Logical Reasoning

PT140 · S2 · Q6 Detective: People who repeatedly commit

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Detective: People who repeatedly commit crimes like embezzlement or bribery without being caught tend to become more confident.

Conclusion (therefore)

It is likely that most people who commit embezzlement or bribery will eventually be caught.

Evidence

People who repeatedly commit crimes like embezzlement or bribery without getting caught tend to become more confident and believe that getting caught is less likely.

The more crimes a person commits, the greater the chance that one of those crimes will be solved.

Evaluate

Given that … not getting caught makes you more confident you won’t get caught, and given that the more crimes you commit, the greater the chance that one of those crimes will be solved by law enforcement,

How could we still argue that … Most people who commit embezzlement or bribery will not eventually be caught?

One way to object could be to say that even though the risk of getting caught increases with each additional crime committed, it still never gets to the point of being likely (i.e. above 50% that you’ll get caught).

In other words, maybe there was a 0.5% chance your first crime would be solved, then 0.7% for your 2nd crime, 0.9% for your 3rd crime, etc. That might mean by the time you commit your 20th crime you’re at a 4.5% chance of getting caught. That still means you have a 95.5% chance of not getting caught.

Just because a certain number (probability of getting caught) is always increasing doesn’t mean it will ever hit a certain threshold (over 50% = likely).

We would also try to prevent the author’s move from to “you’ll commit more crimes”. Just because you become more confident that you can get away with a crime doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily commit more crimes. Maybe you had a really good reason to commit bribery or embezzlement, but it was a one-time thing. You committed your crime and you think, , but you have no further reason to keep committing crimes.

Goal

Let’s look for an answer speaking to the move from or one speaking to the move from to “you will try it again”.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the detective's argument?

Correct
The majority of people who
Why this is right
In 99% of cases, the word “most” is wrong on Necessary Assumption. But in this case, the idea of “a majority / most people” is logically important because the conclusion is about “most people who commit embezzlement / bribery”. In fact, we could even have thought to ourselves, “There’s a New Term in the conclusion! It’s talking about most people who commit embezzlement / bribery, but the evidence never defines or discusses that group. Therefore, this new term should be in my correct answer.” If we negate this, it’s saying, “Most people who commit these two crimes do not do so repeatedly.” Why would that weaken? Because … the trigger that starts this whole causal chain is motion is the idea in the first sentence that if you repeatedly commit these crimes and don’t get caught, you’ll end up being more confident, which will lead to commit these crimes again, which will keep increasing the odds that you eventually get caught. But if most people who commit these two crimes only do so once, then the author doesn’t get that causal chain he’s envisioning, in which the repeat offender keeps increasing the odds of being caught. If most people who commit these crimes do so only once, then they can just commit the crime, not get caught, and be done. Thus, they are not likely to eventually get caught.
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
75% picked this
People who commit embezzlement or
Relative vs. Absolute
The argument was talking about becoming more confident than you were before, when you repeatedly commit embezzlement / bribery without being caught. It’s not saying that these people are confident in some absolute sense. If we negate this answer and say that people commit these crimes usually aren’t confident, that doesn’t hurt the argument at all. It would still be the case that repeatedly committing these crimes without getting busted would tend to make them more confident than before.
3% picked this
Embezzlement and bribery are more
Out of Scope: other crimes
There are no other crimes discussed in the argument, so the author hasn’t committed herself to any opinion on how solvable embezzlement / bribery are compared to other crimes.
3% picked this
People who repeatedly commit embezzlement
Out of Scope: more careless
This answer is tempting because it would explain why the more crimes they commit, the more likely they are to have one of their crimes solved. But this isn’t a necessary idea. If we negate this and say that they never get any more careless with repeated crimes, it doesn’t weaken the argument. The premise that “the more crimes they commit, the more likely one of those crimes will be solved” can be true even without them being careless. It might just be that the more a culprit pulls off a similar heist multiple times, the easier it becomes for law enforcement personnel to acquire clues / leads, or to understand the particular methodology of the criminal in order to anticipate their move next time.
17% picked this
No one who commits embezzlement
Too Strong: no one
The author certainly hasn’t committed to the very extreme claim that no one ever gets caught the first time. It doesn’t hurt the argument at all if some people get caught the first time. As long as most people don’t get caught the first time, the author can still make his argument that they will get more confident, commit more crimes, and keep increasing the likelihood that they will eventually be caught.
3% picked this

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