Logical Reasoning

PT17 · S3 · Q23 Arnold: I was recently denied a

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Arnold: I was recently denied a seat on an airline flight for which I had a confirmed reservation, because the airline had overbooked the flight.

Jamie's Conclusion

The airline is not morally obligated to pay you any compensation.

Jamie's Evidence

Given that your original flights was canceled due to bad weather, you would have missed your business meeting even if you hadn't been bumped from your original flight.

Evaluate

Jamie is saying that the result would have been the same (missed business meeting) whether the airline had allowed Arnold on his scheduled flight or bumped him, so they don't owe him money for the missed business meeting because of bumping him due to an overbooked flight.

Goal

Her principle would sound like,

If your original flight → airline isn't morally would have had obligated to pay result X anyway your for result X

Because of how the question stem is written, we know that the correct answer will need to start with only if or some other necessary-condition indicator word.

Jamie is trying to say the airline isn't morally obligated to pay, but this answer is saying "the airline is morally obligated to pay".

If we hear , then we can contrapose and get a useful rule like, "If not X, then not obligated to pay".

23.

A principle that, if established, justifies Jamie’s response to Arnold is that an airline is morally obligated to compensate a passenger who has been denied a seat on a flight for which the passenger has confirmed reservations

  1. if the only reason the

    Unrelated to Goal

    Unrelated to Goal: if Bad Conclusion Match As we mentioned earlier, a sufficient indicator won't help us. This answer creates a rule that looks like this, only reason passenger airline morally forced to take later flight ? obligated to is orig was overbooked compensate The right side doesn't match Jamie's conclusion, because she is saying the airline is not morally obligated to compensate.

    22% picked this

  2. only if there is a

    Bad Trigger Match

    Since this has the desired necessary indicator "only if", we'll immediately contrapose this so that we can get "airline not obligated to pay" on the right side, matching up with Jamie's conclusion. This rule says the reason the passenger is airline not forced to take later flight ? morally obliged IS because original flight to compensate was canceled for bad weather In the case of Arnold, was the reason he was forced to take the later flight because the original was canceled for bad weather? Nope. He was forced to take the later flight because the original was overbooked. Since the trigger doesn't match Arnold's situation, it's useless to us here.

    18% picked this

  3. Correct

    only if the passenger would

    Why this is right

    Since this has the desired necessary indicator "only if", we'll immediately contrapose this so that we can get "airline not obligated to pay" on the right side, matching up with Jamie's conclusion. This rule says the passenger would have airline not been forced to take later flight ? morally obliged even if original flight hadn't to compensate been overbooked In the case of Arnold, would he have been forced to take a later flight, even if the original flight hadn't been overbooked? Yes, because the original flight ended up being canceled for bad weather. Since the trigger matches Arnold's situation and the outcome matchers Jamie's conclusion, we've got a good answer.

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

    44% picked this

  4. even if the only reason

    Unrelated to Goal

    Unrelated to Goal: even if Bad Conclusion Match When we say "X even if Y", that just means that X happens no matter what, whether Y does or doesn't happen. So this rule is saying "the airline is obligated to compensate, even if [stuff]". A rule like that won't help us. It will be saying that the airline is obligated to compensate, whether or not [stuff] happens. That doesn't match Jamie's conclusion, because she is saying the airline is not morally obligated to compensate.

    4% picked this

  5. even if the passenger would

    Unrelated to Goal

    Unrelated to Goal: even if Bad Conclusion Match When we say "X even if Y", that just means that X happens no matter what, whether Y does or doesn't happen. So this rule is saying "the airline is obligated to compensate, even if [stuff]". A rule like that won't help us. It will be saying that the airline is obligated to compensate, whether or not [stuff] happens. That doesn't match Jamie's conclusion, because she is saying the airline is not morally obligated to compensate.

    12% picked this

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