Logical Reasoning

PT155 · S2 · Q21 Professor: It has been argued

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Professor: It has been argued that all judges should be elected rather than appointed to their positions.

Conclusion

It would be a bad idea if all judges were elected rather than appointed.

Evidence

If judges were elected, they'd have to raise funds, which means they'd accept campaign contributions from special interests, which means they'd be likely to run into the same conflicts of interest that politicians run into when they accept contributions.

Evaluate

We want a principle that gets us from something we were told in the Evidence about "electing judges", such as - they'd have to fundraise - they'd take contributions from special interests - they'd presumably run into conflicts of interest and uses that to get us to Conclusion language like "bad idea / should have judges be elected".

Goal

If they'd have to fundraise, then electing judges is a bad idea

or

If it would mean that they're taking contributions from special interests, then electing judges shouldn't be done

or (most likely, since this idea was deepest in the chain of Premises)

If it would produce conflicts of interests for judges, then we shouldn't have them be elected.

21.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, would most help to justify the professor's reasoning?

  1. If politicians should avoid conflicts

    Bad Premise Match

    If this answer simply said "judges should avoid conflicts of interest", then knowing what we were told about electing judges, this would strengthen the idea that judges shouldn't be elected. But this answer is conditional, so it only has any power if you trigger it. Can we trigger it? Were we told that politicians should avoid conflicts of interest? Nope. So this answer does nothing for us.

    5% picked this

  2. Special interests should not make

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is a principle that would help us say what special interests should / shouldn't do. We're looking for a principle that would help us say whether judges should / shouldn't be elected. So this is nowhere close to the right type of wording.

    2% picked this

  3. Judges should be appointed to

    Bad Conclusion Match

    Because "only if" signifies the right side idea, this is saying should → appointment ensures be usually no conflicts appointed of interest If we contrapose this, then we have a rule that says, if there usually is conflict of interest, then judges should not be appointed. That's a bad match for our conclusion, which is "judges should not be elected". The conclusion actually implies we should stick with our current system of appointing judges, so this answer would only help us to disprove the conclusion.

    15% picked this

  4. If judges should be appointed,

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This, structurally, is useless for the same reason (C) was. It's not a rule that helps us to prove "judges should not be elected". Bizarrely, it's another rule that allows you to prove "judges should not be appointed", which is the opposite of our conclusion. Remember, that principles (or conditionals) only allow you to prove/conclude the idea to the right of the arrow. This rule is written should be appointed → xyz So we would contrapose it to see its resemblance to the conclusion, ~xyz → should not be appointed

    1% picked this

  5. Correct

    No public office for which

    Why this is right

    No A's are B = A → ~B So this rule reads like this: Public office for should not be which election changed from campaigning would → an appointed office be likely to produce to an elected office conflicts of interest Is judging a public office for which campaigning would be likely to produce conflicts of interest? Yes. Were they to have to campaign, it is likely that they would accept campaign contributions, which is well-known to lead to conflicts of interest. Since we can trigger this rule, we can say that "judges should not be changed from appointed to elected officers", which is a great match for our Conclusion.

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

    76% picked this

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