Logical Reasoning

PT156 · S4 · Q9 Journalists often claim that their investigation

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Journalists often claim that their investigation of the private lives of political leaders is an effort to improve society by forcing the powerful to conform to the same standards of conduct as the less powerful.

Conclusion

Journalistic investigation of political leaders' private lives is detrimental to society.

Evidence (and)

The practice makes public figures more concerned with mere appearances and makes everyone else cynical about the character of their leaders.

Evaluate

We know when we read the argument on Main Conclusion or Role that we're most likely going to see an upside-down argument, where the conclusion comes earlier and the support comes later. In particular, we listen for First Sentence opinions from the author (usually those would be the Main Conclusion) or early Attributions (usually the conclusion would be a pivot/rebuttal from that idea).

Here we start with an Attribution, so we'd anticipate a Pivot + Pushback conclusion. We get that with the second sentence. They said the tactic is an effort to improve society. The author is saying, "Well, it's not working. It's detrimental to society".

She then supports that conclusion with a pair of premises, joined by "and".

Goal

We're being asked about the opening claim, which is an Opposing idea.

Our author isn't exactly refuting it, because it's a statement about what the tactic is attempting to do, and the author's conclusion is about what the tactic is actually doing.

So we'll need to be more nuanced, like, .

9.

The claim that journalistic investigation of the private lives of political leaders is an effort to improve society plays which one of the following roles in the argument?

  1. It is a claim that

    Bad Description

    So mean. This argument definitely feels like a standard, "Some ppl say X. But they're wrong. Here's why." type of rebuttal. But the author isn't saying the original claim is wrong, because the claim was about the journalists were trying to do. It was an EFFORT to improve society. The conclusion is that the efforts are NOT improving society, but refuting the opening claim would mean arguing that journalists aren't actually trying to improve society.

    41% picked this

  2. Correct

    It mentions a justification that

    Why this is right

    Is the argument concluding that a practice has undesirable consequences? Yes, the conclusion is that "the tactic is detrimental to society". The tactic/practice is investigating the private lives of political leaders. Was the opening claim mentioning a justification for that practice? Yes, the justification was "it's an effort to improve society by forcing the powerful to conform to the standards the rest of us conform to". Everything in the answer is descriptively true, so it's correct.

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

    52% picked this

  3. It is cited as evidence

    Bad Description

    Is there an assertion that the argument concludes is false? Not really. The conclusion isn't contradicting anything we heard asserted. If someone asserted, "The tactic of investigating the private lives of political leaders is beneficial to society", then the argument would be concluding that this assertion is false. Is there any evidence that "this tactic is beneficial to society"? Does the opening claim count as evidence? Does saying "this tactic is an effort to improve society" count as evidence that "this tactic is beneficial to society"? No, not really. It's definitely not presented as evidence. We might think that it's reasonable to say, "Action X leads to Effect Z. After all, Action X is an effort to bring about Effect Z." But just think about how crazy that logic would sound in many contexts, "Sending a letter to Santa at the North Pole leads to getting an Xbox on xmas. After all, the kid wrote the letter in an effort to get an Xbox on xmas."

    2% picked this

  4. It describes a phenomenon that,

    Opposite

    The argument concludes the practice is more damaging than journalists imply, not less. Journalists frame it as a benefit; the author calls it detrimental.

    0% picked this

  5. It gives an example of

    Bad Description

    The phenomenon being discussed is investigating the private lives of political leaders. An example of that phenomenon would be like, "Remember when the press was following around Senator Wilson to see if he was having an affair?" There's nothing specific like that in the paragraph.

    3% picked this

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