Professor Gandolf says that all

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: legitimate Illegal Opposite5% picked this

   At least one political system that does not aim at preventing

   The author's only objectives in this argument are to establish that there is an example of a political system that "aims to prevent conflict" and "is not legitimate". Thus, she doesn't need to assume that any governments anywhere are legitimate. If they were all illegitimate it could only help her argument. This is just doing the ol' Illegal Lightswitch on what the author is assuming. AUTHOR at least one pol sys that does aim is not legit ANSWER at least one pol sys that does not aim is legit

   5%
2. B

   Weakens18% picked this

   If a totalitarian political system prevents conflict, such prevention is only incidental to

   This perfectly sums up how we would object to the argument, not what the argument is assuming. The author assumes that because totalitarian systems succeed in preventing conflict, they must aim to do so. Our objection could be that "maybe they succeed in preventing conflict, but it's just a random byproduct of what they're actually aiming to do".

   18%
3. C

   Correct67% picked this

   At least one totalitarian political system aims at

   Why this is right

   If we negated this, it would say, "ZERO totalitarian political systems aim at preventing conflict". That would destroy the author's argument. In order to refute Professor G's principle, she must establish 1. pol sys X aims to prevent conflict 2. pol sys X is not legitimate Since the author is trying to use "totalitarian systems" as her way of doing this, if it turns out that zero of them are #1, then her argument is hopeless.

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

   67%
4. D

   Too Strong5% picked this

   No political system that fails to prevent conflict

   This sets up a very powerful conditional idea: political system fails ? not legitimate to prevent conflict She hasn't set out to prove that all political systems of a certain type are illegitimate. She is only trying to prove that Professor G's principle is wrong. She's resisting his idea that all political systems of a certain type are legitimate. So she's only on the hook for assuming that at least one type of government is sometimes not legitimate.

   5%
5. E

   Out of Scope: not totalitarian4% picked this

   Some political systems that are not totalitarian

   She only talks about totalitarian political systems, so we can't say she's committed herself to assuming anything about non-totalitarian systems.

   4%