Self-study
Essayist: Support One of the drawbacks of extreme personal and political freedom is that free choices are often made for the worst. ██ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ██████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ████████████ ████ ██████ ███ ███ ███████████ ████████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ████████████ █████████ ███████ ████ █████ █████████ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ███████ █████████ ███████ ████ █████ ███████ ████████
Summary
The essayist concludes that one shouldn’t support political systems that allow extreme freedom. As support, he says that extreme freedom often has negative consequences, and when people see those consequences, they might prefer to establish totalitarian regimes.
Notable Assumptions
The essayist’s conclusion is that one shouldn’t support extreme freedom, but his premises— that its consequences could lead people to prefer totalitarian regimes— never address why one should or shouldn’t support extreme freedom. He assumes that one shouldn’t support it because of the potential effect of its consequences.
To help justify his reasoning, we need a principle that satisfies this assumption by confirming that one shouldn’t support a political system if its consequences could cause people to prefer totalitarian regimes.
19.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████████
a
One should not ███████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ █████████████ ██ █ ████████████ █████████ ███████
Wrong trigger. The essayist concludes that one shouldn’t support certain political systems because they might lead people to prefer to establish totalitarian regimes, not because they will inevitably lead to the establishment of totalitarian regimes.
b
One should not ██████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ █ █████████ ██████ ████ █████████ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ████
This leads to the wrong conclusion. The essayist concludes that one shouldn’t support political systems that allow extreme freedom. (B) says instead that one shouldn’t expect everyone to thrive in systems that maximize freedom. This doesn’t help justify the essayist’s conclusion.
c
One should support ████ █████ █████████ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ████ ████████
Wrong trigger. (C)’s contrapositive says that if a system doesn’t give people the freedom to make wise choices, then one shouldn’t support it. But systems that allow extreme freedom do give people the freedom to make wise choices; people just often make unwise choices instead.
d
One should not ███████ ███ █████████ ██████ █████ ███████████ ████████████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████████ █████████ ████████
Political systems that allow extreme freedom have destructive consequences that could lead people to prefer totalitarian regimes. If one should not support systems whose consequences could lead to this, then one should not support political systems that allow extreme freedom.
e
One should not ███████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████████ ████████████ █████ ████████ ████████ █████ ████ ███████
The essayist says it’s unrealistic to expect people with extreme freedom to thrive. But he never suggests that political systems that allow extreme freedom are themselves based on unrealistic expectations of behavior. So, (E) doesn’t explain why one shouldn’t support these systems.