It is unethical for government officials to use their knowledge of impending policies to financially benefit themselves if that knowledge is not available to the general public.
Principle
Knowledge isn't available to the general public and → Unethical Government official uses it to financially benefit self
Evaluate
When we're given a Principle and asked to apply it, it will usually be a conditional rule. We want to set it up as in If / Then format, making sure the "judgy" idea is on the right.
"Judgy" = normative, expressing value or judgment
In this principle, the idea of whether or not something is ethical or unethical is the judgy term.
When something is phrased, "It is X to Y", that is saying that .
So the first part of this sentence, would be a conditional itself.
If a govt official is using knowledge of impending → unethical policy to benefit themselves
The if clause at the end adds another qualifier to the trigger ... "assuming this knowledge is not already public domain".
Goal
When we're using a rule set up like X and Y → Z then we can only prove "Z". We can't prove "not Z".
In this case, we don't have to worry about any answers trying to prove that something "was ethical", because the question stem has already pre-loaded the outcome of "unethical".
So we're just looking to make sure all the criteria is established: 1. govt official 2. info about an impending policy 4. info not available to general public 3. official uses info to benefit themselves