Logical Reasoning

PT137 · S2 · Q8 Guideline: It is improper for public officials

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Guideline: It is improper for public officials to influence the award of contracts or to perform other acts related to their office in a way that benefits themselves.

Guideline

If influencing the award of a official contract, or performing other → shouldn’t job-related acts, would appear do it to benefit a public official

Application’s Conclusion

The mayor shouldn’t have influenced the awarding of the street maintenance contract to a company owned and operated by one of the mayor’s relatives.

Application’s Evidence

That relative’s business would have been in serious financial trouble had it not been awarded the contract.

Evaluate

On all the Strengthen-Application questions (there aren’t that many of them), the Application concludes the right side of the Principle / Guideline. What’s missing, what we’re meant to evaluate, is how the Application fell short of triggering the left side of the Principle.

Did the application establish that the mayor influenced the awarding of a contract in a way that benefits or appears to benefit herself?

No, it just hinted at that by saying that contract was a lifesaver for the business of one of the mayor’s relatives.

Goal

We just need to get from the application language of to the trigger language of “this benefits, or appears to benefit, the mayor”.

8.

Which one of the following principles most helps in justifying the application of the guideline?

  1. Public officials, when fulfilling their

    Unrelated to Goal

    This doesn’t contain any language about “benefiting, or appearing to benefit” the mayor, so it’s functionally useless to us. We need to know that “helping out a relative = benefiting, or appearing to benefit, you”

    1% picked this

  2. Publicly funded contracts should be

    Unrelated to Goal

    This doesn’t contain any language about “benefiting, or appearing to benefit” the mayor, so it’s functionally useless to us. We need to know that “helping out a relative = benefiting, or appearing to benefit, you”.

    3% picked this

  3. Creating the appearance of impropriety

    Unrelated to Goal

    This doesn’t contain any language about “benefiting, or appearing to benefit” the mayor, so it’s functionally useless to us. We need to know that “helping out a relative = benefiting, or appearing to benefit, you”.

    5% picked this

  4. Awarding a contract to a

    Unrelated to Goal

    This doesn’t contain any language about “benefiting, or appearing to benefit” the mayor, so it’s functionally useless to us. We could maybe say that the relative’s business was “financially troubled”, although we’re only told that it would have been in financial trouble otherwise. But even if we go along with that, this answer just allows us to say that the mayor’s move as excessively risky. We need to establish that it benefited, or appeared to benefit, the mayor.

    1% picked this

  5. Correct

    Benefiting one's family or friends

    Why this is right

    This is actually the only answer even offering us language matching the trigger of the guideline that is being applied. You’re not justified in applying a rule to someone unless they qualify under the terms of the rule. If a movie theater says, “People under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult or guardian to see this R-rated movie” and then they kick you, a 25 year old person, out of an R-rated movie because you don’t have a guardian with you, you’ll say, “You’re not justified in applying this guideline to me! I don’t qualify under the condition of the rule. The rule is triggered by being under the age of 17. Since I’m not under 17, the rule doesn’t apply to me.” Similarly, to justify applications of principles / guidelines, all we’re doing is making sure that the trigger of the rule applies to a given situation. In this case, the trigger is that “awarding the contract would benefit, or appear to benefit, you”. This answer says that if awarding the contract would benefit your relative (family), then we regard it as benefiting you too, and thus the rule may be applied to you.

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

    91% picked this

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