In practice the government will have the last word on what an individual's rights are, because its police will do what its officials and courts say. ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████████████ ████ ██ ███████████ ███ ███████ █████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███████ ██ ██████ █████ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ████
The government’s determination of an individual’s rights isn’t necessarily correct. This is supported through conditional logic: If the government’s view is correct, then people only have the moral rights that the government chooses to grant; if people only have the moral rights the government chooses to grant, then people do not have moral rights. Thus, the government’s view is not necessarily correct. This argument rests on the assumption that people do have moral rights.
The conclusion puts a limitation on government correctness in determining individual right: “That does not mean that the government’s view is necessarily the correct view.”
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ █████████
Individuals have no ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ███
The author rejects this. Her rejection of (A) is the unstated premise (assumption) that leads to the main conclusion—the government isn’t necessarily correct.
What government officials ███ ██████ ███ ██ ████████████ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ██ ████████
This is a good rephrase of the conclusion. (B) has support from the rest of the argument. If we add the assumption that people have moral rights, this would be an airtight argument.
Individuals have rights ██████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ████
This is in direct conflict with the author’s argument. She states that the government isn’t necessarily correct in determining individual rights.
The police always █████ ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████ █████ ████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ████
We know that the police will do what the government says, but we don’t know if the police will agree. Also, the claim about the police serves as context; it isn’t part of the argument.
One should always ███ ██ ██████ █████ ██████████ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████████ ████ ██ ████ █████ ██████ ████
This is a value judgement unsupported by the argument—the author doesn’t address what anyone should or shouldn’t do. She’s discussing whether the government is correct in its judgments.