Logical Reasoning

PT120 · S1 · Q20 Professor: Each government should do

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Professor: Each government should do all that it can to improve the well-being of all the children in the society it governs.

Conclusion

Governments should help finance high-quality care.

Evidence

Such day care will be available to families of all income if and only if it's subsidized, and governments should do all that they can to do to improve the well-being of all the children in its society.

Evaluate

We have a conclusion about what governments should do and we were provided a principle/rule about what governments should do.

Rule: governments should do all they can to improve the well-being of the children.

Conclusion: governments should help finance high-quality daycare.

So there's definitely a missing language link: .

We could have potentially objected,

But the bi-conditional "if and only if" rules out that. If the government doesn't subsidize, then at least some families will not have high-quality daycare available to them.

Goal

So it seems like they're just testing the missing gap between "high-quality daycare" and "improve the well-being of children".

20.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the professor's argument depends?

  1. Only governments that subsidize high-quality

    Too Strong

    The author isn't assuming anything about which specific types of government do / don't take an interest in the well-being of all children. She's talking in normative terms about what should be the case, not what is the case. Since this is conditional, we can look at it as a conditional statement and ourselves if our author made this move: Take an interest in government well being of all ? subsidizes high children in their society quality daycare She did not say "Because this govt takes an interest in the well being of all its children, we can conclude that this govt subsidizes high quality daycare".

    18% picked this

  2. Government subsidy of high-quality day

    Irrelevant: eliminate benefits for adults

    If we negate this (which we should, since it has a "not"), it's saying that were the government to subsidize high-quality daycare, it would cause the government to eliminate benefits for adults. So what? Is that an objection? Does that weaken the argument? No, because the author is saying what the government should do based on a principle that says the government should do all it can to improve the well-being of the children. The principle doesn't care about whether or not adult benefits are compromised.

    2% picked this

  3. High-quality day care should be

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: only those who can't afford The conclusion is simply "the govt should help finance high-quality daycare". The author never specifies that it can only be for the people who couldn't otherwise afford it. If we negated this answer and said "high-quality daycare should also be subsidized for some people who could afford it", that doesn't hurt the argument.

    3% picked this

  4. Correct

    At least some children would

    Why this is right

    This just deals with the big missing link between "high quality daycare" and "improve well-being of children". If we negate this, it says "ZERO children would benefit from high-quality daycare". Does that weaken? Of course! The author is appealing to a principle that says governments should do whatever they can to improve the well-being of children. If zero children would benefit from high-quality daycare, then it can't improve their well-being, so this principle wouldn't apply to it at all.

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

    76% picked this

  5. Government is a more efficient

    Out of Scope Comparison

    The author never discusses 'private enterprise' and doesn't claim the government is the "best" at providing daycare efficiently. It just says "if the government doesn't help pay for high-quality day care, then some families will not have it as an available option."

    1% picked this

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