The government has no right

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Evidence / Conclusion Match14% picked this

   deriving a general principle about the rights of individuals from a judgment concerning the

   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%
2. B

   Bad Evidence / Conclusion Match2% picked this

   inferring what will be the case merely from a description of what once

   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%
3. C

   Correct70% picked this

   inferring that since two institutions are similar in one respect, they are similar

   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.

   70%
4. D

   Bad Evidence Match6% picked this

   citing the authority of an economic theory in order to justify

   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%
5. E

   Too Strong: inevitability8% picked this

   presupposing the inevitability of a hierarchical class system in order to oppose a

   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.

   8%