Logical Reasoning

PT113 · S4 · Q21 Political theorist: Newly enacted laws

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Political theorist: Newly enacted laws need a period of immunity during which they can be repealed only if circumstances are dire.

Conclusion

A newly acted law should be immune from repeal for a while, unless things are dire.

Evidence

In the short-term, a new law is likely to be painful, while the long-term benefits are initially obscure because it takes a while for people to learn how to use the law to their benefit.

Evaluate

Normally with Strengthen + Principle question, we anticipate a possible answer by saying, "If evidence, then conclusion". It seems hard to do that here.

We still want to focus a lot of energy on what the Conclusion is trying to prove. It wants a period of immunity for new laws, so that they can't be quickly repealed.

Why? Because at first the law might hurt, but in the long-term it might be for the better, so we need this period of immunity to force us to "stick it out" through the initial rough period.

When a Principle question's evidence contains a good thing and a bad thing, (we call it Weighing Tradeoffs in the Question Feature menu), we often are just looking for a strengthener that tells us which of those is more important.

Goal

Look for something that sounds like, .

21.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the political theorist's argument?

  1. Whether a law should be

    Bad Evidence Match

    The author is concluding that a law should be retained through the initial painful period, so the language of this principle seems relevant. But the author's evidence was saying, "let's retain the new law through the painful period, because it takes a while for people to learn how to benefit from it" whereas this answer says "... because it doesn't matter what voters think the consequences will be." That's not a good match. Also, this rule only tells you that "what voters think" is irrelevant. It doesn't actually point us in any direction of whether a law should or shouldn't be retained.

    8% picked this

  2. Correct

    Whether a law should be

    Why this is right

    The author is concluding that a law should be retained through the initial painful period, so the language of this principle seems relevant. There's short term pain, while the long-term benefits are obscure. Should we ditch this new law? How do we weigh these tradeoffs? This answer says that the potential long-term benefits are the primary way we decide whether to retain or ditch the new law, so this answer supports the author's conclusion that we should stick out this initial painful period to see if long-term benefits materialize.

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

    56% picked this

  3. The repeal of a law

    Bad Evidence Match

    The language is somewhat relevant to our conclusion, since our author's conclusion wants to give new laws a period of immunity. Our author wants to make repeal pretty difficult in the short term. But the reason offered for doing so has to do with the idea that "it takes a while for long-term benefits to come into focus", whereas this answer acts like the reason offered was that "it was really difficult to pass the law".

    3% picked this

  4. The short-term consequences of a

    Bad Evidence Match

    This answer would only work if the author had said, "We should be careful about repealing a newly enacted law, just because of the initial short term pain. After all, the consequences of repealing the law could be even worse than the consequences of passing it." Instead, the author was saying "We should be careful about repealing too soon just because of initial short term pain. After all, there might be long-term benefit to the passage that we just haven't grasped yet."

    14% picked this

  5. The long-term consequences of the

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This is a principle about how the law should be written in the first place. It wouldn't have any power to counsel us on what we should do if a newly enacted law is causing short-term pain ... should we retain or not? There's no language in this principle to address that question.

    20% picked this

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