Deductive and Inductive Arguments - Essay Example

Deductive and Inductive Arguments A deductive argument is an argument in which the premises are correct, and thus the conclusion from that argument is bound to be correct (Iep.utm.edu). A deductive argument is said to be sound if the premises are true that is they are morally and logically correct. For instance, an argument with the following premise; Moses is 87 years old, Moses has lived more than eight centuries, and the conclusion for the argument is that Moses is an aged person. This argument is sound given the fact that all of its premises are logically correct hence it means since the premises are correct the conclusion from the argument is bound to be correct.

A deductive argument is said to be unsound if its premises are not logically correct, but then they can be founded upon to form a correct conclusion. For instance, the following premises; Mary is 37 years old, Mary is caring then the conclusion from the premises is Mary is a mother. The argument is unsound since the premises are generalized and thus will not form a good basis for making an informed conclusion. The premises since they are general in nature cannot be said to be logically correct since they are not specific to be based for making informed conclusions hence the argument is unsound.

Inductive premises are not always correct the person in the argument will take them as they are to influence a certain conclusion that is desirable (Iep.utm.edu). The nature of the premises in inductive arguments determines whether the overall conclusion of the argument is weak or strong. For instance; the policemen said Peter committed the murder, so Peter is the murderer. This argument is weak because its based on a section of the overall evidence and thus, cannot be depended upon. On the other hand, if we have premises like these; eyewitnesses said they saw Peter commit the murder, fingerprint evidence from the body of the diseased together with the weapon are identical to Peter’s and Peter confessed to the police to have committed the act, so Peter committed the murder.

The argument above is strong since it incorporates a number of evidence that precisely implicates Peter to the murder beyond reasonable doubt.Therefore, from the aforementioned definitions and illustrations it is evident that the deductive arguments are more compelling than the inductive arguments because their conclusion are correctly premised logically and morally as opposed to the inductive arguments, which are often incorrect and depend upon the perception or intention of the individuals to form a conclusion that can be either strong or weak.

Works CitedIep.utm.edu. Deductive and Inductive Arguments. Web. (n.d.). Available at http://www.iep.utm.edu/ded-ind/ [Accessd 14 Nov. 2014].