Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S2 · Q1 Activist: The average CEO

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Activist: The average CEO is paid many times more than the average worker is paid at the same company.

Evidence

It is certain that no CEO works many times harder than the average worker.

Conclusion (Therefore)

The high pay of CEOs is wholly unjustified.

Evaluate

It's fine to consider the first sentence as part of the evidence, but it's really giving us an idea of how high the average CEO's pay is when compared to the average worker. If anything, we might bake this information into the conclusion:

It is wholly unjustified to pay CEOs many times more than the average worker at their company is paid.

In order for the evidence to fully support this conclusion, we need to assume that, if a CEO does not work many times harder than the average worker at their company, it is wholly unjustified to pay the CEO many times more than the average worker is paid.

We could even diagram this:

~work many times harder → ~pay many times higher

Goal

Since this is a Principle-Strengthen question, the correct answer might contain this exact assumption. However, the correct answer only needs to strengthen the argument. A principle which states something like, would be good enough. Beware of answers that contain illegal reversals or illegal negations of the assumption we identified above.

1.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in the activist’s argument?

  1. Correct

    At any given company, people’s

    Why this is right

    This strengthens the argument by connecting the premise about how hard a CEO works to the conclusion about their pay.

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

    98% picked this

  2. At any given company, people’s

    No Impact: overall success

    While the overall success of a company might be influenced by how hard the employees work, these are two separate concepts. The overall success of a company does not play a role in the argument that we're given.

    1% picked this

  3. At any given company, people’s

    No Impact: lifestyle

    This answer choice is trying to get your brain to make a natural connection between pay and lifestyle. It might be trying to trick you into thinking that the argument is somehow justified by comparing a CEO's lifestyle to the average worker's lifestyle. But the argument that we're given is strictly about the connection between pay and how hard one works. Lifestyle is outside the scope of this particular argument.

    0% picked this

  4. At any given company, people

    No Impact: same work

    The argument never states or assumes that a CEO and the average worker do the same work. The argument is based on how hard people work, not the actual tasks that they perform.

    1% picked this

  5. People who are able to

    No Impact: able, obligation

    Like the other incorrect answers, this one is trying to trick us with concepts that are related to those in the argument but are not part of the actual argument that we're given. This argument is not based on an obligation to work hard, or even on someone's ability to work hard. It's strictly comparing how hard a CEO actually works to how hard the average worker does.

    0% picked this

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