On our way to school one day a Coldplay song came on the radio. My cousin who is a big fan said "British bands always make great music. So Coldplay makes great music."
This is an example of a defective argument because it is missing key information that would be make it a much more plausible claim. The main part that is missing is "Coldplay is a British band". Without this information a person who is not familiar with them would not know that they are of British origin. Another part that makes the argument defective is "British bands always make great music" the key word being "always". This statement is a fallacy because there is nothing that could prove this statement to be plausible. There is no possible way that would lead everyone to believe that British bands will and always make great music. Also this statement is subjective since a person's taste in music differs from others based on their knowledge and experience in that specific genre. "Great music" has a different definition to everyone and making this a claim is not correct because of that reason.
But as Epstein explains the only we can repair this argument is by adding that bit of information about how Coldplay is a British band. "We repair only as needed". (Epstein, 63)
Changing the first premise will not make the argument better because it is my cousin's opinion and his personal belief.
I enjoyed reading your response to repairing arguments. I like how you immediately jumped right into the example in your blog. I agree with your example. Cold play does make great music, but as stated, the argument is weak and needs repair because it needs an added premise. I think it was well written. I liked how you really explained your example and went into great detail. I liked you mentioned it is subjective as well. I agree, everyone's taste in music is different. I also liked how you added Epstein's statement from the text then explaining your example with it. Overall, I think you did a great job on explaining how to repair an argument.
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