An Effective Response: Using Counterexamples

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 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

A common strategy writers use to refute alternative causes is to give counterexamples. A counterexample contradicts the causal explanation and shows that the analysis is flawed or at least incomplete. We can see this strategy at work in Vedantam’s response to the cause proposed by Pamela Burns, the president of the Hawaiian Humane Society:

Paraphrase of Burns’s cause

Saving the dog, as Pamela Burns suggested to me, was an act of pure altruism, and a marker of the remarkable capacity human beings have to empathize with the plight of others.

There are a series of disturbing questions, however. Eight years before Hokget was rescued, the same world that showed extraordinary compassion in the rescue of a dog sat on its hands as a million human beings were killed in Rwanda. (pars. 6–7)

Transition cueing refutation

Counterexample

ANALYZE & WRITE

Write a paragraph or two analyzing and assessing how Vedantam refutes philosopher Peter Singer’s causal analysis:

  1. Reread paragraphs 10 and 11. What example and counterexample does Singer use? How does Vedantam explain what Singer’s thought experiment demonstrates?
  2. Now examine paragraph 11, noting where Vedantam appears to accept Singer’s causal analysis and also where he cues readers that he is about to question it. How does Vedantam use the counterexample of Hokget to refute Singer’s explanation?
  3. How effective is Vedantam’s response? Does Singer’s thought experiment raise interesting moral issues outside the context of Hogket?

    Question