Logical Reasoning

PT142 · S4 · Q12 Prime minister: Our nation's

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Prime minister: Our nation’s government should give priority to satisfying the needs of our nation’s people over satisfying the needs of people of any other nation.

Given that ...

the people of our country are equal in worth to the people of other nations

and that ...

therefore it's no more objectively important to satisfy our people's needs than any other people's needs

How can we still say that ...

Our nation's government should give priority to satisfying our nation's people over satisfying the needs of others?

Evaluate / Goal

We need a way of justifying why our government should focus on satisfying the needs of this country, even though all people have equal value and importance.

The answer will probably say that each government is better positioned to know the specific problems and appropriate solutions for its local people's needs. In other words, we care about taking care of all humans on the planet, but we think we can best achieve that by having lots of smaller units that managing themselves.

12.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to reconcile the apparent conflict among the prime minister's claims?

  1. A nation’s government should not

    Opposite

    According to the stimulus, the needs of this nation's people are not more important than anyone else's needs. Thus, according to this answer choice, the government should not attempt to satisfy the needs of its people. That contradicts the half of the paradox we're trying to explain. We're looking for a way to justify that a government should attempt to satisfy the needs of its people.

    3% picked this

  2. A nation’s government should give

    Opposite

    According to the stimulus, the people of this nation are no more worthy than other nation's people. Thus, according to this answer choice, the government should not attempt to satisfy the needs of its people. That contradicts the half of the paradox we're trying to explain. We're looking for a way to justify that a government should attempt to satisfy the needs of its people.

    3% picked this

  3. The priority a nation’s government

    Opposite

    According to the stimulus, the needs of this nation's people are equally important to satisfy as are the needs of other nations' people. Thus, according to this answer choice, the government should place equal priority on satisfying the needs of people from all nations. That contradicts the half of the paradox we're trying to explain. We're looking for a way to justify that a government should prioritize the needs of its people.

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    When the people of two

    Why this is right

    According to the stimulus, the people of all nations are equally worthy. Thus, according to this answer choice, the needs of the people of each nation should be satisfied primarily by that people's government. This gives us a way to justify that a government should prioritize the needs of its own people, since their needs should be satisfied primarily by that government.

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

    89% picked this

  5. A nation’s government should give

    Bad Trigger Match

    This provides a bi-conditional idea (if and only if) that's saying, either ... there's no other way to satisfy People X's needs other than a nation's government giving priority to satisfying those needs, and thus that government should give priority or ... there is some other way to satisfy People X's needs, besides a nation's government giving priority to satisfying those needs, and thus that government should not give priority. We have no way to apply this rule to any nation, because we were never told about any nation's people "there is no other way to satisfy their needs" or "there is some other way to satisfy their needs". This gives us a conditional, but we don't have any information available to trigger it.

    1% picked this

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