Lawyer: If you take something

Answer choices

1. A

   Wrong Flaw12% picked this

   confuses a factual claim with a

   This argument was committing a Fact vs. Opinion mistake. It does have a premise that is presented as factual (Meyers didn't have good reason) and a conclusion that sounds like a moral judgment (Meyers didn't do anything wrong). But it wasn't wrong for the author to go from fact to moral judgment, because the conditional rule she cited moves from fact to moral judgment. The logical problem was that the author didn't go from "the Trigger is true, so the Outcome is true", she went from "the Trigger is false, so the Outcome is false".

   12%
2. B

   Not Assumed18% picked this

   takes for granted that Meyers would not have taken the compost if he had good reason to believe that

   The author only dealt with what actually happened, so we can't accuse her of making assumptions about what might have happened in some counterfactual. Her conclusion is simply that Meyers didn't do anything wrong, not that Meyers is incapable of doing something wrong, or that Meyers can be trusted to not do anything wrong (or anything like that, more expansive, that would possibly make this counterfactual relevant).

   18%
3. C

   Correct61% picked this

   takes a condition that by itself is enough to make an action wrong to also be necessary in order for

   Why this is right

   This describes the Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw. "Taking something you believe to be someone else's" is a condition that by itself is enough to make an action wrong, but it's not the only thing that can make it wrong. It would be like if we said, "Burning down a building is called arson, and arson is wrong. But Mandy didn't burn down any buildings, so she didn't do anything wrong." She might not have committed arson, but she might have done something else wrong.

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

   61%
4. D

   Not an Objection2% picked this

   fails to consider the possibility that the compost was

   The author seems to explicitly consider this possibility when she mentions that the compost was from a public garden. Even if we granted that the compost was Meyers' property (maybe it's a community garden, so it's public but he still owns this compost?), this would only help the author's argument that Meyers did nothing wrong.

   2%
5. E

   Bad Premise/Conclusion Match7% picked this

   concludes that something is certainly someone else's property when there is merely good, but not conclusive, reason to think that

   Does the author conclude that something is certainly someone else's property? Nope. She concludes that Meyers did nothing wrong. We could eliminate based on this. Was the evidence a premise that there is good but not conclusive reason to think that the compost is someone else's property? Nope. The evidence was that Meyers had no good reason to think the compost was someone else's.

   7%