Logical Reasoning

PT146 · S2 · Q6 Astronomer: This country's space agency

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Astronomer: This country's space agency is currently building a new space telescope that is, unfortunately, way over budget.

Conclusion

We should not cancel the project to build the space telescope.

Evidence

If we canceled now, all the money we've spent thus far would be wasted, and the money we've spent is more than the money left we'd have to spend to finish it.

Evaluate

We just want to set up an "IF premise, THEN conclusion" bridge idea.

If all the money would be wasted or If we've already spent more than the additional we'd have to spend then should not cancel project

Goal

Get rid of any answer that doesn't let you put "shouldn't cancel" on the right side (or some equivalent meaning like "should continue the project").

Make sure the principle applies to this project and gets us closer to the judgment of "we should keep going / we shouldn't cancel"

Which one of the following principles, if valid, would most help to justify the astronomer's argument?

A government agency should not
Bad Premise Match
This rule on its face appears usable. It allows one to conclude "should not cancel". Can we trigger it? the amount of money already spent is not small relative → shouldn't cancel to agency's overall budget Do we know if the money already spent is not small relative to the space agency's overall budget? No. We weren't told anything about the agency's budget. We can't speculate.
16% picked this
Correct
If more than half of
Why this is right
On its face, this seems usable, as it would allow one to conclude that we "should continue the project" (which effectively communicates that we should not cancel it). Can we trigger the rule? Amount spent is more than half should the total cost of the project → complete Do we know if the money spent so far is more than half? Yes, I guess we do. If we've spent more already than we'd have to spend to finish it, then we've already spent more than half of the total cost. Imagine the total cost ends up being $100 million. By the logic of the premise, we've already spent more than $50 million, since what we'd have left to spend has to be less than that and still get us to $100 million. No one could / would have predicted this wording; it's just a reminder to stay flexible (especially on Sufficient Assumption and Principle-Justify, where historically we got used to being able to predict the same wording as was used in the argument.)
Skill tested: Principle-Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
83% picked this
If it becomes clear that
Bad Conclusion Match
Scanning this answer and seeing that the right side of the arrow would say → should cancel is enough to get rid of this without further analysis.
0% picked this
One should not commit additional
Opposite
This is also a principle guiding us, or inclining us, to not spend anymore money. But we're trying to justify an argument that wants to spend more money to finish off the job, since we're closer to the finish line than we are to the starting point.
0% picked this
In determining which scientific projects
Bad Premise Match Weak Conclusion Match
This isn't super enticing, since it would only allow us to conclude "the government should give funding priority to this project", when we're hoping to say "should continue / should not cancel". But we can't trigger this rule, because we don't know if the new space telescope is "the most likely project to lead to important new discoveries". We can't speculate that just because it's a telescope it's one of the most likely things to lead to new discoveries.
0% picked this

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