Logical Reasoning

PT125 · S2 · Q17 Ethicist: The penalties for drunk

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Ethicist: The penalties for drunk driving are far more severe when the drunk driver accidentally injures people than when no one is injured.

Main Conclusion

Legal responsibility is different than moral responsibility.

Intermediate Conclusion

Legal responsibility depends in at least some cases on factors other than the agent's intentions.

Premise

The penalties for drunk driving are far more severe when the drunk driver accidentally injures people than when no one is injured.

Moral responsibility for an action depends solely on the intentions underlying the action and not on the action's results.

17.

The claim that the penalties for drunk driving are far more severe when the drunk driver accidentally injures people than when no one is injured plays which one of the following roles in the ethicist's argument?

  1. It is a premise offered

    Too Strong

    While the claim is a premise offered in support of the intermediate conclusion, the description of the intermediate conclusion in this answer is too strong.

    3% picked this

  2. It is offered as an

    Bad Conclusion Match

    To say that the criteria for legal responsibility includes, but are not the same as those for moral responsibility, means that every part of moral responsibility is in legal responsibility but there are parts of legal responsibility that aren't in moral responsibility. The criteria for being a square include but are not the same as those for being a rectangle. Every prerequisite of rectangles (four sides, four right angles, two pairs of parallel sides) is also a prerequisite of squares, but there is a prerequisite of squares (four equal sides) that is not a prerequisite of rectangles. This paragraph does not establish that every part of moral responsibility is included in legal responsibility. It only establishes that one part of legal responsibility (severity of consequences) is not part of moral responsibility. The available conclusions are "Legal Resp is different from Moral Resp" and "Legal Resp depends in some cases on things besides intentions". Saying that "legal responsibility includes everything moral responsibility has, plus other stuff" doesn't match either of those conclusions.

    24% picked this

  3. It is offered as an

    Contradiction

    The claim that people may be held morally responsible for an action for which they are not legally responsible does not exist within the argument.

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    It is a premise offered

    Why this is right

    This correctly describes the role of the claim as a premise for the intermediate conclusion of the argument.

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

    64% picked this

  5. It is a premise offered

    Contradiction

    The claim is offered in support of the argument’s intermediate conclusion, while this suggests the claim supports another premise in the argument.

    6% picked this

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