Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S1 · Q11 It is morally praiseworthy

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It is morally praiseworthy to be honest only if one is honest out of respect for morality.

Conclusion (therefore)

Telling the judge the truth about his business partner's fraudulence was not worthy of praise.

Evidence

If you're not being honest out of respect for morality, then it's not worthy of praise.

He was honest, but he was motivated by concern for his own well-being.

Evaluate

We're trying to prove that a certain action was "not worthy of moral praise". Did the argument provide any proving-mechanism like, "If xyz, then not worthy of moral praise"?

It did! There's a conditional premise that says, .

So we know our legal job. We need to establish that Downing's honesty not honest out of respect for morality.

Did the argument give us any proving-mechanism like, ?

No, so the correct answer will have to do give us that. We only know that Downing was motivated by concern for his own well-being.

Goal

So we need to hear that,

11.

The conclusion drawn above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. An action motivated by concern

    Out of Scope: moral condemnation

    We're looking for a missing link like, "An action motivated by concern for onseself cannot also be done out of respect for morality". Since this answer won't allow us to prove that Downing's honesty was not out of respect for morality, it's functionally useless to us.

    5% picked this

  2. Some actions that are essentially

    Too Weak: some Unrelated to Goal

    Answers that provide only one-data-point worth of information are almost always wrong on Strengthen / Weaken / Paradox / Principle-Strengthen / Sufficient Assumption, so seeing this answer begin Some is an immediate red flag. Since this answer won't allow us to prove that Downing's honesty was not out of respect for morality, it's functionally useless to us.

    10% picked this

  3. Correct

    An action performed out of

    Why this is right

    Like most correct answers on Sufficient Assumption, this gives us the correct answer in contrapositive form. It says: Performed out of ? not motivated by respect for morality concern for self And the contrapositive matches our prediction Motivated by ? not performed out of concern for self respect for morality If we prefer to view the whole thing formally, the Conclusion we need to prove looks like this logic path (we extend the arrow so that we can see which parts of the path have been supplied by the evidence). CONC Downing's -------------------------> not worthy action of praise EVIDENCE Downing's -> motiv by action cncrn 4 self not out of ----> not worthy resp 4 moral of praise The conclusion is trying to get from Idea 1 to Idea 4. The evidence connects 1 to 2, and it connects 3 to 4. Our answer provides the missing link from 2 to 3.

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

    83% picked this

  4. The moral praiseworthiness of an

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're looking for a missing link like, "An action motivated by concern for onseself cannot also be done out of respect for morality". Since this answer won't allow us to prove that Downing's honesty was not out of respect for morality, it's functionally useless to us.

    1% picked this

  5. Morality demands that one be

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're looking for a missing link like, "An action motivated by concern for onseself cannot also be done out of respect for morality". Since this answer won't allow us to prove that Downing's honesty was not out of respect for morality, it's functionally useless to us.

    1% picked this

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