Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S4 · Q24 All unemployed artists are sympathetic

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All unemployed artists are sympathetic to social justice.

Statements

conditional / quantifier (all, no)

Unemployed → sympathetic to artist social justice

Employed → not interested in prospect artist of great personal fame

Evaluate

Whenever we get a conditional claim on Inference, we ask ourselves two things: 1. Are there any other conditionals to which I could chain this one? 2. Are there any facts to which I could apply this rule? (usually via contrapositive)

In this problem, we can tell there are two conditionals. Do they overlap? Is there any common term? (if not, they can't chain)

It looks like they're both talking about the concept of whether or not an artist is employed.

If we contrapose the first rule, it's saying,

Does that mean that you're an employed artist? No, it could just mean that you're not an artist at all. However, if we restrict ourselves to talking about artists, then we would be able to chain these conditionals together. And we have a motivated interest in doing so, since that's how Inference questions with conditionals work.

when it comes to artists .... If you're not sympathetic to social justice, then you're not unemployed, which means you are employed, so you are not interested in great fame

by contrapositive, when it comes to artists .. If you're interested in great personal fame then you're not employed, which means you're unemployed, so you're sympathetic to social justice

Goal

Look for the most provable claim, but the most likely type of answer would combine the two claims by chaining them together, and reward us for seeing the connection between

24.

If the claims made above are true, then which one of the following must be true?

  1. Correct

    If there are artists interested

    Why this is right

    The second sentence tells us that If there are artists interested in fame, then they are not employed artists, which means they're unemployed artists. And the first sentence says that If they're unemployed artists, then they are sympathetic to social justice. So we can derive what this answer is saying. FOR ARTISTS interested → not → sympathetic to in great fame employed social justice

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

    61% picked this

  2. All artists uninterested in the

    Unknown Trigger

    We can't say anything about "all people uninterested in fame" because that wasn't any of our triggers. We only know these four things: unemployed → sympathetic to SJ not sympathetic → not unemployed employed → not interested in fame interested in fame → not employed This answer is starting from a trigger idea we don't have, not interested in fame → so we can't prove anything about the group of all people not interested in fame (which includes all employed artists and potentially some unemployed artists as well).

    13% picked this

  3. Every unemployed artist is interested

    Illegal Negation

    The only thing we know about every unemployed artist is that they're sympathetic to social justice. This answer might be trying to bait people into thinking, "Since they told me that employed artists are not interested in fame, that must mean that unemployed artists are interested in fame." That's an illegal negation. If I tell you that "North American countries are affected by climate change", that doesn't mean that I'm saying "South American countries are not affected by climate change".

    6% picked this

  4. If an artist is sympathetic

    Unknown Trigger Reversed Logic

    Just like (B), we can't say anything about "all people sympathetic to social justice" because that wasn't any of our triggers. We only know these four things: unemployed → sympathetic to SJ not sympathetic → not unemployed employed → not interested in fame interested in fame → not employed This answer is starting from a trigger idea we don't have, sympathetic to social justice → This answer is just reversing the conditional in the first sentence.

    11% picked this

  5. All artists are either sympathetic

    One-Word Off

    This answer is trying to play off our binary set of triggers. If you're an artist, you have to either be employed or unemployed, because that is a binary, exhaustive set of options. As an artist, since you're bound to be be employed or unemployed, you're bound to trigger one of those rules, so you're bound to be sympathetic to social justice, not interested in great fame, or both. But this answer says they are interested in great fame. If it said "all artists are sympathetic to social justice or not interested in great fame", it would also be correct.

    10% picked this

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