There is no genuinely altruistic

Answer choices

1. A

   Opposite9% picked this

   presupposes that anyone who is acting out of self-interest is

   The author is closer to assuming that "anyone who is seeming to be altruistic is acting out of self-interest".

   9%
2. B

   Opposite Conclusion11% picked this

   illicitly infers that behavior is altruistic merely because it

   Any time an answer is structured like infers that X because Y the Y should match the Evidence and the X should match the Conclusion Did the conclusion say that "behavior was altruistic"? No. The opposite. The conclusion was that there is no such thing as altruistic behavior. So we can get rid of this one without bothering with the second half.

   11%
3. C

   Not an Objection4% picked this

   fails to consider that self-esteem also depends on maintaining an awareness of

   Does it hurt the author's argument to say that "self-esteem also depends on maintaining an awareness of one's own value?" No, it doesn't matter if self-esteem requires 20 other things. For the purposes of the author's argument, she's just saying "given that we all need self-esteem, and that self-esteem requires X and Y (and 20 other things), seemingly altruistic behavior might really just be an attempt to obtain X and Y."

   4%
4. D

   Too Strong: cannot be useful / needed10% picked this

   presumes, without providing justification, that if one does not hold oneself in sufficient self-esteem one cannot

   The author isn't committed to assuming that every single person who has insufficient self-esteem is useless and expendable. (and saying that certainly won't help those people with their self-esteem problem, choice D!)

   10%
5. E

   Correct65% picked this

   takes for granted that any behavior that can be interpreted as self-interested is in

   Why this is right

   This says that the author assumed a certain conditional relationship, so we can look at it conditionally and ask ourselves, "Did the author make that move?": a behavior can be the behavior is interpreted as self-interested → self-interested Yeah, that does reflect the author's Premise to Conclusion move. The author establishes that "behavior that appears to be altruistic" can be interpreted as self-interested. Then, she implicitly assumes that this seemingly altruistic behavior is self-interested. That's how she arrives at the conclusion that it's not genuinely altruistic.

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

   65%