as it is morally monstrous.’”

• Find the things being compared.

❌The artist's actual life and the existence of an artist's work (and perhaps acknowledgement of/thoughts about their work? unclear.)

Peikoff says the comparison is: leaf is to the tree, as to the art is to the artist, as to the thoughts are to the thinker. Peikoff makes the leaf thing a major point, whereas I barely noticed it.

• Enumerate the known similarities.

It is possible for an artist to die, and it is possible for an artist's work to no longer exist (or to not be acknowledged or thought of).

Peikoff (following his leaf/art/thoughts analysis): we have a relationship between something being produced and something that produces.

• State the inferred similarities.

✅❌If an artist's work exists, then the artist hasn't died.

(Peikoff's formulation was more general but still on the same track: the continued existence of the first presupposes the continued existence of the second).

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

All artists whose work exists live on.

Peikoff: In all cases where something is produced by or dependent for its creation on something else, then the thing produced can continue in existence only so long as the producer continues in existence.

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

✅It's terrible. Whether an artist's work exists or is acknowledged matters, but it's an entirely different issue than whether the artist continues to live, think, create, and retain the capacity to create more works.

Peikoff: leaf is literal organic part of the true, and can't live when severed from the whole. But the art is not an organic part of the artist, nor are thoughts an organic part of the thinker.

Problem 7 ✅

Determinism means the destruction of morality. Just as you cannot hold an animal, which has no power of choice, responsible for what it does—so, if man’s behavior is completely determined, you cannot hold him responsible for his actions.

• Find the things being compared.

✅ Animals and man in terms of their moral responsibility under a certain theory of ethics.

• Enumerate the known similarities.

✅ Both animals in general and man under determinism lack choice.

• State the inferred similarities.

✅ Animals have no choice and therefore lack responsibility. If man has no choice, he also lacks responsibility.

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

✅ All entities that lack choice lack responsibility.

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

✅ I think the analogy is basically sound if we take determinism as referring to the philosophical view (and not to physics or something).

Problem 8 ✅

Abraham Lincoln: “Gentlemen, I want to suppose a case for a moment. Suppose that all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin, the famous rope walker, to carry across the Niagara Falls on a tight rope. Would you shake the rope while he was passing over it, or keep shouting to him, ‘Blondin, stoop a little more! Go a little faster!’ No, I am sure you would not. You would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safely over. Now the government is in the same position. It is carrying an immense weight across a stormy ocean. Untold treasures are in its hands. It is doing the best it can. Don’t badger it! Just keep still, and it will get you safely over.”

• Find the things being compared.

✅A tight rope walker, Blondin, and the government during the Civil War.

• Enumerate the known similarities.

✅They are both in precarious situations and entrusted with things of great value.

• State the inferred similarities.

✅Blondin would walk the rope best without being criticized by outsiders, and therefore the US government would function best without such criticism as well.

• State the general principle that is implicit. Always has the structure "All possessors of the known similarities will be possessors of the inferred similarities."

✅ Whenever someone in a precarious situation is entrusted with a thing of great value, you should hold your tongue and recognize they're doing their best.

• Evaluate the analogy. Is it good or bad? Is the implicit principle a valid generalization?

✅Bad. A tight rope walker is a special situation that requires great, continuous concentration combined with physical effort. In that context, criticism might be distracting. In the context of e.g. the press or the opposition party criticizing the government, they aren't necessarily imperiling the government's efforts in the same way, and the criticism may actually help.

Peikoff: Walking a tight rope is a single action, but a war is a series of continuous actions across time. The criticism Blondin might receive isn't really usable in the moment.