Addressing Sexual Harassment

According to Title V11 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sexual harassment is a form of discrimination.

When an employee makes a complaint of experiencing sexual harassment in any way, it is extremely serious. The employer has a legal, ethical, and employee relations obligation to thoroughly investigate the charges. Not only that, it is their responsibility to find out per quid pro quo. Also, the damage to the organization is much greater than that of the dollar losses of court cases. If the employee feels unsafe, he/she will feel anxiety, lack of trust, fear, and other such problems that come up when harassment is an issue. As such, an employer’s actions can send powerful signals about what another employee can expect in similar circumstances.

It is because of this that each organization should have policies on these three;
1. General harassment
2. Sexual harassment
3. How harassment investigations are conducted

Content Fallacies

As stated in the book, the content fallacy on appealing to emotion is “you should believe or do ___ because you feel ___.” To be put simply, it is using your feelings or beliefs to convince you to do or believe in something that you maybe would not normally think or do otherwise. Instead of facts, you are persuaded by your emotions. It is typically because of this that the argument would not work.

For example, the teen angst of telling someone how you feel. “You should ask him to the dance since you like him.” In those days, it was so easy for kids to push others to say or do this or that. There are a couple of things that can be wrong with that. One would be if you want to go to the dance in the first place. The other would be if you even like the guy enough, or at all, to want to spend that kind of time with him.

Structure of Arguments Exercise #1

(1)My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard.
(2)People do not like living next door to such a mess.
(3)He never drives any of them.
(4)They all look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place.
(5)It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values.

Argument?
Yes, this is an argument. Sentences 2-5 are claims to the argument that the neighbor should get rid of all his cars.
Conclusion:
The neighbor should be forced to get rid of all his cars.
Additional premises needed?
The property values will decrease because my neighbor owns old beat up cars that leak oil all over the place in his yard.
Identify any subargument:
2 and 4 support 5, while 3 supports 1. 2-5 also supports 1.
Good argument?
No, it wasn't.

This question was a little challenging, but it all comes down to one thing, which is that neighbor's opinion. Everyone has their own opinion. Though it seems like this neighbor was letting his cars collect in his yard, it wasn't like the sight was that distasteful that it was such an eyesore.

Discussion Q #2

Vague example; I am also a foodie.
I know that for most people, they would wonder how a sentence like this would be vague. I was having a conversation with a new friend the other day, and this person had claimed that he is a foodie. It made me excited because I myself claim that I am one as well. I realized this statement was vague to him when I discovered that this guy only meant that he loved food, not that he knew much about it. We had gone to eat Thai food for lunch, and thinking that he was a foodie, I began to talk about the food we were eating (i.e.: breaking down the ingredients, flavors, etc.) and he was looking at me as if I was crazy. I was a bit dumbfounded by his reaction until he asked why I was doing that. Oh, the blasphemy! This guy lost his brownie points.

Discussion Q #1

Subjective claim;
What is right and wrong depends on the individual and their beliefs. Whether it is actually true or not is not a factor.

Subjective example;
I had a brief talk with my coworker the other day about the movie "No Strings Attached," and how much my older brother loves it. He loved it so much that he admitted it made him "feel fuzzy on the inside." My coworker, however, did not enjoy the movie at all. He felt that it was not funny and that all the characters were either one sided or inconsistent. This guy talked about his dislike so passionately that it actually made me feel quite awkward; it almost felt like we were talking about some kind of controversy. Just because one person loves a movie, it doesn't mean that the next person will feel the same.

Objective claim;
A claim that is actually true or false dependent on logical facts.

Objective example;
A new thing I noticed that The Cheesecake Factory is doing is providing its patrons with nutritional information on their menu items; this also includes the name tags on the dessert displays. It is a no brainer to say that their black-out cake is extremely high in calories. At over 1,500 calories for a single slice, this cake is a force to be reckoned with. When a single serving of this cake contains almost as much calories as a person should consume in a day, I don't think anybody can argue about whether this is subjective or objective.