PT107.S4.Q21

PrepTest 107 - Section 4 - Question 21

Show analysis

Support All too many weaklings are also cowards, and Support few cowards fail to be fools. ████ █████ ████ ██ ██ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ██ ████ █ ████████ ███ █ █████

Method of Reasoning

The argument starts with the statement that "all too many" weaklings are cowards. Since "all too many" is a subjective quantifier — perhaps for this author, even a handful of weaklings being cowards is "too many" — this premise just tells us that some weaklings are also cowards. Then the argument states that few cowards fail to be fools: if few cowards are not fools, this means most cowards are fools. From these two premises, the argument concludes that there is at least one person who is both a weakling and a fool: i.e., at least one weakling is a fool, which we can translate to "some weaklings are fools."

Identify and Describe Flaw

Remember that the premises of this argument are "some weaklings are cowards" and "most cowards are fools." Notice that the group "cowards" is mentioned in both statements. One way to think about these two premises is that they both describe a subset of cowards, "weaklings" being the first subset and "fools" being the other subset.

The problem with this argument is that it assumes these subsets overlap, when we don't have enough information to conclude that they do. We know the subset "fools" takes up more than half of the set "cowards" — but we don't know how big the "cowards" subset is, so we can't conclude that it overlaps with the "fools" subset at all. Thus, the argument's conclusion that some weaklings are fools assumes these subsets will overlap, when that isn't supported by the premises.

As an analogous argument, imagine the statements "some chickens are brown" and "most brown animals are mammals." It would be wrong to conclude "some chickens are mammals" as a result: the groups "chickens" and "mammals" can both be subsets of the group "brown animals" without overlapping with each other. More generally, the pattern we're looking for is an argument that concludes two groups overlap simply because they are subsets of a larger group, without enough information about the size of the subgroups to support that claim.

User Avatar Analysis by ArdaschirArguelles
Show answer
21.

The flawed pattern of reasoning ██ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████

a

All weasels are ██████████ ███ ██ ██████████ ████ ██ ██ ██████████████ ██ ████ ███████ ███ ██████████████

b

Few moralists have ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ████████ ███ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ████ ██████████

c

Some painters are ████████ █████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ████ █████████ ███ ████████

d

If an act ██ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███████████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ██████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████████

e

A majority of ███ ██████ ██████████ ██████ █ █████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ███ ██████ █ █████ ███ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ██ █████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███████ ████████

Confirm action

Are you sure?