Women in the Military: Deductive and Inductive Arguments

Deductive Argument

Since women are vulnerable to sexual violence and military organizations are dominated by men or potential perpetrators, women in the military face the risks of experiencing sexual harassment from men, which finds reflection in military MeToo movements (Alvinius & Holmberg, 2019). In the proposed argument, women’s vulnerability to sexual abuse and harassment acts as the first premise. This statement is true since the fact that women make up the majority of sex crime victims is not called into question. The second premise, men’s numerical superiority in the military structures, is also a well-established fact. When combined, these rather general and self-evident premises give rise to a sound conclusion that females in the military system are at risk of experiencing harassment, and one specific example is demonstrated. Both premises need to be correct to lead to the stated conclusion, which is why the argument is based on deductive reasoning.

This deductive argument could be called invalid but sound; it is based on the facts of the world but does not have the form that would eliminate the opportunity to come to an incorrect conclusion. Despite being intuitively true, it might contain some areas for improvement. As an example, the first premise may need to be reformulated to indicate that sexual violence against women refers specifically to violence committed by men. If it is not done, the connection between the premises and the final conclusion might look less obvious if attention is paid to specific terms and definitions.

Inductive Argument

Non-deductive or inductive arguments can turn out to be invalid even if all premises are based on accurately represented and analyzed data. One inductive argument has been constructed for this assignment with the help of takeaways from comparative medical studies cited by Chen et al. (2020). Female veterans’ exposure to cardiovascular risk factors and the incidence of hypertension are higher than these of their civilian peers; therefore, almost every female veteran will develop cardiovascular disease (Chen et al., 2020). In this example, veterans’ greater exposure to risk factors acts as the first premise, and an increased incidence of high blood pressure compared to civilians is the second premise.

The argument is non-deductive because both premises are factually correct and true, which, however, does not automatically make the final conclusion a true statement. Instead of offering full support for the conclusion, the premises guarantee only partial justification due to being related to the conclusion thematically. The conclusion might be true, but there is no clear link that would make it impossible to have correct premises and an incorrect conclusion. It is because the conclusion seems to exaggerate what is said in the premises instead of using established facts without changing them. Whether the conclusion is true depends on what is meant by “almost any” in terms of the percentage. Finally, the proposed argument could not be called extremely successful. It is because the conclusion’s inexactness makes it relatively challenging to examine and evaluate.

Arguments’ Connections with Moral and Ethical Principles

The arguments above are linked with ethical principles in different ways. In the deductive argument, the problem is that it might be perceived as the vilification of all men, which is not ethically appropriate. Despite being tied with what is observed by researchers, the conclusion might cast a shadow over all military institutions and men in the military system, especially those having power over other female subordinates. As for the non-inductive argument, one issue is that it basically illustrates the contortion of facts, which runs counter to the ethical rules of information representation. Such arguments could be used intentionally to talk women out of joining the military by playing on their fears and violating their freedom of choice.

References

Alvinius, A., & Holmberg, A. (2019). Silence-breaking butterfly effect: Resistance towards the military within# MeToo. Gender, Work & Organization, 26(9), 1255-1270. Web.

Chen, X., Ramanan, B., Tsai, S., & Jeon-Slaughter, H. (2020). Differential impact of aging on cardiovascular risk in women military service members. Journal of the American Heart Association, 9(12), e015087. Web.