Logical Reasoning

PT119 · S3 · Q23 Editorial: A recently passed law

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Editorial: A recently passed law limits freedom of speech in order to silence dissenters.

Conclusion

The people passing the law must be ignorant of a great deal of history.

Evidence

The law limits freedom of speech to quash dissent. + Quashing dissent historically has promoted undemocratic policies and authoritarian regimes. + If you're ignorant of history, you'll repeat its patterns.

Evaluation

This seems to commit three different famous flaws:

Necessary vs. Sufficient - we have a rule that says "ignorant of history → repeat its patterns". Our author proceeds to to argue that since these lawmakers are repeating history's patterns by passing laws that quell dissent, they must therefore be ignorant of history (which is reasoning backwards through that conditional)

False Choice - the author seems to think , but we could object that there might be more options, or .

Causal Flaw - the author is asking himself, and he overconfidently takes as his causal explanation: oh, they must not know history. An alternative explanation is that they WANT to hurt democracy and help authoritarianism.

Goal

Look for an answer that's pointing out the wiggle room. Just because they seemed poised to repeat history's patterns doesn't prove they're ignorant of history. The conditional logic doesn't go that way, and there is an alternate possibility that they know history but still want to repeat its patterns.

23.

The editorialist's reasoning is flawed in that it fails to take into account that

  1. the law may have other

    Not an Objection

    If this answer developed its idea a little better, it could work: maybe the legislators are aware of the dangerous historical precedent of silencing dissenters but wrote the law anyway because its positives would outweigh that negative. However, this answer doesn't give us that there are "other purposes that would outweigh the bad" or that "the legislators are aware of the bad". For all we know, these other purposes are ALSO bad things.

    8% picked this

  2. certain freedoms might sometimes need

    Weaker Than the Correct Answer

    This is closer to what (A) was trying to be: maybe there are complex tradeoffs. Maybe the lawmakers know that silencing dissenters is a move towards authoritarianism, but the tradeoffs in this case are worth it. The problem, though, is that this answer isn't specifically about this law, and it doesn't give us any hint that the lawmakers passing the law are aware of the historical danger of silencing dissent.

    12% picked this

  3. some historical accounts report that

    Not an Objection Tendency vs. Absolute

    Because of how weakly this is worded, "some", it is totally compatible with the premise the author gave us: silencing dissent has tended to promote the establishment of authoritarian regimes. A tendency allows for exceptions. If I say, "I tend to eat a bow of ice cream every night before bed", that just means "most nights" but doesn't necessarily mean all nights.

    15% picked this

  4. many good laws have been

    Bad Conclusion Match

    The conclusion isn't about whether the law is good or bad. It's about whether the lawmakers are or aren't aware of history. If this answer were re-written to say, "many bad laws have been passed by people who are largely aware of history" it would make more sense as an objection.

    2% picked this

  5. Correct

    even those who are not

    Why this is right

    We were given "ignorant history → repeat patterns", and the author tried to reason backwards. This answer points out that you might be "repeat patterns but ~ignorant". If I said "win lottery → rich" and then argued that "since this lawmaker is rich, he must have won the lottery", we could similarly object by saying "even those who have not won the lottery may be rich". This answer acknowledges the possibility that someone might be aware of the effect of silencing dissenters but choose to do it anyway.

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

    62% picked this

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