PT61 S2 #24 LR-history and working out of moral themes Forum
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june2014
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Fri Nov 29, 2013 7:14 am
PT61 S2 #24 LR-history and working out of moral themes
Can anybody explain why (A) is wrong? It's clear to me why (B) is correct, I understand the logic/gap in the stimulus, and I eliminated (A) because it didn't feel right, but for some reason I just can't seem to explain to myself why exactly (A) is incorrect. Would really appreciate any help.
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Daily_Double
- Posts: 1031
- Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:45 pm
Re: PT61 S2 #24 LR-history and working out of moral themes
Tricky question. S/A questions require you to recognize the gap between the premises and conclusion, which is to say you need to identify why the conclusion is not necessarily true. Then you have to simply assume whatever is sufficient for that gap to be filled up. Essentially, you say to yourself "This is wrong because X doesn't necessarily mean Y, but I'll give the author a pass this time and let him assume that it does."
You mentioned that you understand the gap between the premises and the conclusion, but, if you did, then I think you would have recognized that (A) is insufficient. So let's dive into it just to make sure you're up to speed. I'm not a big fan of frequency language, it tends to cloud what's really going on, so I'm going to drop all of it unless I have to mention it.
ARGUMENT STRUCTURE:
(1) Seeing history as the product of morality requires clear moral beliefs
(2) As knowledge of history increases, one makes moral judgements less often
___________________________________________________________________________________
As knowledge of history increases, seeing history as the product of morality decreases
Our conclusion is that one condition is sufficient for the absence of another condition. The issue is that these two relationships aren't related. So the flaw is that the author assumes that some relationship exists between the frequency of moral judgment and the presence of clear moral beliefs. If you were to prephrase an assumption it would be:
S/A: When moral judgments decrease [or when knowledge of history increases, it's the same thing] clear moral beliefs decrease.
Side Note: If you're looking for a quick and easy trick for questions like these, then note that our conclusion contains the absence of the sufficient condition in our first relationship. The only way to ensure that this occurs is to negate the requirement of that condition.
We can represent this with the following diagram:
(1) A ----> B
(2) C ----> D
______________________
C ---->A
The assumption becomes rather obvious when you look at conditions instead of words. Because this is merely a diagram of the argument, the assumption is exactly the same, which is that a relationship exists between D and B such that B is more likely to be absent when D is present because that would result in the same relationship between the sufficient conditions of B and D [A likely to decreases when C occurs].
Now let's look at answer choice (A). Well the biggest issue here is that it doesn't establish a relationship between our premises at all. Which is a problem because we need our answer to establish not just a relationship, but one such that when one sufficient condition decreases, so does the other.
Does this answer your question?
You mentioned that you understand the gap between the premises and the conclusion, but, if you did, then I think you would have recognized that (A) is insufficient. So let's dive into it just to make sure you're up to speed. I'm not a big fan of frequency language, it tends to cloud what's really going on, so I'm going to drop all of it unless I have to mention it.
ARGUMENT STRUCTURE:
(1) Seeing history as the product of morality requires clear moral beliefs
(2) As knowledge of history increases, one makes moral judgements less often
___________________________________________________________________________________
As knowledge of history increases, seeing history as the product of morality decreases
Our conclusion is that one condition is sufficient for the absence of another condition. The issue is that these two relationships aren't related. So the flaw is that the author assumes that some relationship exists between the frequency of moral judgment and the presence of clear moral beliefs. If you were to prephrase an assumption it would be:
S/A: When moral judgments decrease [or when knowledge of history increases, it's the same thing] clear moral beliefs decrease.
Side Note: If you're looking for a quick and easy trick for questions like these, then note that our conclusion contains the absence of the sufficient condition in our first relationship. The only way to ensure that this occurs is to negate the requirement of that condition.
We can represent this with the following diagram:
(1) A ----> B
(2) C ----> D
______________________
C ---->
The assumption becomes rather obvious when you look at conditions instead of words. Because this is merely a diagram of the argument, the assumption is exactly the same, which is that a relationship exists between D and B such that B is more likely to be absent when D is present because that would result in the same relationship between the sufficient conditions of B and D [A likely to decreases when C occurs].
Now let's look at answer choice (A). Well the biggest issue here is that it doesn't establish a relationship between our premises at all. Which is a problem because we need our answer to establish not just a relationship, but one such that when one sufficient condition decreases, so does the other.
Does this answer your question?
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WaltGrace83
- Posts: 719
- Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:55 pm
Re: PT61 S2 #24 LR-history and working out of moral themes
Just wanted to say that your explanation was AWESOME. Super helpful. Thanks so much for the contribution (and wow, that was a tricky tricky problem)
