Logical Reasoning

PT7 · S4 · Q23 The workers at Bell Manufacturing

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The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages.

Conclusion (So)

Some of Bell’s subsidiaries will be sold.

Evidence

The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages. As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the workers’ wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries.

Evaluate

"Unless" is a conditional logic indicator so we might want to diagram this one.

The workers at Bell Manufacturing will shortly go on strike unless the management increases their wages.

~ S → IW ( or, if you replace unless with if not, ~ IW → S )

As Bell’s president is well aware, however, in order to increase the workers’ wages, Bell would have to sell off some of its subsidiaries.

IW → SSS

The conclusion of this argument isn't a conditional, it's a statement of fact: some subsidiaries will be sold.

SSS.

What would allow us to conclude that fact? Triggering a conditional with that necessary condition! Increasing wages would do the job according to the second premise. But we could also get the job done by chaining the first premise to the second. If you used the "replace unless with if not" method of diagramming statement 1, you may need to contrapose to make the chain.

~ S → IW → SSS

So, if we know the workers can't go on strike, that gets the job done too.

Goal

Sufficient Assumption questions, especially conditional ones, are highly predictable, so hopefully we're going to the answers knowing roughly what we're looking for: a statement of fact that tells us that wages must increase or a strike is not possible.

23.

The conclusion above is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. Bell Manufacturing will begin to

    Out of Scope: increased losses

    That new idea doesn't chain to anything we have or trigger any of our conditionals.

    2% picked this

  2. Bell’s management will refuse to

    Opposite

    We need to establish that wages will increase, thereby triggering the second conditional premise.

    2% picked this

  3. Correct

    The workers at Bell Manufacturing

    Why this is right

    If we know for sure they will not go on strike, we trigger the chain of conditionals: no strike means wages increase, which means we have to sell some subsidiaries.

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

    80% picked this

  4. Bell’s president has the authority

    Weaker Trigger Match

    Weaker Trigger Match: the authority to offer To trigger the conditional, we need wages to actually increase. The president simply having the authority to increase wages isn't quite a match.

    13% picked this

  5. Bell’s workers will not accept

    Out of Scope: benefits

    This new idea doesn't trigger any of our conditionals. Not accepting a benefits package instead of the wage increase doesn't guarantee that the wage increase actually goes through, and if we can't guarantee the wage increase, we can't guarantee that we'll sell some subsidiaries.

    4% picked this

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