Logical Reasoning

PT16 · S3 · Q25 The government has no right

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The government has no right to tax earnings from labor.

Conclusion

The government has no right to tax earnings from labor.

Intermediate Conclusion (so)

Taxing earnings from labor is pernicious.

Intermediate Conclusion (thus)

Taxing earnings forces a laborer to work, in part, for another's purpose.

Evidence

Taxing earnings requires the laborer to devote a certain % of hours to earning money for the government.

Involuntary servitude can be defined as forced work for another's purpose.

Involuntary servitude is pernicious.

Evaluate

Our job is to characterize the type of evidence or reasoning move employed. Method questions usually pull from this list of 8: - analogy - counter/example to a general claim - implications of logic - alternate explanation - rule out competing options - identify a dubious assumption - raise an overlooked consideration - make a definition / distinction

From this list, the "definition" one jumps out because the author said "X can be define as Y". We could also potentially gravitate towards "analogy", since the author is building a case that having our earnings taxed is analogous in some ways to involuntary servitude.

Goal

Pick any answer that is descriptively true / that we can match up with the argument.

25.

The argument uses which one of the following argumentative techniques?

  1. deriving a general principle about

    Bad Evidence / Conclusion Match

    Since this answer takes the form, doing X from a judgment concerning Y we would interpret X as the conclusion and Y as part of the evidence. You derive your conclusion from your evidence. Was the conclusion "a general principle about the rights of individuals"? Hmm ... kind of, but not really. Saying "The government has no right to tax earnings from labor" sounds more like a general principle about the rights of governments. It implies that individuals have the right to labor earnings that are untaxed by the government, but we're doing this answer a favor by pretending that's a match. More distinctly, there's nothing in the evidence about "obligations of governments".

    14% picked this

  2. inferring what will be the

    Bad Evidence / Conclusion Match

    Since this answer takes the form inferring X from Y, we would interpret X as the conclusion and Y as part of the evidence. You infer your conclusion from your evidence. Was the conclusion about "what will be the case"? No, not at all. "The government has no right to tax labor earnings" is not a statement about the future. Furthermore, the evidence was also a series of timeless claims, not a description of "what once was".

    2% picked this

  3. Correct

    inferring that since two institutions

    Why this is right

    This is going for the analogy angle. When we read, inferring that since X, Y we know that X is a premise (since / because / after all / for), and so Y is a conclusion. Can we match up anything with "two institutions"? Yes, we could potentially say that both the government is an institution and that involuntary servitude is an institution. That latter one may feel a little weirder, but we probably are familiar with hearing "The institution of slavery" in historical conversations. Similarly, the feudal system could be called an institution. So the practice or economic system of involuntary servitude can apparently be called an institution. If we accept that weird word match, then the rest of this answer makes sense. The author is saying that, "Since both taxing earnings and involuntary servitude involve forced labor for another's purpose, we can conclude that they will also both be similar in being considered pernicious."

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

    71% picked this

  4. citing the authority of an

    Bad Evidence Match

    Since this answer takes the form, citing X in order to justify Y we would interpret Y as the conclusion and X as part of the evidence. You cite evidence in order to justify your conclusion. Does the evidence invoke the authority of some economic theory? Nope.

    6% picked this

  5. presupposing the inevitability of a

    Too Strong: inevitability

    Is this author assuming that a hierarchical class system is inevitable, if the government were to tax our earnings? No, that sounds way too harsh. The author isn't saying that taxing our earnings will turn us into a hierarchical class system like masters / servants. She's just saying that taxing earnings has something unsavory in common with that unsavory hierarchical class system known as involuntary servitude.

    7% picked this

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