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Blog Post 2 Chapter 4



For this week's blog post, I will talk about Argument by analogy.



Argument by Analogy is one of the many ways used to provide reasons for an argument. Argument by analogy is defined as comparing two situations that you believe have the same essential characteristics and reason that a specific characteristic found in one situation also exists in an analogous situation. Traditionally people have differentiated between literal and figurative analogy. Literal analogy is based on factual comparisons whereas, figurative analogy is based on fanciful relations. 



           

            From the perspective of reasoning, similar caparisons are more significant because decision makers tend to make them more seriously. A claim reasons that what is about one point of comparison is arguably so about another, or can be used to argue a point based on comparison. Argument by analogy is an important strategy of reasoning used by lawyers and judges. Courts work on consistency and therefore, precedents are used to justify and analogize situations by lawyers. Using previous cases helps lawyers top compare cases and helps keep the law consistent in different situations.



            A current example, of argument by analogy is the case of Judge Kavanaugh. A woman named Dr. Christine Blasely Ford acme up with the allegation that Judge Kavanaugh had assaulted her almost 30 years ago in high school. The court had its confirmation hearing last Friday 27th September 2018. But there was a lot of push back from the Democratic Senators as well as Dr. Ford for an FBI investigation. Many Senators compared this cased and analogized it with the Anita Hill case, which was also a sexual harassment case against a Supreme Court Nominee Clearance Thomas in 1991. But in the Anita Hill case there was an FBI investigation that took place before the confirmation hearing of Justice Thomas. Literal analogy was used in the Kavanagh case to argue for a FBI investigation so both parties could be treated fairly. Hence, the Judiciary Committee decided to delay the vote on judge Kavanaugh and order an FBI investigation by using the Anita Hill case as an analogy.

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