Logical Reasoning

PT134 · S3 · Q11 Sigerson argues that the city

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Sigerson argues that the city should adopt ethical guidelines that preclude its politicians from accepting campaign contributions from companies that do business with the city.

Conclusion

Sigerson's proposal is dishonest (i.e. he doesn't really think that the city should adopt ethical guidelines that preclude politicians from accepting campaign contributions from local businesses)

Evidence

During his career in city politics, he took contributions from such companies.

Evaluation

This is the famous flaw Ad Hominem, in which an author dismisses someone's view because of that person's biased interest or because of that person's conflicting past behavior/statements.

It's possible that Sigerson learned from his own mistakes about the unsavory conflict of interest of accepting contributions from local businesses.

Goal

Look for an answer that says our author dismissed a view because of past behavior, or one saying that Sigerson may have accepted contributions in the past but nonetheless genuinely feel it is a bad thing.

11.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

confuses a sufficient condition for
No Conditional Logic
This describes the famous Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw, but there is no conditional logic in this argument.
6% picked this
rejects a proposal on the
Bad Premise Match
This describes the famous Unproven vs. Proven False flaw. Our author did kind of reject a proposal (calling it 'dishonest'), but it was on the grounds of Sigerson's past behavior, not on the grounds that his rationale was faulty.
15% picked this
fails to adequately address the
Out of Scope
It doesn't matter how other city politicians would react, if we're trying to judge whether or not Sigerson's proposal was dishonest.
1% picked this
rejects a proposal on the
Opposite
The author is rejecting this proposal on the grounds that the person is all too familiar with the issues it raises (i.e. a hypocrite, because he accepted the very contributions he's now coming out against)
8% picked this
Correct
overlooks the fact that Sigerson's
Why this is right
This is a weird correct answer, but it's making the objection of "Who cares if he did this in the past? Yes, it would be dishonest for him to condemn these contributions in the past, because he himself accepted such contributions. But if he's only talking about condemning these contributions going forward, then there's nothing hypocritical or dishonest about that." It speaks to the idea that you might do something in your past, learn from it, and then espouse advice that goes against it (any ex-con that comes to do an assembly at an elementary school is saying, "Don't make the mistakes that I made"). They aren't being dishonest is saying "you shouldn't commit crime". They want their advice to apply to the future conduct of those students.
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
70% picked this

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