158 Unit 4 Applied critical thinking
him to say they had been in the canteen all
the time. So that the manager would think he
was not in his office he left the door open and
hid behind it as she passed. Is this all possible?
Yes, it’s possible. But it is unlikely. For a start,
how would Depp know when the manager
was going to leave? This, added to the fact that
the secretary would see him, makes such a
possibility too remote to take very seriously.
On balance of probabilities, it seems that
the secretary’s version of events is altogether
less credible than Depp’s. And that is the
most rational conclusion.Case Two: Collision course
Two drivers – Ed Farr and Ray Crowe – collided
and spun off the track in heavy rain in the last
race of the season earlier today. Neither driver
was injured, but the incident put both cars out of
the race, leaving Crowe as World Champion for
the second year running. Before the race there
was just one point between the two drivers. If Farr
had finished the race ahead of Crowe, he would
have moved into first place and taken the title.
After the race an inquiry was called for into
allegations that Ray Crowe had intentionally
collided with his opponent’s car. The
following items of evidence were noted:
[1] Farr’s team manager reacted furiously by
claiming that Crowe had deliberately
swerved and forced their driver off the
track as he tried to overtake on a
notorious S-bend* known as the Slide.
‘It was no surprise, either,’ she added.
‘With Ed out of the race, Crowe knew he
had won the championship. Of course he
meant to do it.’
[2] A television camera team filmed Crowe
walking away from his wrecked car. He
appears to be smiling as he removes his
helmet. He says to reporters: ‘I hope
you’re not all going to blame this on me. I
just held my line**, and that is completely
within the rules.’ Later he added: ‘It was
all Ed’s fault. He could have killed us
both. It was a crazy place to try to
overtake. He has only himself to blame.’office, taken the money and walked out again
with the secretary sitting at her desk, then
simply denied it in the hope that he would be
believed and not her?
If the secretary is right it also means that
the manager wrongly thought the deputy’s
office was empty when she passed it on two
occasions; and that the driver’s statement is
questionable. In other words, we would have
to disbelieve three people’s statements in order
to believe the secretary’s statement. For them
all to be wrong would be quite a coincidence.
For them all to be lying would require some
mysterious explanation.
So although the secretary’s story seems
credible enough in itself, when we subject it to
this kind of critical examination, it turns out
to have some unlikely consequences. A
consequence is something that follows from
something else. If we find that a certain claim,
or version of events, would have puzzling
consequences, that must throw some doubt
on the claim.
What if we accept the deputy manager’s
account? First of all it is consistent with what
two other witnesses are saying, and that has to
be in Depp’s favour, even if their statements
are a bit vague and uncertain. But, of course, it
means that Rita is lying. It also means that Rita
was alone in the Management Suite for about
20 minutes when the money went missing.
She therefore would have had a much better
opportunity than Depp to steal and hide the
money with no one around to see her. If she
did steal the money, she also had a motive for
trying to pin the blame on someone else.
If you compare the two suppositions,
Depp’s story has much more believable
consequences than Rita’s. This does not put it
beyond reasonable doubt that the secretary is
a thief and a liar, but it does make her story
harder to swallow.
Suppose the deputy manager planned the
theft with the driver. He waited for the
manager to leave her office, walked in there as
the secretary reported, took the money, and
later slipped out to give it to the driver and tell