Self-study
Conclusion It is a mistake to conclude, as some have, that ancient people did not know what moral rights were simply because no known ancient language has an expression correctly translatable as "a moral right." Support This would be like saying that a person who discovers a wild fruit tree and returns repeatedly to harvest from it and study it has no idea what the fruit is until naming it or learning its name.
Summary
The lack of having a name for moral rights isn’t enough to conclude that ancient people didn’t know what they are. The author supports this with an analogy: A person repeatedly studies and harvests from a wild fruit tree, and someone determines that this person doesn’t know what the fruit is until it’s been named. The author implies that this response is ridiculous.
Notable Assumptions
With analogies, we should always question the weaknesses of the comparison. Ask, where does the analogy break down? Two assumptions here:
1) Ancient people have actually accomplished the equivalent of harvesting and studying in regard to moral rights.
2) Harvesting from and studying something means you know what that thing is.
17.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
To know the ████ ██ █████████ ██ ██ ████ ████ ████ █████ ███
The negation of (A) would mean that it’s possible to know the name of something, but not know what that thing is. This doesn’t harm the argument; we are talking about when people do not know the name of something.
b
People who first ████████ ████ █████████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ██████
We are not comparing levels of knowing, we are discussing the distinction between naming and knowing what something is. Also, there is nothing in the stimulus about first-time discoverers.
c
The name or ██████████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██████ ███████ ███ ███████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ██ ███████████
Too strong. It isn’t necessary for names to be completely unhelpful in deciphering meaning. It’s fine if names can help in learning what something is—the author is only arguing that names are not necessary to knowing what something is.
d
A person who ██████████ ████████ ████ █ ████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ██████ ███████ █ ████ ███ ███ ██████
This must be true. If it isn’t, then harvesting/studying something doesn’t give you some idea of what that thing is. If that’s true, the analogy can’t support the conclusion that ancient people might have known what moral rights are.
e
One need not ████ ████ █████████ ██ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ███
What’s necessary for naming is irrelevant. We are dealing with a situation where we don’t have a name, so we cannot use that conditional rule.
If negated, (E) is “You need to know what something is before naming it,” and this doesn’t ruin the argument.