Logical Reasoning

PT8 · S4 · Q16 Consumer advocate: Under the current

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Consumer advocate: Under the current absence of government standards for food product labeling, manufacturers are misleading or deceiving consumers by their product labeling.

Conclusion

Using words somewhat differently than they are commonly used is not deceptive

implicitly: it's okay to call this concentrated orange juice "fresh".

Evidence (After all)

"Fresh" can also mean never frozen.

No official government standards for labeling exist, and the manufacturer will comply once they do.

Evaluate

A Principle-Strengthen question usually works like Sufficient Assumption. The principle we want has the manufacturer's evidence on the trigger side and the manufacturer's conclusion on the outcome side.

The outcome should be saying "not deceptive" or .

The trigger would deal with any / all of the author's premises: - "fresh" can mean non-frozen - there isn't a clear standard from the govt about labeling

Goal

Find the principle that goes off something established by the Manufacturer's evidence and that takes us to our desired destination of "not deceptive".

16.

Which one of the following principles, if established, would contribute most to a defense of the manufacturer’s position against that of the consumer advocate?

  1. In the absence of government

    Opposite

    This principle hands the win to the consumer advocate. With no government definitions in place, it says the common understanding of "fresh" governs, and the common understanding is pure and unprocessed. Under this rule the label is deceptive, which is the advocate's conclusion, not the manufacturer's.

    15% picked this

  2. Government standards for truthful labeling

    Unrelated to Goal

    This is a principle directed toward the government, telling them how to write standards when it gets around to writing them. We want a principle directed at manufacturers, judging whether or not their label is deceptive. Even worse, if the government were to follow this principle, they would end up designating "fresh" according to the common understanding of "pure / unprocessed", rather than according our manufacturer's alternative meaning of "not frozen".

    1% picked this

  3. Correct

    People should be free, to

    Why this is right

    This is not an obvious answer, since it's never using the operative term of "deceptive", and it's not phrased in any obvious conditional form. If we were to translate this into something conditional, it would sound something like, "If it's legal for you to exploit an inherent vagueness in language to your advantage, then you are free to do so". The trigger matches the manufacturer's evidence: "fresh" is ambiguous, since it can mean 'never frozen', and using it that way is legal because no official standard forbids it. The outcome points in the direction of the manufacturer's conclusion: people should be free to exploit that ambiguity to their advantage, which means the label is permissible and the manufacturer cannot be faulted.

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

    74% picked this

  4. When government standards and common

    Unknown Trigger

    This principle fires only when government standards and common standards conflict. There are no government standards yet, so the trigger never occurs and the principle has nothing to say about the current label. This principle would allow us to conclude that the government standards should take precedence, but since there ARE no government standards, that's a pretty useless or nonsensical conclusion.

    5% picked this

  5. In their interpretation of language,

    Unclear Impact

    As soon as we see that the normative language of this principle is about what consumers should / shouldn't do, we know this probably isn't right. We need a principle that tells us what manufacturers are / aren't allowed to do, or that judges whether a label is / isn't deceptive. They end up making it semi-relevant by saying "consumers shouldn't presume something is deceptive". But we want to be able to conclude that a label isn't deceptive, not tell consumer what they should / shouldn't assume. This principle says, "If the manufacturer isn't going to reap large benefits from successful deception, then consumers shouldn't interpret vagueness as an attempt to deceive". We wouldn't be able to trigger this rule because we have no idea whether the manufacturer of this OJ is going to reap large benefits from successful deception.

    5% picked this

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