Logical Reasoning

PT119 · S2 · Q21 Ethicist: As a function of

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Ethicist: As a function of one’s job and societal role, one has various duties.

Principle

don't have overwhelming evidence that fulfilling a → you should duty will have disastrous fulfill that duty consequences

Evaluate / Goal

There was a lot of other stuff in that paragraph, but only the last idea was labeled a "principle", and the question stem is only asking us to conform to the principle, so we probably only need to focus on that rule.

This rule only allows us to conclude that one should fulfill a duty. If any of these answer choices have conclusions that are saying someone "shouldn't fulfill the duty", they're automatically wrong.

If the conclusion is saying someone "should fulfill the duty", then we just want to pick the answer that most clearly establishes that there isn't overwhelming evidence of disastrous consequences.

21.

Which one of the following most closely conforms to the principle of morality cited by the ethicist?

  1. Correct

    A teacher thinks that a

    Why this is right

    The teacher's duty is to leave the deserved grade as is. She does not have overwhelming evidence that there will be disastrous consequences of doing that duty (she thinks that leaving the lower grade might harm the student's chance at an internship). So she should fulfill her duty, just as it says.

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

    57% picked this

  2. A person should not fulfill

    Opposite Conclusion

    This one can be immediately rejected because it's trying to use a rule that lets you conclude "you should fulfill your duty" in order to conclude the opposite conclusion of "you should not fulfill your duty". There's no need to read beyond that part.

    4% picked this

  3. A police investigator discovers that

    Opposite Conclusion

    This one can be immediately rejected because it's trying to use a rule that lets you conclude "you should fulfill your duty" in order to conclude the opposite conclusion of "the investigator should not fulfill your duty".

    5% picked this

  4. A psychiatrist’s patient tells her

    Competing Duties

    This has the correct conclusion of "should fulfill duty". Do we know that there is no overwhelming evidence that disastrous harm will not come from fulfilling this duty? Does this tell us what would happen if she fulfilled her duty to report this patient to authorities? Not really. We only know that it would violate her competing duty of patient confidentiality. The principle didn't give us a way to judge with duty we should fulfill and which one we shouldn't, when there are competing duties going head to head. This same principle could be used here to say "she should fulfill her duty to report to the authorities" as could be used to say "she should not report to the authorities because she should fulfill her duty to maintain patient confidentiality".

    19% picked this

  5. A journalist thinks there is

    Opposite Conclusion

    This one can be rejected because it's conveying that the journalist should not fulfill her duty to file the story. She should wait for more developments, which means she shouldn't yet file the story.

    16% picked this

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