Logical Reasoning

PT128 · S3 · Q20 Professor Gandolf says that all

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Professor Gandolf says that all political systems that aim at preventing conflict are legitimate.

Conclusion

Professor G's principle must be false. i.e. At least some political systems that aim at preventing conflict are not legitimate

Evidence (since)

Totalitarian political systems are not legitimate, and

Intermediate Conclusion

Totalitarian systems are usually good at preventing conflict.

Evidence (since)

Those not in power are subject to the will of the powerful.

Evaluate

In order for this author to refute Professor G's conditional, she must supply at least one example of something that matches the trigger but doesn't match the outcome.

His principle was Pol sys aims to prevent conflict → legitimate

So she is trying to provide at least one example in which 1. a political system aims to prevent conflict 2. it is not legitimate

Her example is totalitarian political systems.

Does she establish both 1 and 2?

Not quite. She establishes that totalitarian political systems are not legitimate, but she never establishes that they aim to prevent conflict.

She only establishes that they are usually good at preventing conflict.

This is actually an example of the 11th or 12th most common famous flaw: Intent vs. Result (or Motive vs. Consequence)

Goal

So she is assuming, .

(We could also potentially see an answer linking the Intermediate Conclusion to its Premise, something like, )

20.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

At least one political system
Out of Scope: legitimate Illegal Opposite
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
6% picked this
If a totalitarian political system
Weakens
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% picked this
Correct
At least one totalitarian political
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% picked this
No political system that fails
Too Strong
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% picked this
Some political systems that are
Out of Scope: 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% picked this

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