Logical Reasoning

PT16 · S2 · Q24 The role of the Uplandian supreme court

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The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power.

Conclusion

It cannot be true that the role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power.

Evidence

The argument derives two intermediate conclusions: (a) the supreme court must sometimes resort to principles outside the explicit provisions of the constitution; (b) nothing but the explicit provisions of the constitution can be used to justify court decisions. These two intermediate conclusions are inconsistent. The argument concludes that the first premise (the role of the court) must be false.

Evaluate

An inconsistency in derived conclusions tells us at least one of the premises in the chain is false — but it does not tell us which. The argument arbitrarily blames the first premise. It could equally be that the constitution actually is explicit about all human rights, or that human rights would not in fact be subject to the whim of judicial power without strict adherence to the constitution.

Goal

Find the answer that says the argument concludes a particular premise is false when other premises could just as easily be the false one.

24.

The reasoning that leads to the conclusion that the first sentence in the passage is false is flawed because the argument

  1. ignores data that offer reasonable

    Bad Description

    The argument is not built on data and counterexamples. It is a chain of derived conclusions that contradict each other. There is no general claim being defended against contrary data, just an inconsistency between intermediate conclusions. This describes a different flaw.

    9% picked this

  2. seeks to defend a view

    Inappropriate Appeals

    The argument does not appeal to popularity or widespread acceptance. None of the premises invoke "many people believe" or "decisions based on this view are accepted as correct." The argument is a logical chain, not a popularity argument.

    4% picked this

  3. rejects a claim as false

    Bad Description

    The argument does not raise self-interest as a reason to reject any claim. There is no mention of who benefits from holding which view. The flaw is structural, in how the argument blames one premise out of several when the contradiction implies only that some premise is wrong.

    4% picked this

  4. makes an unwarranted assumption that

    Part vs. Whole

    This describes a part-whole flaw — concluding that what holds for individuals also holds for the group. The argument does not do that. There is no individual-versus-group inference; the argument turns on which premise to reject when conclusions conflict.

    11% picked this

  5. Correct

    concludes that a particular premise

    Why this is right

    This is the flaw exactly. The argument's two intermediate conclusions contradict each other, and the argument moves directly from "these conclusions contradict" to "the first sentence is false." But an inconsistency only tells us that at least one premise feeding the contradiction is false — not which one. The first sentence could be true, with the second premise (the constitution is not explicit about all human rights) or the third (judicial power requires the constitution as a single objective standard) being false instead. The argument arbitrarily picks one premise as the culprit when the contradiction points equally at all of them.

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

    72% picked this

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