Reanna. The first thing you have to realize is that The Book of Vuntag is absolutely right about everything, particularly in it's claims about morality. In fact, the Book of Vuntag actually defines what morality is.
Johan. But The Book of Vuntag tells me that it is immoral for someone to be left-handed. It also tells me that everybody should persecute left-handed people until they change their ways, and torture or kill them if they don't. Left-handed people don't hurt anyone else, and they can't help being left-handed, so the Book of Vuntag has to be wrong about that.
Reanna. Much as we might regret the unfortunate necessity of persecuting left-handed people, we know that the book of Vuntag is right about morality because Vuntag says so! And Vuntag cannot lie.
Johan. But what makes you think that Vuntag even exists? And how can you be certain that Vuntag cannot lie?
Reanna. Oh Johan, Johan, my poor foolish Johan. Don't you know that it's all written in the book of Vuntag?
I'll do Johan's argument first.
The Book of Vuntag makes at least one false claim about morality.
The Book of Vuntag is not absolutely right in all it's claims about morality.
Here's Reanna's arguments.
Vuntag says that the Book of Vuntag is absolutely right in all it's claims about morality.
Vuntag cannot lie.
The Book of Vuntag is absolutely right in all it's claims about morality.
This is supported by.
The Book of Vuntag says that Vuntag cannot lie.
The Book of Vuntag is absolutely right about everything
Vuntag cannot lie.
This is basically a circular argument. The Book of Vuntag is cited as an authority about morality. This claim of authority is backed up by citing Vuntag himself as another authority. But then the claim that Vuntag exists and is an infallible authority is backed up by citing the Book of Vuntag, which puts us right back where we started.
Evaluation
Based on the information presented above, the book of Vuntag is not completely
accurate about morality. Johan proves this by giving one instance of a false
moral claim found in the book of Vuntag. Reanna tries to defeat this argument
by claiming that the moral claim Johan cites is in fact true. She justifies this
by claiming Vuntag as an authority for the veracity of the book of Vuntag. Then
he tries to support the authority of Vuntag by claiming the book of Vuntag as an
authority. This is the fallacy of circular argument, so it obviously does not
defeat Johan's argument.
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