Logical Reasoning

PT23 · S3 · Q24 A person’s failure to keep a promise

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A person’s failure to keep a promise is wrong only if, first, doing so harms the one to whom the promise is made and, second, all of those who discover the failure to keep the promise lose confidence in the person’s ability to keep promises.

Principle

only if = right side

harms the person Failing to keep that you promised promise is wrong → and everyone who finds out you broke promise loses confidence in you Evaluate

We know that on questions where we're given a Principle in the Stimulus, we want that principle arranged so that the Criteria are on the left, and the Judgment is on the right.

The normative language in this principle is the idea of whether or not failing to keep a promise was wrong, so we need to do a contrapositive in order to get the judgy "wrong/not wrong" language on the right side.

This is a huge part of what these questions test. They love to give us rules that are like, "X → Y and Z" so that they can test us on "~Y or ~Z → ~X".

Goal

So the usable form of this rule is if failing to keep a promise didn't harm the person that you promised failing to or → keep promise if not-all people who discover was not wrong to failed to keep promise lose faith in your promise-keeping

Importantly, we can only use this rule to derive that failing to keep a promise was not-wrong. This rule has no power to prove that failing to keep a promise was "wrong", because that idea never appears on the right of the arrow, and we can only prove what's on the right of the arrow.

24.

Which one of the following judgments most closely conforms to the principle above?

  1. Ann kept her promise to

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This is trying to prove that keeping a promise was not wrong. We only have a rule that lets us say that failing to keep a promise was not wrong. if failing to keep a promise didn't harm the person that you promised failing to or ? keep promise if not-all people who discover was not wrong to failed to keep promise lose faith in your promise-keeping

    10% picked this

  2. Jonathan took an oath of

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This is trying to prove that failing to keep a promise was wrong. We only have a rule that lets us say that failing to keep a promise was not wrong. if failing to keep a promise didn't harm the person that you promised failing to or ? keep promise if not-all people who discover was not wrong to failed to keep promise lose faith in your promise-keeping

    1% picked this

  3. George promised to repay Reiko

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This is trying to prove that failing to keep a promise was wrong. We only have a rule that lets us say that failing to keep a promise was not wrong. if failing to keep a promise didn't harm the person that you promised failing to or ? keep promise if not-all people who discover was not wrong to failed to keep promise lose faith in your promise-keeping

    12% picked this

  4. Correct

    Because he lost his job,

    Why this is right

    This is correctly trying to prove that failing to keep a promise was not wrong. We just need the evidence to either establish that the other party in this broken promise was not harmed, or we need the evidence to establish that at least one person (not-all) who discovered the promise was broken did not lose faith in the promise-breaker. This actually gives us both of those ideas, somewhat. Carlo broke his promise to Miriam. But she does not seemed harmed (she didn't need this money). And she also didn't lose confidence in his ability to keep promises (so it's true that "not all who discover the broken promise lose confidence in the promise-breaker").

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

    70% picked this

  5. Elizabeth promised to return the

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This is trying to prove that failing to keep a promise was wrong. We only have a rule that lets us say that failing to keep a promise was not wrong. if failing to keep a promise didn't harm the person that you promised failing to or ? keep promise if not-all people who discover was not wrong to failed to keep promise lose faith in your promise-keeping

    7% picked this

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