Logical Reasoning

PT111 · S4 · Q18 Philosopher: Scientists talk about the

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Philosopher: Scientists talk about the pursuit of truth, but, like most people, they are self-interested.

Conclusion

The activities of the scientific community as a whole are largely directed toward enhancing the status of that community as a whole, and only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth.

Evidence

Most individual scientists, like most people, are self-interested. So most individual scientists' professional activities are directed toward personal career enhancement, with truth-seeking being only incidental.

Evaluate

The argument leaps from a claim about individual scientists (each pursuing personal career enhancement) to a claim about the scientific community as a whole (pursuing the status of the community as a whole). What's true of the parts isn't automatically true of the whole — especially here, where the part-level goal (personal career) and the whole-level goal (community status) are different things. The argument ignores that distinction.

Goal

The correct answer should describe the move from a claim about individual scientists to a claim about the community as a whole — a part-to-whole inference (informally, the "composition" flaw).

18.

The reasoning in the philosopher's argument is flawed because the argument

  1. improperly infers that each and

    Bad Description

    This describes a "most-to-all" generalization — concluding something about each and every scientist from a premise about most. The argument doesn't do that. The conclusion is about the scientific community as a whole, not about every individual scientist. The error is part-to-whole, not most-to-all.

    9% picked this

  2. Correct

    improperly draws an inference about

    Why this is right

    This nails the move. The premise is about individual scientists (their personal career enhancement). The conclusion is about the scientific community as a whole (its status as a whole). The argument treats those as if they were equivalent — but a property of each part isn't automatically a property of the whole, especially when the goal at the individual level (personal career) is different from the goal at the group level (community status).

    Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    75% picked this

  3. presumes, without giving justification, that

    Bad Assumption

    The argument says career enhancement and truth-seeking are not the same focus for most scientists — but it doesn't claim career enhancement never advances truth. The stimulus actually allows that truth-seeking happens "incidentally," meaning it can happen as a byproduct. So the argument doesn't rely on this strong assumption. It relies on a different (faulty) move — the part-to-whole leap.

    11% picked this

  4. illicitly takes advantage of an

    Equivocation

    "Self-interested" is used consistently — pursuing personal benefit. The argument doesn't shift the meaning of that term between premises and conclusion. The mistake isn't playing word games; it's the part-to-whole inference.

    2% picked this

  5. improperly draws an inference about

    Causal Flaw

    The argument isn't reasoning about causes and effects at all — it's reasoning about goals or aims, and moving from claims about individuals to claims about a community. There's no observation about an effect being used to infer a cause. This describes a different kind of flaw the argument doesn't commit.

    3% picked this

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