Thank you for all your help tonight Ms. Sue - I have a few more questions before I'm done!
From the argument I cited - would this be a good explanation of valid/invalid, strong or weak, sound or unsound
The author’s argument is invalid, because the premise that physicians don’t give the same level of care to disabled people is not proven by the conclusion that disabled people have become distrustful of physicians.The argument, therefore, must be unsound because the premise is not proven to be true.The argument is a strong, inductive argument though. If it is true that physicians give lesser quality of care to disabled people, it would follow that disabled people would be distrustful of physicians.
You're welcome!
Your explanation is excellent! :-)
To determine whether the argument is valid or invalid, it's important to consider the logical relationship between the premises and the conclusion. In this case, the argument is being evaluated based on the premise that physicians don't provide the same level of care to disabled people, leading to the conclusion that disabled people have become distrustful of physicians.
Validity: To check for validity, we need to determine whether the conclusion logically follows from the premises. In this argument, the author assumes that if physicians provide lesser quality of care to disabled people, then it follows that disabled people would be distrustful of physicians. However, the argument does not establish a direct logical connection between the premise and the conclusion. Therefore, the argument is considered invalid.
Strength: Strength refers to the degree to which the premises support the conclusion. In this case, the argument is making an inductive claim, suggesting that if physicians provide lesser quality of care to disabled people, it is likely that disabled people would be distrustful of physicians. Since this claim is not universally true or necessarily true, it makes the argument a strong, inductive argument.
Soundness: Soundness of an argument requires both validity and true premises. Since the argument is invalid, we cannot evaluate it for soundness. It cannot be determined whether the premise "physicians don’t give the same level of care to disabled people" is true or not in this context.
In summary, the provided explanation correctly identifies the argument as invalid. It also correctly characterizes the argument as strong due to its inductive reasoning. However, the argument cannot be evaluated for soundness since it is invalid.