Logical Reasoning

PT127 · S2 · Q17 Glen: An emphasis on law's

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Glen: An emphasis on law's purely procedural side produces a concern with personal rights that leads to the individual's indifference to society's welfare.

Glen

The primary role of law should be to create virtuous citizens, but when we emphasize law's purely procedural side, it makes people more concerned with personal rights and less concerned with society's welfare.

Sara

If the role of law were to create virtuous citizens, it would mean that the government was deciding which types of life were virtuous. That would be a worse situation than having a government that's overprotective of individual's rights.

Evaluation

Does Sara argue against either of Glen's explicit claims?

Does she argue that emphasizing procedural law does not emphasize personal rights over societal well being? No, she seems to accept that part. She alludes to the idea that the government in this scenario might be overprotective of personal rights, which sounds like emphasis.

Does she argue that law's primary role should not be to create virtuous citizens? Yes, it seems like she's arguing in that direction, because she thinks it's dangerous for the government to be trying to decide with types of lives are truly virtuous.

Goal

They seem to be fighting over whether law's primary role should be to create virtuous citizens, or whether it's better for a government to be overprotective of personal rights or better for a government to be deciding on what would make a virtuous citizen.

17.

The dialogue provides the most support for the claim that Glen and Sara disagree about whether

  1. citizens can be assumed to

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: "incapable of making good choices" We wouldn't be able to infer that either person disagrees with this statement, since disagreeing with it involves making the extreme claim that citizens cannot be assumed to be capable of good choices on their own.

    1% picked this

  2. virtuousness on the part of

    Out of Scope Comparison

    Out of Scope Comparison: "virtuousness vs. protecting rights" This is very close to feeling like a good answer, but neither person is ranking having virtuous citizens vs. protecting rights. Glen is concerned that the procedural emphasis of law is skewing people away from being concerned with society's welfare. Sara is concerned that a different emphasis of law (trying to create virtuous citizens) would put government into a dangerous role of deciding on virtue. We could possibly turn this into a correct answer by focusing it more on the role of law/government: "cultivating virtue on the part of citizens is a more important goal of law than protecting citizens' rights".

    11% picked this

  3. there is an inherent danger

    Half Scope

    We know that Sara would agree with this, but we don't have the means to infer Glen's position, since he didn't speak about the government deciding on what constitutes virtuous behavior.

    13% picked this

  4. an emphasis on law's purely

    Both Agree

    They would likely both agree with this, since Glen thinks emphasizing procedural produces a concern with personal rights, and Sara acknowledges that the government may be overprotective of rights, given this emphasis.

    2% picked this

  5. Correct

    the cultivation of virtue among

    Why this is right

    We know that Glen would agree because his final sentence essentially says as much. We can infer that Sara disagrees because she says, "Such a role would .... be more dangerous than the current emphasis on personal rights".

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

    72% picked this

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