Logical Reasoning

PT135 · S1 · Q16 Activist: Any member of the city

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Activist: Any member of the city council ought either to vote against the proposal or to abstain.

Evidence

Any member of the city CC → VA or AB council ought either to vote against the proposal or to abstain.

But if all the members AB → MDV abstain, the matter will be decided by the city's voters.

Conclusion

So at least one member CC ↢some↣ VA of the city council should vote against the proposal.

Evaluate

There is a should in the conclusion. Is that a New Concept, or do we have a should in the evidence?

We have the idea that We know that each city council member should/ought vote against the proposal or abstain from voting (those two ideas are mutually exclusive; if you abstain from voting, then you can't vote against it, and vice versa).

So we know that every city council member should take action 1 or action 2, from the evidence. The conclusion is saying that at least one of them should take action 1.

Why? What happens if they all take action 2?

Well, if they all take action 2 ... if they all abstain ... then the matter is decided by voters. If the author is saying that "at least one member should vote against", that's equivalent to saying "we shouldn't have everyone abstain".

And we know that everyone abstaining leads to the matter being decided by voters. The author must be assuming that we should avoid that outcome.

If I say, , then I'm assuming that

Goal

Our author seems to be assuming, .

16.

The conclusion of the activist's argument follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. If all the members of

    Unclear Impact

    That the the city’s voters will definitely decide in favor of the proposal doesn't guarantee the conclusion that "at least one council member should vote against the proposal (to avoid that scenario from coming true)". This relies on a further assumption that the proposal should not pass. If we say, "Doing X leads to Y. Thus, you shouldn't do X", then we are assuming, "You shouldn't do Y". This answer is saying, "If everyone abstains, then the voters will pass this proposal." And we have a conclusion saying, "Thus, we shouldn't have everyone abstain (i.e. at least one person should vote against)." So we would need the assumption, "We shouldn't allow this proposal to pass" in order to reach that conclusion. Without that additional assumption, this answer doesn't have the power to prove the conclusion.

    13% picked this

  2. Correct

    The proposal should not be

    Why this is right

    This is saying that [something that would happen if every member of the city council abstained] should not occur. Thus we should not let every member abstain. Thus, since the members are forced to abstain or vote against, we need at least one member to vote against.

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

    67% picked this

  3. No members of the city

    Unrelated to Goal

    This doesn't give us any reason to argue against all city council members abstaining.

    4% picked this

  4. If not every member of

    Negated / Reversed Premise

    This negates the second premise.

    14% picked this

  5. If one member of the

    If-Conclusion Unrelated to Goal

    This gives us no reason why we need to avoid having all members abstain. And since the trigger here closely resembles the Conclusion, we can remind ourselves that "If-Conclusion ..." is always wrong.

    2% picked this

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