Logical Reasoning

PT23 · S2 · Q13 Committee member: We should not

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Committee member: We should not vote to put at the top of the military’s chain of command an individual whose history of excessive drinking is such that that person would be barred from commanding a missile wing, a bomber squadron, or a contingent of fighter jets.

Conclusion

Someone whose history of drinking would bar them commanding a missile wing, bomber squadron, or contingent of fighter jets should be put at the top of the military's chain of command.

Evidence

Leadership must be established from the top down.

Evaluate

This barely sounds like an argument. We have to fill in a lot of blanks with what the premise means by "leadership must be established from the top down".

The underlying principle seems to be, .

It's hard to predict an If / Then principle here, because it would sound kinda stupid like, .

Let's just look for an idea we think the author would agree with, that matches her reasoning, and that doesn't seem to go overboard.

13.

The committee member's argument conforms most closely to which one of the following principles?

  1. Correct

    No one who would be

    Why this is right

    This seems to match the move from “If you couldn’t lead a squadron or a missile wing or a contingent of jets, then you shouldn’t be commander in chief”. Those examples all seem like “important jobs in the military organization”, and the conclusion is saying that this hypothetical person shouldn’t lead the military. It's a weird answer since it's really not using the final sentence at all, which would be the actual premise. It's kind of treating the conclusion as a mini-argument unto itself: "Since person X's history of drinking would bar them from commanding these units, person X shouldn't be placed at the top of chain of command".

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

    73% picked this

  2. Whoever leads an organization must

    Bad Evidence Match

    The argument isn’t saying you shouldn’t be allowed to lead if you haven’t served in these subsidiary roles. It’s saying you shouldn’t be allowed to lead if you wouldn’t be eligible to serve in these subsidiary roles (i.e. if you’d be barred from serving in those roles).

    1% picked this

  3. Whoever leads an organization must

    Weak Evidence Match Too Strong: each

    The argument isn’t saying you shouldn’t be allowed to lead if you aren’t qualified to take on these other jobs. This hypothetical person might be plenty qualified to command a squadron or missile wing, but their “extracurriculars” (their excessive drinking) is what would bar them. We might say, “okay, but if your drinking disqualifies you, doesn’t that mean you’re not qualified, in a sense?” Yes, but the correct answer doesn’t require that we do verbal stretchiness. It actually replicates the concept from the evidence of being barred from holding certain jobs. More importantly, this answer is too extreme because it’s saying that the leader of any organization must be qualified to hold every single important job in the organization. Don’t even think about running a nonprofit, unless you’d be qualified to do the job of being the web designer for the nonprofit's website?

    10% picked this

  4. No one who drinks excessively

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: anywhere Bad Conclusion Match Weak Evidence Match This is saying, “if you drink excessively, then you can’t hold any leadership position”, but the conclusion is only saying, “You can’t be the overall leader”. The evidence wasn’t pointing directly to the fact that this hypothetical person was a drinker. It was more about how it would be a double standard if we were to tolerate drinking in the top job, even though we wouldn’t tolerate it in other leadership positions.

    8% picked this

  5. No one who cannot command

    Term Shift: cannot vs. should not

    This argument wasn’t saying that an excessive drinker can't command a missile wing, just that they wouldn't / shouldn't; they'd be barred from doing so. We might think, "well if you'd be barred, then doesn't that mean you can't do it?" If we were treating those as synonyms, then there would be no reason to switch from "cannot" to "should not" as this answer does. It would just say "No one who cannot command missile wing can be at the top of the chain of command." But they are shifting from cannot to should-not because those two concepts are distinct. If we're comparing this answer to the correct answer, we have a stronger Evidence Match with the correct answer: "barred from holding important jobs" vs. "cannot command a missile wing". The evidence mentioned several jobs an excessive drinker would be barred from. We don't know if the author thinks "not being able to command a missile wing" is on its own enough to disqualify you from being at the top.

    7% picked this

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