Logical Reasoning

PT134 · S1 · Q12 The government is being urged

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The government is being urged to prevent organizations devoted to certain views on human nutrition from advocating a diet that includes large portions of uncooked meat, because eating uncooked meat can be very dangerous.

Conclusion

The government is not justified in silencing groups who advocate a diet that includes large portions of uncooked meat, just because eating uncooked meat supposedly can be very dangerous.

Evidence (for)

The government would not be justified in silencing a purely political group just because the group advocates policies that could be harmful to some members of society.

Intermediate Conclusion (should = opinion)

The same should be true for silencing groups with certain views on human nutrition.

Evaluate

This argument works by analogy. Since the government wouldn't be justified in silencing a political group that advocated a potentially harmful policy, the author thinks that the government also shouldn't be justified in silencing a nutritional group that advocates a potentially harmful policy.

Like all arguments by Analogy, we would strengthen it by making the two cases seem more fair to compare.

Goal

Look for an answer that feels something like,

Or pick any answer that otherwise helps us say that the government isn't right to silence the group advocating uncooked meat.

12.

Which one of the following principles most helps to justify the reasoning in the argument?

  1. The government should not silence

    Bad Trigger Match

    This rule is saying If a significant proportion govt should of society believes ? not silence position X is beneficial group that advocates X The right side of this rule does line up with our conclusion, so we should consider this answer. Is the trigger applicable to the group recommending uncooked meat? Does a significant proportion of society believe that "suggesting a diet with large portions of uncooked meat" is beneficial? We don't know. The argument doesn't establish that trigger idea, so this answer goes nowhere.

    4% picked this

  2. The government ought to do

    Bad Trigger Match

    This rule is saying If X is in the best govt should interest of society ? do X The right side of this rule could match up with the conclusion, if we said that X means "not silence a group advocating eating lots of uncooked meat". In order to trigger this rule, we would need to have been told in the argument that "not-silencing a group advocating eating lots of uncooked meat" would be "in the best interest of society". But since we weren't told that, we can't trigger this rule.

    1% picked this

  3. One ought to advocate a

    Unrelated to Goal

    Our conclusion is about whether or not the government is justified in silencing a group. This answer doesn't have any wording like that. This is a principle about whether or not someone should advocate a position. This principle would be more applicable to the groups who are espousing positions. It doesn't have the power to tell the government whether or not to silence. It only has the power to tell the government whether or not to advocate a position.

    0% picked this

  4. Correct

    The government ought not to

    Why this is right

    This rule is saying If the only grounds is govt should that position X could ? not silence be harmful, if it were opinion X disseminated The right side of this rule does line up with our conclusion, so we should consider this answer. Is the trigger applicable to the group recommending uncooked meat? Is the only reason for silencing their opinion the worry that if the opinion were disseminated, it could be harmful? Yes. This is also the underlying similarity happening with the Analogy. In the cases of both the political group and the uncooked-meat group, there is a position that could be harmful to some members of society. And the author thinks that in both cases, the government isn't justified in silencing this opinion. The conclusion even says, "This purported fact does not justify the government's silencing the groups", so the author is saying that "the fact that eating uncooked meat might be very dangerous does not justify the government's silencing of this group".

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

    88% picked this

  5. One ought to urge the

    Unrelated to Goal

    Our conclusion is about whether or not the government is justified in silencing a group. This answer doesn't have any wording like that. This is a principle about whether or not someone should urge the government to do something. Since this principle doesn't provide guidance for how the government should behave, it's useless for supporting our conclusion.

    6% picked this

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