Logical Reasoning

PT109 · S1 · Q14 After the United Nations Security

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After the United Nations Security Council authorized military intervention by a coalition of armed forces intended to halt civil strife in a certain country, the parliament of one UN member nation passed a resolution condemning its own prime minister for promising to commit military personnel to the action.

Given that ....

Most members of parliament in country A supported the UN plan to send international forces into country Z to quell the turmoil there.

How can we explain that ...

The parliament of country A passed a resolution condemning their prime minister for committing military assistance to the UN's effort?

Evaluate / Goal

We need a way to explain why Parliament seems mad at its Prime Minister for committing to a cause that Parliament largely supports.

If Parliament isn't mad about the cause itself, they must be mad at the Prime Minister for some other reason (the timing? the way she announced it? the amount of assistance she promised is way bigger / smaller than most of Parliament would approve of?)

14.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy presented above?

The UN Security Council cannot
No Impact
This is saying that the UN can't force a country to commit their military to the international coalition trying to quell the disturbance in country Z. But that didn't happen in this story. The UN didn't force country A to commit military. The prime minister committed the military, and this answer provides no reason why Parliament would be mad at the PM for doing so
6% picked this
Correct
In the parliamentary leader’s nation,
Why this is right
This explains why, even though Parliament supports the UN cause, Parliament was mad at the PM for committing the military to the UN cause. They're like, "Heyyyy. That's our job, not yours. Stay in your lane, Prime Minister. The constitution gives us the power, not you, to commit the military to foreign action."
Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
75% picked this
The parliament would be responsible
Mixed Impact
This is somewhat tempting, because we might tell ourselves, "The Parliament is mad about the PM committing the military, because parliament will have to come up with the money to pay for this." The problem is that we have a background fact saying that most members support the UN plan. So parliament members broadly should be willing to spend money on supporting the plan.
8% picked this
The public would not support
No Impact: public support
We don't really care about public support here, unless it gives us a way to explain why parliament is mad at the PM. This answer doesn't do that.
3% picked this
Members of the parliament traditionally
Unclear Impact
This could potentially explain why parliament was mad at the PM for committing military to the UN cause if we assumed a few things: 1. the public is not in favor of committing to the UN cause. 2. parliament, despite favoring the UN cause, would choose to act in accordance with public sentiment and oppose contributing military support to the UN cause. 3. parliament would get mad at the PM for doing something that goes against the public's preferences. That's too many assumptions of our own that we would need to build in to make this answer work.
8% picked this

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