Self-study
Editorial: The government claims that the country's nuclear power plants are entirely safe and hence that the public's fear of nuclear accidents at these plants is groundless. ███ ██████████ ████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ██████████ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████████ ███ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ █████████ █████████ █████ ████ █ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███ ██ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██████ ████ ██████ ████ █ ███████ █████████ ███ ████████ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████████
The Government's Claims
The editorial walks through several positions the government has taken:
- Safety: Plants are entirely safe, so the public's fear is groundless.
- Liability limits: They're justified by the need to protect the nuclear industry from bankruptcy.
- Bankruptcy threat: Unlimited liability poses such a threat only if injury claims can be sustained against the industry.
- Sustained claims: For claims to be sustained, injury must result from a nuclear accident.
According to the government's own claims, for unlimited liability to pose a bankruptcy threat, a nuclear accident has to produce an injury that supports a sustained claim. So the government's reasoning for limiting liability assumes that nuclear accidents producing injuries are at least possible.
The Contradiction
The government has put forward two claims that can't both be true.
Position 1: Plants are entirely safe. If that's true, no nuclear accidents happen. No accidents means no sustained injury claims. No sustained claims means unlimited liability poses no bankruptcy threat.
Position 2: Liability limits are justified by the need to protect against bankruptcy. That justification only makes sense if there really is a bankruptcy threat, which (by the government's own logic) requires that accidents producing injuries are possible.
So one position lands at "no bankruptcy threat" and the other lands at "bankruptcy threat is real." Those positions can't both be true at the same time.
21.
If all of the statements ███████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████████ █████████ ████████ ███ ████████████ █████████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███████████
a
The government's claim █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████ █████ ██████ ██ ██████
The question stem matters here. It asks what must be true "on the basis of those statements," meaning the premises that describe the government's position. It's not asking what the editorial concludes or what we'd believe if we agreed with the editorial's full argument.
The premises only force a contradiction between the government's safety claim and the government's claims about unlimited liability. A contradiction by itself doesn't tell us which side is wrong. The safety claim might be the true one and the bankruptcy concern is actually ill-founded, or vice versa. So (A) doesn't follow from the premises describing the government's position.
b
The government's position ██ ███████ █████ ██████ ██ █████████████
This is exactly the contradiction the explanation walked through. The government can't simultaneously hold that plants are entirely safe (which implies no bankruptcy threat from sustained claims) and that liability limits are needed to protect against that bankruptcy threat. Those two positions are inconsistent.
c
The government misrepresented ███ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██████████
"Misrepresent" implies the government was dishonest about its reasons for acting. We can't establish that. The government might be sincerely holding both positions in good faith without noticing they conflict. The premises show a clash between two positions, not deception about why one of them was adopted.
d
Unlimited financial liability ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████ █████████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████ █████████
(D) is what you'd believe if you accepted the government's safety claim is true. But we don't know that it's true. It's just one thing the government claims, and it's contradicted by another thing the government claims (the bankruptcy-protection justification).
e
The only serious ██████ █████ ██ █ ███████ ████████ █████ ██ ██ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ █████████
The premises never discuss what threats a nuclear accident could actually pose. They focus on the government's positions about safety and liability, not on the consequences of accidents themselves. Whether financial damage is the "only serious threat" (versus harm to people, the environment, or anything else) is unknown.