Logical Reasoning

PT132 · S2 · Q24 Legal commentator: The goal

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Legal commentator: The goal of a recently enacted law that bans smoking in workplaces is to protect employees from secondhand smoke.

Facts

This smoking ban was meant to protect employees from secondhand smoke. This smoking ban does not prohibit people from smoking in their own homes.

Evaluation

In general, with Inference Must Be False, we're either contradicting a conditional or contradicting an available inference. Can we infer anything by combining these ideas?

Not quite, but when we look for where there is potential overlap, we can think about one case in which the ban wouldn't accomplish its goal: what if you have employees that work in your house?

The ban wouldn't prohibit you from smoking in your house, and thus it wouldn't protect the employees in your house from your secondhand smoke.

Goal

Maybe the correct answer will deal with this weird scenario where the two facts about the ban could overlap in a weird way, but we just need any answer that goes again either or both of our facts.

24.

The statements above, if true, provide a basis for rejecting which one of the following claims?

  1. The law will be interpreted

    Out of Scope: how it's interpreted

    We didn't receive any info about how it'll be interpreted, other than that it can't be interpreted as saying that you're banned from smoking in your own house. Any other interpretation we wouldn't know about, so we couldn't contradict it.

    9% picked this

  2. Supporters of the law believe

    Out of Scope: supporters' beliefs

    We didn't receive any info about what its supporters believe, so we can't contradict anything about what they'll believe.

    2% picked this

  3. The law offers no protection

    Compatible

    This law that bans smoking in workplaces may very well only apply to workplaces and thus offer no protection outside of workplaces. In order to contradict this answer, we would have needed to hear that this law protects people from secondhand smoke in some non-work context, but we never heard that.

    9% picked this

  4. Most people believe that smokers

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: fundamental right Out of Scope: most people believe We don't have any info about what most people believe, so we can't contradict this answer. Since the law protects people's right to smoke in their own homes, this answer feels pretty compatible with the statements.

    4% picked this

  5. Correct

    The law will protect domestic

    Why this is right

    This gets at that weird overlap we thought about: "what if you have employees (such as housecleaners) inside your house?" The law wants to keep you from exposing your employees to secondhand smoke, but it protects your right to smoke in your home. So, these housecleaners would be exempt from protection, because their employer (the owner of the house they're cleaning) is allowed to smoke in their own house.

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

    76% picked this

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