Logical Reasoning

PT151 · S4 · Q19 Any government practice that might

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Any government practice that might facilitate the abuse of power should not be undertaken except in cases in which there is a compelling reason to do so.

Statements

conditional - ANY / EXCEPT might facilitate abuse of power and → shouldn't do it no compelling reason to do it

fact Keeping govt secrets is a practice that might facilitate abuse of power.

(infer-as-we-go: We shouldn't keep govt secrets if there's no compelling reason to do so.)

fact Govt officials are sometimes justified in keeping secrets

(infer-as-we-go: sometimes they have compelling reasons)

fact Too often they keep secrets for insubstantial reasons and enable abuses of power. (infer-as-we-go: they should not have done hat)

conditional - WHEN

Govt officials conceal this practice opens the fact that they are → up opportunity keeping a secret for more abuse

Evaluate

The paragraph ends talking about a practice that "opens up an opportunity for abuse". The paragraph began by talking about a practice that "might facilitate the abuse of power".

So it seems like we could say that government officials should not undertake the practice of concealing from the public that they are keeping a secret, unless there's a compelling reason to do so.

Goal

There are so many facts here that I wouldn't try to 'solve' it upfront, since it could go a lot of different directions. We know we have a very useful conditional in the first sentence. It potentially can be applied to some of the actions we then were told about, and maybe it could even be applied to the rule in the final sentence.

19.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the statements above?

In most cases in which
Too Strong: most cases
We only hear about quantities like "sometimes" and "too often". We have no idea what is true in most (i.e. more than 50% of) cases. To derive this answer, we would need to have been told that in most cases that government officials conceal information, they do not have compelling reasons.
8% picked this
In those cases in which
Unsupported Relationship
We don't have any way to say definitively what happens when officials do have a compelling reason. We certainly can't draw a connection from "if compelling reason, then doesn't facilitate abuse of power". This is garbling together ideas from the first sentence, but those two ideas are not conditionally connected at all (they're both ideas that come from the trigger of the rule).
19% picked this
Correct
A government official who justifiably
Why this is right
This uses a specific storyline to be weird and un-tempting, but it reinforces the connection we made between the last sentence and the first sentence. The fact that the secret was justifiably kept in the first place has nothing to do with this answer being right/wrong. It's just an extraneous detail. Since concealing that a secret is being kept is a practice that might facilitate the abuse of power, we know that government officials shouldn't do it unless there is a compelling reason to do so.
Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
51% picked this
Government officials who conceal information
Unsupported Relationship
We don't have any rule that allows us to say, "you are guilty of abuse of power." That would look like this: _____________ → abused power Our conditionals look like this: practice might facilitate abuse and → shouldn't do it no compelling reason govt official conceals from opens up public that they're keeping → possibility for a secret abuse
16% picked this
Government officials should keep information
Too Strong
This rule (when we contrapose it says), if keeping info secret does should not make it easier for officials → keep info to abuse power secret That's too strong an idea, when the paragraph is not saying they should never keep secrets; it allows for the fact that you can keep a secret if there's a compelling reason to do so.
5% picked this

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