The question stem says, which one of the following most logically completes the philosopher's argument?

So this is a fill-in-the-blank question, and most of these are most strongly supported questions.

Sometimes a fill-in-the-blank can be something else, like a strengthen question,

but most of the time it's most strongly supported.

And in this case, when you glance ahead and you see that this blank follows the phrase,

obviously, that strongly suggests it's a most strongly supported question,

because the blank is supposed to be filled with something that is obviously following from the previous statements.

So let's understand these previous statements and then think about what is obvious based on them.

We're told that nations are not literally persons.

And yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I don't think anyone was under the impression that nations are people.

Nations are not people.

Now because of that, the author says, thus, nations have no moral rights or responsibilities.

And that makes sense as well.

Again, I'm not sure that anyone was under the impression that a nation has a moral right or responsibility.

A nation is just like a collection of people who are living in a particular geographical boundary.

Maybe there's some kind of shared culture, they're governed by a particular government,

but I don't think anyone was really thinking that nations are people or that they have responsibilities.

The philosopher continues and says,

So what this is saying is that in order for a nation to survive,

and here I'm not saying you have to diagram it, but I'm just illustrating the meaning of that statement,

what that statement means is if a nation is to survive,

then it is necessary that many of its citizens attribute moral rights and responsibilities to the nation.

So in order for the nation to survive, people have to attribute rights and responsibilities to the nation.

And why is this a necessary condition for survival?

Well, the author says,

So in other words, in order to get people to make sacrifices on behalf of the nation,

you have to get people to attribute rights and responsibilities to the nation.

And maybe an example could be like the military.

What the author is saying here is,

if you want people to sacrifice their lives and their bodies to fight on behalf of a nation,

then it's required that those people who are going to be making the sacrifice

think that the nation has rights and responsibilities.

If you don't get them to think that, then they're not going to be sacrificing on behalf of the nation.

Now the last line says,

So what would go into that blank,

given that they just told us that nations don't have moral rights and responsibilities,

but at the same time, in order for a nation to survive,

you have to have people think that the nation has rights and responsibilities.

That's what's meant by saying people must attribute rights and responsibilities to the nation.

You have to have people who, in their minds, believe that the nation has rights and responsibilities,

even though the nation doesn't in fact have rights and responsibilities.

So obviously then, a nation...

I'm not actually sure what would fill that blank,

but I know it's going to have something to do with the conflict between nations not having moral rights and responsibilities

and people being required to think that they do in order for the nation to survive.

So this is one of those problems where I don't know that we can predict specifically what should go in the blank.

That means we're mainly going to have to rely on process of elimination.

Now for the purpose of this explanation, I'll start at the bottom and then work our way up.

Well no, this doesn't fit because the rest of the statements here are not about how people should think about a nation.

What the author is describing is how nations don't have moral rights,

but in order for the nation to survive, people have to think they have moral rights.

Nothing in here though is leading to the philosopher's recommendation about what should be done.

The philosopher is just describing what is the case about nations,

but there's no reason that the philosopher would then make a recommendation about how people should be thinking about nations.

So that's why E doesn't fit.

Now the author does mention that nations are not literally persons,

but that doesn't imply anything about whether nations should be considered persons metaphorically.

So E doesn't make sense to fit in this blank here.

Obviously then a nation is not worth the sacrifices that its citizens make on its behalf.

Well this doesn't fit because we don't have any sense of the philosopher's opinion about worth.

The philosopher is simply describing what is a fact about nations.

They don't have moral rights, but in order to survive, people have to attribute moral rights to them.

There's nothing here that would reveal the philosopher's opinion about the worth,

whether people should be sacrificing or not.

There's no evidence here that would support a claim that answer choice D is making.

This doesn't fit either because we have no reason to think that people can't criticize a nation morally.

Even if it's true that the nation does not have moral rights or responsibilities,

that doesn't imply that people can't criticize a nation morally or blame them morally.

Notice that none of the statements here are about how people speak about nations.

Maybe the people who attribute rights and responsibilities to the nation would also criticize a nation.

There's nothing suggesting that that's not possible,

that these people who attribute rights and responsibilities to the nation won't praise or criticize a nation.

So that's another reason why C has no support here.

And yes, this is exactly right.

Now, I'm not sure that we could anticipate exactly what it says up front,

but this is definitely supported by the previous statements.

How is it supported?

Well, here's how.

First of all, remember, we were told that in order for a nation to survive, this is required.

Many people have to attribute rights and responsibilities to the nation.

In other words, these people have to believe that a nation has rights and responsibilities.

But at the same time, we were told that nations do not actually have moral rights and responsibilities.

So this belief right over here, that a nation has rights and responsibilities, that's actually a false belief.

But in order for the nation to survive, you have to have a lot of people hold that belief.

They have to have that belief.

That's why it makes sense to say a nation cannot survive unless many of its citizens have some beliefs that are literally false.

In particular, they have to have at least this belief that is literally false.

Nations don't actually have rights and responsibilities, but people have to believe that they have rights and responsibilities.

That is the false belief that many people have to have in order for the nation to survive.

That's why answer choice B is correct.

A says, obviously, that a nation cannot continue to exist unless something other than the false belief that the nation has moral rights

motivates its citizens to make sacrifices.

Well, this is not supported because we have no reason to believe that the nation's survival requires something other than the false belief that a nation has rights.

Now, we were told that in order for a nation to survive, many citizens have to attribute rights and responsibilities to a nation.

But we have no reason to think that there has to be something else besides this in order for a nation to survive.

In fact, notice that we were told nothing else could prompt people to make sacrifices that national citizenship demands.

So it's not even clear that there's anything else that could be motivating citizens to make sacrifices.

This right here, the belief that a nation has rights and responsibilities, that's the only thing that could get people to make sacrifices.

So actually, in order for a nation to survive, you have to get them to make sacrifices, and in turn, you have to get them to believe that nations have rights.

But whether there are other things that can motivate citizens, that's actually foreclosed by what we're told because nothing else could motivate citizens.

So that's why it doesn't make sense to fill the blank with what A says, which would actually just be a contradiction of what was said before.

Why would the author say that we need something else to motivate people when they just said that nothing else could motivate people?

So A is not correct.