If violations of any of a society’s

Answer choices

1. A

   Not Assumed / Illegal Negation22% picked this

   takes for granted that a society will avoid chaos as long as none of its explicit rules are

   The author presented a conditional chain that told us, if explicit rules then are routinely → chaos results violated with impunity This answer accuses the author of assuming that if explicit rules then are not routinely → chaos will not result violated with impunity That's just an illegal negation of what the author actually said. If I say, "Smoking cigarettes leads to lung cancer. So if you don't want cancer, don't smoke cigarettes", I'm not assuming that "as long as you don't smoke cigarettes, you'll never get cancer".

   22%
2. B

   Not an Objection to the Reasoning7% picked this

   fails to consider that the violated rules might have been made to prevent problems that would not arise even

   Would it hurt the argument to say, "Yo, author --- some rules that get violated are stupid rules that are made to prevent imaginary problems?" Almost. We could say, "A society can sometimes allow one of its explicit rules to go unpunished, because some rules are stupid (they were made to prevent imaginary problems)." However, this is just an objection to the conclusion. It's not an objection to the reasoning. It isn't commenting on how the author's move from her evidence to her conclusion is flawed. Furthermore, the author would just respond, "It doesn't matter whether a rule is a legit one or a stupid one. If violations of any explicit rule go routinely unpunished, then we lose moral guidance, and chaos results."

   7%
3. C

   Bad Conclusion Match13% picked this

   infers, from the claim that the violation of some particular rules will lead to chaos, that the violation of any

   When an answer is structured like, "infers, from the claim that X, that Y", then X needs to match the evidence and Y needs to match the conclusion (or the assumption that got the author to the conclusion). Was the conclusion saying, "Violating any rule will lead to chaos"? No, not even close. The conclusion said, "Society shouldn't let any of its rules be broken with impunity". That's enough to disqualify this answer, but we could also ask whether the evidence said, "Violating some particular rules will lead to chaos". The evidence did not say that. It said "routine nonpunishment of any rule will lead to chaos". It's the lack of punishment that leads to chaos, not the violation of the rule.

   13%
4. D

   Correct47% picked this

   confuses the routine nonpunishment of violations of a rule with sometimes not punishing violations

   Why this is right

   This speaks to the gap between the valid conclusion and the one the author actually made. The valid conclusion was, "(assuming a society wants to avoid chaos), a society ought to never allow any of its explicit rules to routinely be broken with impunity". The actual conclusion said that rules should never be broken with impunity. This answer is pointing out that it's potentially fine if rules are sometimes not punished. The problem outlined by the author's evidence related to what happens when rules are routinely unpunished. When we see answers like confuses X with Y, we want to see that one of those ideas (usually the first one) matches what the evidence was talking about, whereas the other one matches what the conclusion was talking about. The evidence was talking about whether or not a violation is routinely unpunished. The conclusion is talking about whether or not a violation should ever be unpunished.

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

   47%
5. E

   Too Strong: all / equally10% picked this

   takes for granted that all of a society’s explicit rules result in equally serious

   The argument doesn't discuss any consequences of breaking a rule. It only discusses consequences of routinely letting rule-breakers go unpunished. Even if the argument had discussed the consequences of breaking a rule, it would be highly unlikely that any author would commit themselves to the extreme position that "every single rule results in identically serious consequences when broken! whether you break a rule about jaywalking or a rule about murder, the consequences are equally serious!"

   10%