If the purpose of laws

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct78% picked this

   takes a sufficient condition for a state of affairs to be a necessary

   Why this is right

   As we anticipated, this is just calling out the illegal negation the author performed in going from claim 1 to claim 2. "having the purpose of contributing to happiness" is identified in the first sentence as a condition that would sufficiently guarantee that we have a basis for evaluating laws. In the 2nd sentence, the author acts like if we don't have that condition, we can't have any basis. So she starts acting as though that condition is necessary for having a basis for evaluating laws.

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

   78%
2. B

   Not Causal4% picked this

   infers a causal relationship from the mere presence of

   This speaks to the 2nd most common Famous Flaw, Causal Overconfidence, in which an author overconfidently assumes / concludes one possible causal interpretation of the evidence, even though other possibilities exist. That didn't happen here. We could say that the final conclusion infers a causal relationship between "Being a law" and "acquiring legitimacy", but there wasn't a premise that said "Being a law and acquiring legitimacy are correlated".

   4%
3. C

   Not Equivocation5% picked this

   trades on the use of a term in one sense in a premise and in a different

   This describes one of the other top 10 Famous Flaw, Equivocation, in which an author uses the same term twice in an argument but to mean very different things. This, like Circular and Self-Contradiction, is almost never a correct answer. There were no terms in this argument used in different ways.

   5%
4. D

   Bad Evidence Match10% picked this

   draws a conclusion about how the world actually is on the basis of claims about

   Did the author draw any conclusion about how the would actually is? Sure, we could say the final conclusion about "existing laws get their legitimacy from being laws" is about the world that actually is. Was there a premise talking about what should be the case? Not at all.

   10%
5. E

   Not Whole to Part3% picked this

   infers that because a set of things has a certain property, each member of that

   This describes one of the other top 10 famous flaws, Part vs. Whole, in which an author assumes that a trait that is true of each part of a whole must therefore be true of the collective itself, or vice versa. There is no part vs. whole aspect to this argument.

   3%