Sociologist: Conclusion Romantics who claim that people are not born evil but may be made evil by the imperfect institutions that they form cannot be right, for Support they misunderstand the causal relationship between people and their institutions. After all, Support institutions are merely collections of people.
The author concludes that people CAN be born evil and CANNOT be made evil by imperfect institutions. (This goes against what certain romantics claim.)
This is supported by an intermediate conclusion: the people who think that people CAN be made evil by imperfect institutions misunderstand the causal relationship between people and their institutions.
The intermediate conclusion is supported by a premise: institutions are just collections of people.
We know from the premise that institutions are just collections of people. But how does this support the claim that romantics misunderstand the causal relationship between people and their institutions? What exactly IS the correct understanding of the causal relationship?
The author appears to be assuming that because institutions are just collections of people, that implies institutions can’t cause people to have qualities.
Based on that assumption, the author thinks the romantics misunderstand the causal relationship between institutions and people — they mistakenly think institutions can cause people to have qualities. The author further concludes that the romantics are wrong — institutions can’t make people evil.
To strengthen these argument, we want to help establish the author’s assumption is true. We want to show that if institutions are just a collection of people, this implies they can’t cause people to have qualities (such as the quality of being evil).
Which one of the following principles, if valid, would most help to justify the sociologist's argument?
People acting together in institutions can do more good or evil than can people acting individually.
The argument doesn’t concern a comparison of the level of good or evil possible from people in an institution vs. people individually. The argument is about whether institutions can cause people to become evil. Even if (A) were true, it doesn’t reveal anything about cause.
Institutions formed by people are inevitably imperfect.
Whether institutions are imperfect doesn’t tell us anything about whether institutions can make people evil. We still have no reason to think that an imperfect institution cannot make people evil.
People should not be overly optimistic in their view of individual human beings.
How people should view other human beings has nothing to do with whether institutions can cause people to become evil.
A society's institutions are the surest gauge of that society's values.
(D) is designed to help us conclude something about what society values. But the argument is about whether institutions cause people to become evil. What society values has no effect on the causal relationship between institutions and people in those institutions.
The whole does not determine the properties of the things that compose it.
(E) establishes that institutions cannot cause people to have qualities (such as the quality of being evil). The whole (an institution) does not determine (cause) the properties of the things that compose it (individuals that make up the intitution).
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