Activist: President Zagel should resign

Answer choices

1. A

   Unrelated to Goal3% picked this

   A country whose election procedures are resistant to illegitimate manipulation will eventually

   This principle would help someone argue for election procedures that are more resistant to illegitimate manipulation. The activist's goal isn't to support a conclusion about election procedures. He's trying to support the conclusion that Zagel should resign.

   3%
2. B

   Bad Trigger Match4% picked this

   The leader of a country should resign if doing so is likely to improve that country's international

   This provides a conditional rule whose outcome would match the activist's conclusion. So ... juicy! Worth considering. How does it look: leader X's resignation leader X is likely to improve ? should Country's A's reputation resign for political stability We'd love to use this rule to support/prove the activist's conclusion, but can we factually establish the trigger. Were we told that "If Zagel resigns, the country's reputation for political stability would improve"? No. Zagel, was arguing that "If she resigns, the country's reputation for political stability will be unacceptably low". Since we can't trigger this conditional, it does nothing for us.

   4%
3. C

   Bad Trigger Match1% picked this

   If a president is involved in a scandal that is more serious than scandals that have forced previous leaders to resign,

   Like (B), this provides a conditional rule whose outcome would match the activist's conclusion. Worth considering. How does it look: leader X's is involved leader X in a scandal more ? should serious than scandals resign that forced previous leaders to resign Can we factually establish the trigger? No, we were never told that Zagel's scandal is more serious than were the previous scandals. Since we can't trigger it, this answer goes nowhere.

   1%
4. D

   Bad Trigger Match Bad Conlusion Match5% picked this

   If it can be conclusively proven that an officeholder rigged an election, then that officeholder should

   Neither half of this rule matches up. The conclusion is that Zagel "should resign", not that Zagel "should be removed from office". That's enough to move on. We also couldn't establish the trigger, because we can't say that it's been "conclusively proven" that Zagel rigged the election.

   5%
5. E

   Correct88% picked this

   It is more important for a country to have a leader who can govern effectively than it is to be viewed by other countries

   Why this is right

   This answer is different from all the others because it's the only one that's a Comparison, not a Conditional. By itself that means nothing. Conditionals are more powerful types of claims, but they only have value if you can trigger them. Once triggered, then you're guaranteed the outcome. But if not triggered, then they do literally nothing. Meanwhile, Comparative answers are more like strengtheners than they are like provers. They won't firmly settle the conclusion, but they can tilt us more in that direction. Since all the other answers were useless to us, the strengthening value of this Comparison is more than that of any other answer. The activist could respond to Zagel by saying, "I agree that if you resign, it will be a bad look for this country on the global stage. But so what. You should still resign. It's more important for us to have a leader who can govern effectively, which we've established you can't, than it is to have other countries view the stability of our political system favorably." Since Zagel's resignation would have an upside and a downside, the Activist's argument assumes that the upside outweighs the downside. We often refer to this type of correct answer as Weighing Tradeoffs.

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

   88%