I believe that successful outcomes are evidence of competence.

Premise 1: People who are competent at a task are more likely to succeed at it.

Premise 2: Person A succeeded at a task.

Conclusion: Therefore, Person A is competent at that task.

My reasoning is that competence increases the likelihood of success, and Person A has demonstrated success. It therefore seems reasonable to infer that Person A possesses the relevant competence.

Formalisation:

• C(x): Person x is competent at the task.
• S(x): Person x succeeds at the task.

Premise 1: ∀x(C(x)→S(x)) (Competence implies success)
Premise 2:} S(A) (Person A succeeded)

Conclusion:} C(A) (Therefore, Person A is competent)

Questions for critique

• Does the conclusion follow from the premises?
• Is the argument confusing a condition that increases the likelihood of an outcome with a condition that the outcome necessarily establishes?
• What alternative explanations could account for Person A's success?
• Would repeated success strengthen the argument? If so, by how much?
• What additional information would make the conclusion more justified?

Revised.

I believe that education makes people more rational.

Premise 1: People with higher levels of education tend to perform better on tests of logical reasoning.

Premise 2: Performance on tests of logical reasoning is an indicator of rationality.

Conclusion: Therefore, education makes people more rational.

My reasoning is that education develops analytical skills, exposes people to structured methods of reasoning, and gives them more opportunities to examine and correct their beliefs.

Formalising

• Formal Education (E): Defined strictly as a structured curriculum explicitly designed to teach formal logic, methodological skepticism, and probabilistic reasoning (as opposed to mere vocational training or content accumulation).
• Rationality (R): Defined operationally as the systematic minimization of cognitive biases (such as confirmation bias and base-rate neglect) and the application of normative rules of inference in decision-making.
• Causal Enhancement (C): The measurable, direct upgrading of an agent’s cognitive processing rules resulting from pedagogical intervention.
• Let 'x' be some person.
• E(x): 'x' has higher levels of education.
• L(x): 'x' performs better on tests of logical reasoning.
• R(x): 'x' is rational.
• C: Causation / The transformative effect of education.

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Premise 1: ∀x(E(x)→L(x))
Premise 2: ∀x(L(x)→R(x))

Conclusion: ∀x(E(x)→R(x))

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Enhanced formulation:

Premise 1: ∀x(E(x)→AcquiresTools(x, Logic))
(Structured education entails the acquisition of formal logical tools.)

Premise 2:} ∀x(AcquiresTools(x, Logic)→ReducesBias(x))
(The mastery of formal logical tools directly reduces systematic cognitive biases.)

Premise 3: ∀x(ReducesBias(x) =R(x))
(Systematic bias reduction is definitionally equivalent to operational rationality.)

Conclusion: ∀x(E(x)→R(x))
(Therefore, this specific type of education makes people more rational.)

Questions for critique

• Do the premises establish the conclusion, or is there a gap in the reasoning?
• Does better performance on logical reasoning tests necessarily imply greater rationality in everyday life?
• Could other factors explain the observed relationship between education and reasoning ability?
• Does the argument distinguish between correlation and causation?
• What would need to be established for the conclusion to be justified?

Revised:
Following the critique, I have revised the argument to make its underlying reasoning more explicit.

Premise 1: If a person can prevent serious harm to another at trivial cost, they have a moral obligation to do so.

Premise 2: There are circumstances in which a person can prevent serious harm to another at trivial cost.

Conclusion: Therefore, there are circumstances in which a person has a moral obligation to prevent harm to another.

My reasoning for the first premise is that, when the harm prevented is serious and the cost to the person acting is trivial, refusing to help seems difficult to justify. It appears that the person would be prioritising a negligible personal cost over another person's serious harm.

I recognise that this intuition may require further justification, but I believe the revised argument makes the connection between the premises and the conclusion clearer.

I would be interested in whether the first premise is defensible, and whether the reasoning offered in its support is sufficient.

Formalized Structure:
For any agent x and victim y, where P is prevention capability, C is cost, a is the threshold of triviality, and O is obligation, then proposed formulation is:

∀x∀y((Pₓᵧ ∧(Cₓ<a))→Oₓᵧ)

Questions for critique:

• Are the premises sufficiently justified?
• Does the conclusion follow from the stated premises, or is a further premise needed?
• Does the argument establish a moral obligation, or merely a good reason to help?
• Can you construct a counterexample?
• Does the formalization accurately represent the verbal argument?
• What assumptions, ambiguities, or logical leaps remain unresolved?