Logical Reasoning

PT137 · S2 · Q15 Doctor: It is wrong

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Doctor: It is wrong for medical researchers to keep their research confidential, even if the companies for which they work would rather that they do so.

Conclusion

It's wrong for medical researchers to keep their research confidential.

Evidence

If they don't share their research, it might take longer to develop effective treatments, and thus in the meantime humans may suffer unnecessarily.

Evaluation

Any time we're saying, , we're assuming that "you shouldn't do something that results in Y."

Here we're saying

Goal

So we're looking for something like,

15.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the doctor's argument?

  1. Medical researchers should never engage

    Weak Premise Match

    This rule says: if you know behavior → shouldn't do X X will cause people to suffer Does this rule apply to "keeping research confidential"? Is that a behavior that researchers will know will cause humans to suffer? No, they might suspect it could lead to suffering, but we haven't been told they know it will cause suffering. It's okay for the outcome of these rules to be stronger than what the conclusion needs, but it's not okay for the trigger of these rules to be stronger than what we know from the evidence.

    6% picked this

  2. If the most important moral

    Bad Premise Match

    The rule says most imp moral wrong to keep principle is → research confidential preventing human suffering The right side matches the conclusion, but we weren't told in the evidence that "the most important moral principle is X", so there's no way for our evidence to trigger this rule.

    6% picked this

  3. Correct

    Medical researchers should not keep

    Why this is right

    This rule says: Possible sharing info shouldn't keep would prevent some → info confidential unnecessary suffering Do we know that sharing info would possibly prevent some unnecessary suffering? Yes, we can basically trigger that. If they don't share, it will delay treatments, implying that if they did share, it would take comparatively less time. Since people would possibly suffer during the delay, sharing the info and getting treatments sooner could prevent some suffering by comparison.

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

    80% picked this

  4. Medical researchers should always attempt

    Weak Conclusion Match

    Given that we were told that failing to share confidential info can delay effective treatments, a principle that says we should try to get effective treatments asap would seemingly not want us to withhold confidential info. But the principle is more complicated: as fast as possible while fulfilling other moral obligations. That introduces some gray area, where maybe medical researchers are already getting effective treatments as rapidly as they can, given these competing concerns.

    0% picked this

  5. It is wrong for any

    Trap

    Bad Conclusion Match Principle for Companies, Not Researchers This principle governs the behavior of companies, but we're trying to justify an argument about how medical researchers should behave.

    8% picked this

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