Logical Reasoning

PT126 · S4 · Q15 Technological innovation rarely serves the

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Technological innovation rarely serves the interests of society as a whole.

Conclusion (this can seen from fact)

Technological innovation rarely serves the interests of society as a whole.

Evidence

People responsible for technological advances are striving to develop commercially viable technology, so they're almost always motivated by considerations of personal gain, rather than societal benefit.

Evaluate

There's a bit of an intermediate conclusion happening when the author says .

I don't have to accept that striving to develop commercially viable technology means you're motivated by personal gain. Perhaps you're motivated to have a company that is solvent (it can pay its bills), but you could be developing something commercially viable as a service to manking.

But the bigger gap here seems to be between the idea that, Doesn't something usually have commercial viability because people see value in it? It's useful or desirable to them?

So isn't producing a commercially viable item creating something useful / valuable to those who buy it, and thus potentially benefiting society as a whole?

This argument is committing the semi-famous flaw Intent vs. Consequences

The author is saying, .

The giveaway for this flaw is that the evidence is talking about someone's motivation, but the conclusion is talking about actual results.

Goal

Look for an answer complaining about the Motivation vs. Result move, or an answer pointing our that commercial viability usually means that a wide swath of people think they would benefit by having your product.

15.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

  1. contains a premise that cannot

    Too Strong: impossible premise

    We might argue that we don't think the premise is accurate, but we wouldn't be able to say it's a logical impossibility.

    0% picked this

  2. takes for granted that technology

    Too Strong: cannot be

    Since this says "takes for granted", we can ask ourselves, "Did the author assume this answer?" Our author was definitely assuming that in many / most cases, "commercially viable technology does not serve the interests of society as a whole". But never? They cannot overlap? Was our author assuming something so strong? Check the conclusion — nope, the conclusion is just saying that tech innovation (which aims for commercial viability) rarely overlaps with benefiting society overall.

    20% picked this

  3. fails to consider the possibility

    Not an Objection

    Since this starts with fails to consider, we can ask ourselves, "Would this be an objection?" Did we have actions motivated by a desire for personal gain? Yes, tech innovations are labeled as such. According to this answer choice, "tech innovations often do not result in personal gain". Does that hurt the argument? No, the author never promised or acted like tech innovations always result in personal gain. Our author only has gone out on a limb that tech innovations usually don't result in societal gain.

    5% picked this

  4. Correct

    takes for granted that an

    Why this is right

    Since this starts with takes for granted we can ask ourselves, "Did this author assume — if an action isn't motivated by a desire to produce an outcome, then that action is unlikely to produce that outcome?" Yeah, that seems fair. (Unless = if it is not the case that) The author was assuming that, if tech innovation isn't motivated by a desire to produce societal benefit, then tech innovation is unlikely to produce the outcome of societal benefit. Whenever we see Necessary Assumption go conditional (unless), we can ask ourselves, "Does this match the move my author made?" They often write these in contrapositive form, so we may need to contrapose to see it better.

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

    72% picked this

  5. draws a conclusion about the

    Bad Premise Match

    Since this answer says that the author "draws a conclusion about X on the basis of Y", we can ask ourselves "does X match the conclusion and Y match the evidence"? The conclusion does seem to be about the practical consequences of people's actions: the action of creating tech innovations rarely has the practical consequence of benefiting society as a whole. But the evidence isn't "theoretical views about what people should / shouldn't do". There is no should / shouldn't language in the evidence, and there are no theoretical views in the evidence. The evidence is just saying a generalization that tech innovators are almost always motivated by personal gain.

    2% picked this

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