Logical Reasoning

PT152 · S4 · Q17 Health-care facilities have a duty

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Health-care facilities have a duty to protect their patients from unnecessary harm.

Conclusion (So)

Health care facilities must institute policies that make influenza vaccination mandatory for all employees.

Evidence (since / since)

Health-care facilities have a duty to protect their patients from unnecessary harm.

Influenza viruses pose substantial risks to patients.

Vaccines can significantly reduce the spread of these viruses.

Evaluate

If we were trying to prephrase a Linking assumption here, it would sound something like, .

But since this argument has a Plan / Recommendation feel to it, we're more likely to see an answer dealing with ruling out a possible objection. So let's try to think of a possible objection.

Given that ... vaccines can reduce the spread of the flu, which poses a big risk to patients. and given that ... health-care facilities have a duty to protect their patients from unnecessary harm,

How could we argue that ... health-care facilities don't have to institute policies that make flu vaccinations mandatory for all employees?

When an argument identifies a problematic situation and concludes that "we must do X", they are assuming two automatic things: 1. X would help solve the problem 2. there aren't any other solutions that could also solve the problem

So this author is assuming that mandatory vaccinations would achieve the goal of making the facility's patients be less exposed to unnecessary harm.

And she's assuming that health care facilities don't have any other options (maybe instead of making the vaccines mandatory, they could just incentive them by saying ).

Maybe we don't need all employees to be vaccinated. Maybe the employees that work away from the patients (like in the kitchen or laundry room) don't need to be vaccinated.

Goal

Look for an answer Linking "mandatory vaccines" to "protecting patients from unnecessary harm".

Or look for an answer ruling out an objection, probably ruling out an alternative plan for how the facility could protect patients from harm without making vaccinations mandatory for all employees.

17.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

  1. Health-care facility employees do not

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: how they regard it We never talked about how employees would regard a mandatory vaccination policy. But we should negate this and consider if it would be an objection to the conclusion. If we say, "Some employees do consider mandatory vaccination as violating their rights", does that help us argue that these facilities do not need to institute mandatory vaccine policies? Not really. The argument is worried about protecting patient health. It doesn't really care if employees feel their rights are being violated, unless that manifests in some way that endangers patient health. If employees are mad but get vaccinated anyway, or they're mad and they quit out of refusal to get vaccinated, neither of those hurts the argument. The outrage of some employees would only be relevant to this argument if the angry employees "faked" being vaccinated but then still spread the flu to patients or if the employees took out their anger about the vaccine policy in ways that increased danger of harm to patients.

    4% picked this

  2. Influenza viruses are the most

    Too Strong: the most harmful

    This argument is definitely assuming that flu viruses pose some risk of unnecessary harm to patients, but it doesn't need to assume that flu viruses are the #1 most harmful airborne pathogen patients risk exposure to. If the flu viruses are the #2 most harmful airborne, the argument still makes just as much sense.

    4% picked this

  3. Most patients in health-care facilities

    Too Strong: most

    The word "most" is wrong 99% of the time it shows up on Necessary Assumption because it's so specifically about this 50% threshold. Does the author need there to be at least 51% of patients unvaxxed for his argument to make sense? Or would the argument still make sense if only 49% of patients are unvaxxed? The argument would work either way, so while this answer would strengthen the argument, it isn't needed for the argument to work.

    11% picked this

  4. Correct

    Voluntary vaccination policies at health-care

    Why this is right

    If "most" is the least lovable word in Necessary Assumption, then "not" is the most lovable word. So many correct answers play a Defender role; they rule out a potential objection using the word "not/no". These are ripe for negating. Does it hurt the argument if we say, "Voluntary vaccination policies would adequately protect patients from the risks of flu viruses"? Yes! That basically contradicts the conclusion, which was saying "these facilities need to make the vaccinations mandatory". It points to an alternative solution. They don't need to do mandatory vaccinations if voluntary vaccinations would provide adequate protection.

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

    80% picked this

  5. Society has already accepted the

    Out of Scope: society / other contexts

    (Man, it's fun to read these answers in a post-Covid era.) This argument wasn't talking at all about whether society has / hasn't accepted mandatory vaccinations in other contexts. If we negate this and say, "society hasn't already accepted this idea in other contexts", that doesn't inherently weaken the argument. The author can just say, "Okay, that's fine. I guess this will be the first context in which society accepts the idea. Or society can fail to accept it. Who cares. We only care about the facility upholding its duty to protect patients from unnecessary harm".

    1% picked this

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