Essayist: One of the drawbacks

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Premise Match6% picked this

   One should not support any political system that will inevitably lead to the establishment of

   Is "extreme freedom" a political system that will inevitably lead to establishing a totalitarian regime? No, it's just a system that may incline people to prefer a totalitarian regime. Since systems with "extreme freedom" don't trigger this rule, this rule isn't helping us to justify the conclusion.

   6%
2. B

   Bad Conclusion Match4% picked this

   One should not expect everyone to thrive even in a political system that maximizes people's freedom

   We need a principle that tells us what type of political system we should / shouldn't support. This principle is about whether we should / shouldn't expect everyone to thrive. That language is nowhere close to the conclusion's, so this is not useful.

   4%
3. C

   Bad Premise Match4% picked this

   One should support only those political systems that give people the freedom to

   This rule says, "if system doesn't give freedom to make wise choices, don't support it". Is "extreme freedom" a political system that does not give people the freedom to make wise choices? No, it gives them the freedom. The author says that free choices are often made for the worst, but extreme freedom allows people to make wise / unwise choices.

   4%
4. D

   Correct74% picked this

   One should not support any political system whose destructive consequences could lead people to prefer

   Why this is right

   This says, "if a system's destructive consequences could lead people to prefer totalitarian political regimes, then we should not support it." And we know that systems with extreme freedom have destructive consequences that lead people to possibly prefer totalitarian regimes. The premise triggers this rule, and the rule gets us to our conclusion language of "should not support".

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

   74%
5. E

   Weak Premise Match12% picked this

   One should not support any political system that is based on unrealistic expectations about people's

   This says, "if a system is based on unrealistic expectations about people's behavior under that system, then we shouldn't support it." Were we told that systems with extreme freedom are based on unrealistic expectations about people's behavior? No, not quite. We weren't told that the system is based on unrealistic expectations. Our author was just saying, we should expect people to make some unwise choices in such a system. To expect otherwise would be unrealistic (he doesn't claim that anyone is expecting otherwise and certainly doesn't say that the system is based on the expectation of otherwise).

   12%