Logical Reasoning

PT129 · S1 · Q25 Columnist: It is sometimes claimed

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Columnist: It is sometimes claimed that the only factors relevant to determining moral guilt or innocence are the intentions of the person performing an action.

Conclusion

How we morally judge an action goes beyond the intentions of the person who performed it (and includes the consequences of the action).

Evidence

If a cook put the wrong ingredient in something, it wouldn’t usually be thought of as immoral, but if that wrong ingredient accidentally killed someone, then it would be judged by many as morally negligent.

Evaluation

Even though the stem describes the paragraph as “statements”, this reads as an argument, and so we should probably use our typical thinking of . The author is thinking that if “whether or not the eater dies” affects how we think about the morality of “a cook adding the wrong ingredient”, then our moral judgment includes external circumstances.

Goal

We probably want a safely worded claim that reinforces this notion that the consequences of an action are part of how we morally judge the action.

25.

Which one of the following propositions is best illustrated by the columnist's statements?

It is sometimes fair to
Opposite / Out of Scope: “fair”
The author presents a case in which we judge morality by considering the surrounding circumstances, so this principle seems to be the opposite of the situation described. Also, it seems out of scope to talk about whether this moral judgment is fair / unfair, since the author is only talking about how we reach our moral judgments, not evaluating the eventual judgments.
2% picked this
We sometimes judge unfairly the
Out of Scope: “unfairly”
The author isn’t endorsing or criticizing our method of making moral judgments. She is just describing them. So unfairly judging something is out of scope.
7% picked this
We should judge all negligent
Too Strong: “should” “all” “equally” “regardless”
This is way too strong. The author isn’t telling us how we should judge morality, just how we do judge it. This principle is extremely harsh, telling us to judge all cases equally, regardless of any other considerations.
2% picked this
Correct
People are sometimes held morally
Why this is right
This doesn’t judge people’s moral judgments; it just reiterates the conclusion’s notion that moral judgments go beyond the actor’s intentions and include consequences of that action.
Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
82% picked this
The intentions of the person
Too Strong
Too Strong: “rarely” / Out of Scope: “decisive factor” She argues that moral judgments often go beyond pure intentions, but this answer is saying that moral judgments usually don’t even consider intentions a decisive factor. That’s too strong. The author is only arguing that our moral judgments can include things other than the actor’s intentions, but she might still think that intentions are the most important factor.
7% picked this

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