Logical Reasoning

PT148 · S4 · Q8 Politician: Some cities have reversed

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Politician: Some cities have reversed the decay of aging urban areas by providing tax incentives and zoning variances that encourage renovation and revitalization in selected areas.

Conclusion (should = opinion)

This legislation, which provides tax incentives and zoning variances to encourage renovation and revitalization of selected areas, should not be commended.

Evidence

Its principal beneficiaries have turned out to be well-to-do professionals; the long-term residents these programs were intended to help now face displacement due to increased rent and taxes.

Evaluate / Goal

Typically, the correct answer to Strengthen + Principle is a conditional that sounds like "If Premise, then Conclusion", so we'll look for something like,

turns out to benefit yuppies, should not the people it was intended → not be to benefit (long-term residents) commended

We know that the correct answer should be about whether or not to commend / praise legislation. If an answer isn't a principle addressing whether or not legislation should be commended, we'll move away from it.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the politician's criticism?

Correct
Evaluation of legislation should take
Why this is right
This is a very surprisingly weak correct answer. It's basically just affirming a Necessary Assumption of the argument. The one thing that makes it worthy of coming back to (it's not very tempting on a first pass), is that it is a principle about evaluating legislation. We're trying to support a conclusion that is about whether or not such legislation should be commended, so we need some rule of thumb for when we should or shouldn't be praising a piece of legislation. This is telling us that as we go about making the evaluation of whether or not to praise a piece of legislation, we should take into account actual results, not intentions alone. In this argument, it's clear that the author was taking into account actual results (its principle beneficiaries turned out to be yuppies), and not just intentions (these programs were intended to help the long-term residents). This answer has a very mild strengthening effect; it just affirms that the premise (about intentions vs. results) is in fact relevant to the conclusion (which is about evaluating the legislation as commendable or not). Had there been any other usable answer, this certainly would not have been the best available.
Skill tested: Principle-Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
73% picked this
The wealthier members of a
Bad Conclusion Match
We're looking for a principle about whether or not legislation should be commended. This is a principle about whether or not wealthy people should have undue influence on the government. Since that has no language in common with our conclusion, this principle won't do anything to help us support our conclusion. Also, the fact that well-to-do professionals ended up benefiting from these laws doesn't mean we know that they had any undue influence on the government that created these laws. It's possible, from all we've read, that the government was trying to write laws that would help long-term residents and it just didn't clearly foresee that the ramifications of the legislation would actually help wealthier member of the community.
5% picked this
A community's tax laws and
Bad Conclusion Match
We're looking for a principle about whether or not legislation should be commended. This is a principle about whether or not tax laws and zoning regulations should apply equally. Since that has no language in common with our conclusion, this principle won't do anything to help us support our conclusion. Presumably the laws and regulations in this legislation did apply equally to all residents. So the legislation potentially accorded with this principle; that doesn't give us any way to argue that the legislation shouldn't be commended.
16% picked this
Legislation that is not to
Bad Trigger Match
This is by far the most attractive answer on the first pass, because we're looking for a principle to support the conclusion that certain legislation "should not be commended." However, this rule looks like this: If legislation is not to → then it should not anyone's benefit be commended We can't trigger this rule because this legislation was to some people's benefit; it benefited the yuppies. If the trigger of a rule doesn't apply, then the answer has no effect whatsoever.
6% picked this
Laws that give advantage to
Bad Conclusion Match
We're looking for a principle that would support the idea that "this legislation should not be commended". This answer has no language that relates to whether or not we should praise a given law, so it doesn't seem like it could be a correct answer. The legislation we're talking about is an example of a law that gives advantage to the well-to-do. According to this answer, that means that such legislation can also benefit society as a whole. Is that going to help us argue that this legislation should not be commended? Of course not. It would help us argue that it should be commended, if anything, since it would be commendable to benefit society as a whole.
1% picked this

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