Self-study
Politician: It is wrong for the government to restrict the liberty of individuals, except perhaps in those cases when to fail to do so would allow individuals to cause harm. ████ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ █ ████████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ██ █████ █████
Summary
If failing to restrict a liberty would not cause harm, then it’s wrong for the government to restrict that liberty. (Contrapositive: if it’s not wrong for the government to restrict a liberty, then it must be that failing to restrict that liberty would cause harm.)
To offend isn’t something that causes harm.
Publishing something is considered a liberty.
Very Strongly Supported Conclusions
Failing to restrict any liberty (such as publishing something) that just involves offending people wouldn’t cause harm.
So it’s wrong for the government to restrict any liberty (such as publishing something) that just involves offending people.
12.
Which one of the following ███ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ████████████ ███████████
a
It is not █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ██ ████ ██████████
Very strongly supported. Publication is a liberty. So it’s wrong to restrict a publication if failing to restrict it would cause no harm. Offending is something that causes no harm. Thus it’s wrong to restrict a publication if its only issue is that it’s offensive.
b
It is not █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████ ████████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ ██ ██ █████ █████ ███████████ ██ █████ █████
Unsupported. We can only conclude when something is wrong, not when it’s not wrong. (B) makes a sufficiency-necessity swap. The stimulus actually tells us that when it’s not wrong for the government to restrict a liberty, then failing to restrict that liberty must cause harm.
c
It is offensive ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██ ██ ███ ████████
Unsupported. The stimulus doesn’t suggest what makes something offensive.
d
It is not █████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ████ ██ ██████████
Unsupported. We can only conclude when something is wrong, not when it’s not wrong. Also, the stimulus doesn’t suggest what makes something wrong or not wrong for individuals. It only discusses what makes something wrong for the government.
e
It is not █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ███████ █████
Unsupported. The exception in the stimulus is triggered by any harm, not just serious harm. It’s possible for a publication to not cause serious harm while still causing some harm. So this publication might still trigger the exception, meaning the restriction might be acceptable.