Dealing with should statements Forum

[timmydoeslsat]

I am a bit bothered by the following:

Take the statement, "I should do X."

This is the equivalent of telling me that... "I should always do X"...correct?

If so, which I believe it is, then to correctly negate this statement is the following:

I should not always do X.

It seems that a straight negation of going from "should" to "~should"...is the equivalent of going from always to never. It does not account for the middle ground of sometimes. It seems that "should" would be included in this idea. To go from saying "should do X" to saying "~should do X" would not seem to be the true negation.

I would like some clarification on this because in 25-2-24, this would make answer choice E, the correct answer, not actually necessary. What would be necessary is that "Should sometimes balance." This answer choice right now states should always if my understanding of a should statement is correct. And in that context, we do not have to have that always be true.