Self-paced
Advocate: You claim that it is wrong to own gasoline-powered cars because they pollute too much; you have an electric car, which pollutes far less. ███ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ████ █████ ████████ ██ ████████████████ █████████ ██ ████ █████████ ████████ █ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ███ █████ █████ ████████████████ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ████████ ███ ███████
Summary
According to the advocate, if you are correct to claim that it’s wrong to own a gasoline-powered car, then you should not have purchased an electric car made by a company that also makes gas cars. This is because doing so benefits a company that makes products which you object to.
Notable Assumptions
The advocate uses factual premises to show that your car purchase benefits a company which also makes products you object to, but then jumps to the conclusion that you should not have your electric car. The advocate must be assuming a value judgment.
We need to find a rule which matches that assumption, that you should not purchase product from a company that also makes products you object to. That would justify the advocate’s argument.
18.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████████
a
An action can ██ █████ ████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ████████ ████████████ ████ ███████ ███████
This just says that being better than another action is not sufficient to make a certain action right. That can’t possibly lead to the conclusion we need, that you should not have your electric car.
b
One should purchase █ ███████ ████ ██ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███ █████████ ████████
This doesn’t trigger, because the argument doesn’t include any information about whether your electric car pollutes less than any other possible car.
c
One should purchase █████ ███████ █████ ███ ███ ██ ████████ █████████████
This doesn’t trigger, because we have not been told about a hypothetical product whose use has no negative consequences. And this doesn’t say that “if there are negative consequences, you should not purchase”—that would be a backwards contrapositive!
d
One should not ███████ ██ ████████████ ████ ████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ██ ██████
This triggers—you believe that the car company does something wrong in producing gas cars. And it also leads to the correct conclusion, that you should not support that company, and therefore shouldn’t have your electric car.
e
One should not ████████ ████████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ███████████████ █████ █████████
This doesn’t trigger, because the argument never says that the car company makes no environmentally sound products.