Logical Reasoning

PT127 · S1 · Q19 Editorialist: Some people argue that

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Editorialist: Some people argue that we have an obligation not to cut down trees.

Conclusion (therefore)

We have no obligation not to cut down trees.

Evidence

There can be no obligation to an entity unless that entity has a corresponding right.

(If an entity doesn't have a right, then there's no obligation to that entity)

Trees don't have rights.

Evaluate

This argument is famously hard to read. The author provides a conditional relationship in the 2nd sentence:

Entity has no rights → No obligation to entity

Then the author draws an Intermediate Conclusion with "So" that is just spelling out how conditional logic works. In our case, it's spelling out how the contrapositive of what we just wrote would sound, if it were applied to trees:

Do have obligation to trees → trees have rights

We're not going to spend any mental energy fighting that conclusion, since it is airtight. If I introduce a rule that says "You can't be X unless you're Y", then it's absolutely valid for me to then conclude, .

When the author tells us "But trees don't have rights", she is triggering the contrapositive of that Intermediate Conclusion.

So, implicitly, she is allowing us to infer,

How is that different from the actual Conclusion?

we have no obligation toward trees vs. we have no obligation not to cut down trees

There's a good chance we'd be confused enough by the stimulus that we'd have to go check out answer with only a foggy sense of what's going on.

But if we're lucky, we see that tiny gap looks like this:

This gap is acting like the only obligation we needed to worry about was one toward trees. If we we're not obliged toward trees, then we're in the clear --- no obligation at all.

If we were trying to argue the Anti-Conclusion, we'd be thinking,

What came to my mind was 1. I'm obliged not to cut down the tree in my neighbor's yard, not because I have an obligation towards that tree, but because I'm obliged to respect my neighbor's property.

2. I'm obliged not to cut down the trees in the Amazon Rain Forest, not because I have an obligation towards those trees, but because I have an obligation not to exacerbate climate change for future generations of humans.

Goal

Look for an answer addressing the gap of, Or look for an answer ruling out some other way in which we'd be obliged not to cut down trees.

19.

The editorialist's argument depends on assuming which one of the following?

  1. If an entity has a

    Trap

    Reversed Logic Out of Scope: certain treatment The wording of "certain treatment" doesn't really match up with anything, so this feels fishy from that. But if we closely inspected it, we'd see that it's reversing the logic of something we were told. We were told if there's an obligation, then it has a right This answer is saying if it has a right, then there's an obligation

    21% picked this

  2. Any entity that has rights

    Reversed Logic

    This has the same problem as (A). We were told if there's an obligation, then it has a right This answer is saying if it has a right, then there's an obligation It is also getting confused in the sense that the argument was talking about whether we have an obligation to X, based on whether X has rights. This rule is about whether X itself has obligations, so in addition to reversed logic, it's also just distorting what we were even talking about.

    9% picked this

  3. Only conscious entities are the

    Out of Scope: conscious entities

    This is probably tempting if we're trying to play Mind Reader and explain the backstory behind the premise that "trees are not the sort of things that can have rights". But the author's rationale for that does not have to be that "only conscious entities can have rights". In fact, the author may believe that dead people (not conscious) still have rights. Maybe she thinks they have the right to not have their graves robbed, or to not have their likeness used in commercials without their relatives' permission.

    12% picked this

  4. Correct

    Avoiding cutting down trees is

    Why this is right

    Whenever we're doing Necessary Assumption and we see an answer using the ruling out verbiage of "not / no", we should consider it, since so many correct answers are written that way. If we negate this, does it weaken? Avoiding cutting down trees is an obligation owed to some entity other than trees. Heck yeah, it weakens! In this case, it basically contradicts the conclusion! (it doesn't need to do that to be correct; it just needs to weaken more than any other answer's negation would weaken). This negation starts to sound like our counterarguments from before - we have an obligation not to cut down trees, because of the obligation owed to our nextdoor neighbor, who wants to keep her tree, or because of the obligation owed to future generations of humans, who want a livable climate. If we're not using the Negation Test to see why this is the correct answer, we would be thinking that this addresses the gap we found: if we don't have an obligation to trees not to cut them down, then we have no obligation to not cut them down, because avoiding cutting down trees isn't an obligation owed to any other sort of entity.

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

    56% picked this

  5. One does not always have

    Weakens

    According the author's conclusion, we should be able to cut down any tree we want. We have no obligation not to cut down trees. So this answer actually seems to be undercutting the author's conclusion, because it is placing limits on our right to cut down trees.

    1% picked this

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