Can you please clarify this brief question that has me stuck Forum

[seventwentynines]

I'm having issue with Test 25, Section 4, question 18 (the second section of Arguments). A quick rundown of the the question is that it's about not being able to mistreat plants because plants don't have a nervous systems, and having a nervous system is necessary to experience pain. (Almost exactly what the question says)

I was stuck between choosing "Any organism that can experience pain can be mistreated" and "Only organisms that can experience pain can be mistreated". I chose the prior but the credited response was the latter.

The reason I chose the prior was because I felt that "only" used in the latter was too exclusive. Not that I felt any better about the use of "any" either but decided it was less restrictive than "only".

I spent the past quarter hour trying to understand how and where I went wrong but to no avail. I would appreciate any clarifications.

[stratocophic]

I'm having issue with Test 25, Section 4, question 18 (the second section of Arguments). A quick rundown of the the question is that it's about not being able to mistreat plants because plants don't have a nervous systems, and having a nervous system is necessary to experience pain. (Almost exactly what the question says)

I was stuck between choosing "Any organism that can experience pain can be mistreated" and "Only organisms that can experience pain can be mistreated". I chose the prior but the credited response was the latter.

The reason I chose the prior was because I felt that "only" used in the latter was too exclusive. Not that I felt any better about the use of "any" either but decided it was less restrictive than "only".

I spent the past quarter hour trying to understand how and where I went wrong but to no avail. I would appreciate any clarifications.

Having trouble understanding what the test question is, but I think this is what you're looking for - the first statement leaves room for the possibility that organisms that don't feel pain can be mistreated. You want the 'only' because plants can't feel pain and therefore can't be mistreated. The 'any' basically doesn't exclude plants from the category of things that can be mistreated because it leaves open the possibility that organisms that can't experience pain can be mistreated.

[IvanFK]

i don't have the test with me so forgive me if i misunderstood. But if you are not able to mistreat plants because they do not have a nervous system and therefore they cannot feel pain, it means the subject of mistreatment feeling pain is a necessary condition for being able to mistreat it. Only would imply this necessary condition. Any doesn't imply necessity, because while anything that can feel pain can be mistreated, it doesn't say anything about the things that can't feel pain. But if only the things that can feel pain can be mistreated, then u can't mistreat things that cannot feel pain because the "only" excludes it (does not fulfill necessary condition).

hth

[seventwentynines]

[/quote]Having trouble understanding what the test question is[/quote]
Great thanks for your perspective on the question. I didn't want to put the question up word for word since I'm exactly sure of the policies regarding 'duplicating' material on here. I'll give it a shot though.

Question is...
"Obviously, we cannot in any real sense mistreat plants. Plants do not have nervous systems, and having a nervous system is necessary to experience pain"

[seventwentynines]

Awesome thanks both of you. That helped clarify something I spent quite some time trying to figure out. Much appreciated.

[stratocophic]

Hope my rambling helped, law school's got me thinking in practical terms for arguing instead of LSAT-speak. Formal logic's the worst. Good luck with the studying