Self-study
Editorial: Support The threat of harsh punishment for a transgression usually decreases one's tendency to feel guilt or shame for committing that transgression, and Support the tendency to feel guilt or shame for committing a transgression reduces a person's tendency to commit transgressions. █████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ███ ██████████████ ███ ███████ ████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████
Summary
The author concludes that increasing the severity of legal penalties for transgressions may increase people’s tendency to ignore the welfare of others.
Why? Because of the following:
The threat of harsh punishment for a transgression usually lowers one’s tendency to feel guilt or shame for the transgression.
The tendency to feel guilt or shame for a transgression reduces one’s tendency to commit transgressions.
Notable Assumptions
The author makes a few assumptions as part of the causal chain underlying the conclusion.
The author assumes that increasing the severity of legal penalties can constitute a “threat of harsh punishment.”
The author assumes that if one feels less guilt/shame for a transgression, one might be more likely to commit transgressions. (This is a strongly supported assumption, since we know that guilt/shame reduces tendency to commit transgressions; that suggests that lower guilt/shame will increase the tendency to commit transgressions.)
The author assumes that transgressions involve ignoring the welfare others. (This is why the author thinks that as one becomes more likely to commit transgressions, that may increase tendency to ignore others’ welfare.)
15.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
Legal penalties do ███ █████████ ███ ████████ ██ ██ ███████
Not necessary, because “morality” is irrelevant. The argument concerns the relationship between legal penalties, guilt/shame, transgressions, and ignoring the welfare of others. We have no reason to think the author must have some belief about morality.
b
At least some ███████ ████ ███████ ████████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████████████
Necessary, because if this were not true — if NO actions that involve ignoring the welfare of others are transgressions — then the potential increase in transgressions from decreasing one’s guilt/shame would not be a reason to think there’s an increase in ignoring the welfare of others. More transgressions would have nothing to do with increasing instances of ignoring the welfare of others. So the author must assume (B) to preserve the link between more transgressions and more instances of ignoring the welfare of others.
c
People who are █████████ █████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █████████ █████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████
Not necessary, because the concept of “people who are concerned about threats to their own well-being” has no connection to the reasoning. Although the argument does involve the “threat of harsh punishment for a transgression,” that doesn’t require the author to believe that people who are faced with harsh punishment begin to worry about their own well-being. A threat of harsh punishment can cause a chain of consequences without being related to one’s own concern for one’s own well-being.
d
The threat of █████ ██████████ ██████ ██████ ████ ██████████ ██████████████ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ██ █████ █████████ ███████ ████
Not necessary, because the carrying out of the threat of harsh punishment has no connection to the reasoning. The argument is based on the potential impact of the threat of harsh punishment. Whether this punishment is ever carried out doesn’t change anything about the consequences flowing from the threat of harsh punishment.
e
Everyone has at █████ ████ ████████ ██ ████ █████ ██ █████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ██████ ███████████████
Not necessary, because the concept of “extremely severe transgressions” has no connection to the reasoning. The author’s reasoning does not depend on a belief concerning extremely severe transgressions. In fact, the author never comments anything related to different levels of severity for transgressions.