Logical Reasoning

PT128 · S3 · Q11 Literary critic: Samuel Johnson argued

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Literary critic: Samuel Johnson argued that writers should refrain from attributing attractive qualities to immoral characters, since doing so increases the tendency of readers to emulate these characters.

Conclusion

If writers were to follow Johnson's advice, works of fiction would be unrealistic.

i.e. if writers were to refrain from attributing attractive qualities to immoral characters, then works of fiction would be unrealistic.

Evaluate

There isn't really any premise, so it's using the term "argument" pretty loosely in the question stem. We know the first sentence is SJ's argument, because it says, "Samuel Johnson argued that X, since Y". So X was SJ's conclusion and Y was SJ's support.

The rebuttal pivot (but, yet, however) signals to us that the last sentence is the author.

We're trying to prove the claim that,

Goal

So the author must be assuming that,

Or if we want to predict a conditional version of the answer,

11.

The conclusion is properly drawn in the literary critic's argument if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. One-dimensional characters are less entertaining

    Trap

    Unrelated to Goal Out of Scope: one-dimensional, well-rounded, entertaining This is bringing up new stuff and not giving us the old stuff we're looking for. We need to prove the author's conclusion, so the correct answer has to help us establish that a realistic work of fiction would give its immoral characters some attractive qualities. This answer doesn't say anything resembling that "immoral characters / attractive qualities".

    2% picked this

  2. The attractive qualities of characters

    Trap

    Unrelated to Goal Out of Scope: appealing The concept of what is more / less appealing has nothing to do with our goal. We need to prove that the attractive qualities of immoral characters is realistic.

    8% picked this

  3. Correct

    In reality, all bad people

    Why this is right

    If in reality, all bad people have some attractive qualities, then any fictional work where the bad (immoral) people didn't have attractive qualities wouldn't match reality. Thus, it would be unrealistic. This answer would allow us to prove that the last sentence is true.

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

    77% picked this

  4. In reality, it is difficult

    Trap

    Unrelated to Goal Out of Scope: difficult / emulate The concept of how easy / difficult it is to emulate (try to copy) a character from a fictional book is totally out of scope. We're just trying to establish that "it's unrealistic if immoral characters don't have attractive qualities". This answer doesn't say anything like that.

    8% picked this

  5. It is rarely evident which

    Trap

    Unrelated to Goal Out of Scope: intended to be attractive The concept of which qualities of a character are / aren't intended to be attractive has nothing to do with our agenda. We are just trying to prove that a work in which immoral character lack attractive qualities would not seem realistic. and this answer doesn't speak to immoral characters or to realism.

    5% picked this

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