Logical Reasoning

PT134 · S2 · Q23 Principle: It is healthy for children

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Principle: It is healthy for children to engage in an activity that promotes their intellectual development only if engaging in that activity does not detract from their social development.

Principle

If ... then ... engaging in an activity not healthy that promotes for children intellectual development to engage would detract from their social development

Application

Since .... Therefore ... engaging in frequent not healthy reading (stimulates for Megan to Megan intellectually engage in this but) reduces the amount much reading of time Megan spends interacting with other people.

Evaluate

The flow of these Application questions is that we're given a conditional rule. Then we're given an attempted Application of it. Someone tries to use this principle to get from their Evidence to their Conclusion. The Conclusion of the Application always (or almost always) matches the right side of the principle. But the Evidence fails to clearly establish all the ideas the left side (trigger) of the principle needs to know.

The conditional indicator words "only if" mean that the idea that follows belongs on the right side. So when we see "only if engaging does not detract", we'd put that idea on the right side of the arrow. → doesn't detract from social development

The other half of the sentence, "healthy to engage", would thus go on the left.

healthy → doesn't detract from social development

Since the conclusion of the Application is saying "not healthy", we want the contrapositive version of this rule, so that our right side will match our Conclusion:

does detract from social development ⇢ not healthy

Okay, so we're concluding "not healthy to read this much". So did the evidence establish that "reading this much is detracting from social development?"

No, the closest it came to talking like that was when it said, .

Apparently the author is assuming that .

Do we have to believe that? Not necessarily. We don't know if every extra hour you spend interacting with people contributes meaningfully to your social development.

Goal

Look for something discussing the gap between and "detracts from her social development".

(technically, we also need to say that Megan is a child, for the principle to apply to her)

23.

The application of the principle is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds?

It misinterprets the principle as
Not a Misinterpretation
Principles, if they're worded conditionally like this one, are universal claims intended to hold in all cases without exception. A generalization would be something like, "Activities that detract from your social development tend to be unhealthy". That sort of principle isn't intended to hold in all cases. But a claim structured with only if does not tolerate exceptions.
4% picked this
It overlooks the possibility that
Unrelated to Goal
We're supposed to be commenting on how the Application failed to trigger the Principle (because there's a difference between "less time spent interacting with people" and "detracting from social development"). This answer feels like an objection to the conclusion. "Hey, what do you mean it's not healthy! Just because it detracts from her social development, it still has enough blessings that it's worth it!" This would be a critique of the conclusion, or a critique of the principle itself, but we're supposed to be critiquing the application, i.e. how the evidence failed to trigger the principle.
4% picked this
It misinterprets the principle to
Not a Misinterpretation
This principle is absolutely about what is unhealthy. It says: "if an activity detracts from social development, then it is unhealthy for children to engage in it"
11% picked this
Correct
It takes for granted that
Why this is right
This calls out the missing link between the left side (trigger) of the Principle and the evidence of the Application. evidence reading so much reduces time spent interacting with others trigger the activity detracts from the child's social development As this answer says, the author is assuming that "if it reduces time spent interacting with others, then it detracts from social development".
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
73% picked this
It takes a necessary condition
Wrong Flaw: not Necessary vs. Sufficient
This is describing the famous flaw in which an author provides a conditional statement in the premise and then applies it illegally in a backwards or opposite fashion to get to her conclusion. This author didn't try to go backwards or inverted with a conditional statement. She's using it in its proper order. She just hasn't established the trigger of "detracting from social development".
8% picked this

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