Logical Reasoning

PT129 · S1 · Q14 If legislators are to enact laws

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If legislators are to enact laws that benefit constituents, they must be sure to consider what the consequences of enacting a proposed law will actually be.

Conclusion

Contemporary legislatures fail to enact beneficial laws.

Evidence

Legislators have to consider the consequences of a potential law, or else that law won’t benefit constituents. Contemporary legislatures present legislation in polemical terms, arousing polemical reactions of strong support or strong rejection.

Evaluation

This argument is murderously tough to parse. First, ‘polemical’ is a vocab word many might not know. It means “divisive, extreme, polarizing” language.

Mainly, though, it’s hard to know what they want us to consider the Conclusion, since the connection between Evidence and Conclusion is so thin or non-existent. Ultimately, they want us to see the 2nd sentence as the conclusion, but there really aren't strong clues. I thought the 1st sentence, which is prescriptive in nature, was the conclusion, until I saw the correct answer choice.

If we treat the 2nd sentence as the conclusion, then the argument wants to prove this path:

Contemp --------------------------------------> laws don't legislature benefit

The 1st sentence is a proving mechanism that would allow us to say "laws don't benefit". don't ---> laws don't consider benefit conseq.

So the argument must be assuming that in Contemporary Legislatures, they aren't considering the consequences of proposed laws. We are never told that, but we are told that they are presenting legislation in polemical terms, arousing repugnance or enthusiasm.

Contemp --> present -> arouse legislature polem hate/love

Goal

So the author must be assuming that, Maybe there could be a conditional that says,

14.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

  1. Legislation will not benefit constituents

    Irrelevant Comparison: "less concerned"

    This feels somewhat close to describing, “What we’re doing is not the same as what we need to do in order to achieve goal X”. The problem is that our author is saying “legislators need to consider consequences”, not “legislators need to become less concerned with their careers”. Unless there were some logical link between those two ideas, the author doesn’t have to insist on legislators’ caring less about their careers.

    26% picked this

  2. Legislatures that enact laws that

    Out of Scope: Successful legislatures

    The author isn’t committed to believing that every legislature that enacts laws is a successful one. She never uses the concept of whether legislatures are successful or not, and she could certainly believe that passing beneficial laws is only one component of being a successful legislature (maybe refraining from graft is another).

    2% picked this

  3. The passage of laws cannot

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: cannot unless Out of Scope: adhere to laws Did the author ever make this reasoning move: If constituents Then passage of don't mostly → laws can't benefit adhere to laws constituents No. The argument never discusses whether or not constituents adhere to laws. Even though it seems very common sense true to think “if people aren’t following a law, then how could it benefit them?”, ‘adhering to the law’ is not part of the author’s evidence or conclusion.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    Legislators considering a proposed law

    Why this is right

    This supplies that missing link between premises we were looking for. We know that contemporary legislators present proposed laws in ways that arouse repugnance or enthusiasm, and we know that the author assumes that they aren't considering the consequences of those proposed laws. So this answer is connecting those two ideas. If we negated this, we would have a huge weakener: “When legislators have repugnance or enthusiasm they DO consider the consequences of the proposed law!”

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

    67% picked this

  5. The inability of legislators to

    Out of Scope: "inability to consider"

    This is very tempting, but the author never says that legislators are unable to consider consequences. We can infer that the author thinks that they currently don’t consider them, but that could be due to inability or to unwillingness or to compulsion from outside forces. If someone is currently getting music through YouTube and an author is suggesting that they should instead get music through Spotify, he doesn’t have to assume that “getting music through YouTube makes them unable to get music through Spotify”. They might not even know Spotify exists. The author is merely assuming that “getting music through YouTube is not the same as getting music through Spotify”.

    3% picked this

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