Self-study
Some political thinkers hope to devise a form of government in which every citizen's rights are respected. ███ ████ █ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ █████████ ███ ██████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ █████ ███ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ██ ████ █ ███████ █████ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ██████ █████
Summary
The author concludes that no form of government can respect the rights of all its citizens. We are given two conditional statements to support this claim:
(1) All governments are defined by laws.
(2) These laws will always lead to some people having greater political power than others.
Notable Assumptions
This is a cookie-cutter conditional argument, so the author makes a highly predictable assumption. We can validly conclude that all governments lead to some people having more political power than others, but we need to add another variable to our conditional chain:
If some people can gain more political power than others, then at least some citizens’ rights will be violated.
This allows us to validly conclude that no form of government will respect the rights of all its citizens.
2.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
In any form ██ ██████████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ████████████ ██ █████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ █████████
(A) bridges the gap between people gaining more political power than others and rights being violated, but it is too strong. We only need to know that the rights of at least some people will be violated, not the majority.
b
A government can ██████ ████ █████ █████████ ██████ ███ █████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████
We don’t need a way that governments can respect the rights of their citizens; we need proof that they never will. As such, (B) gives us the opposite of what we’re looking for.
c
Not all the ████ ████ ██████ █ ████████████ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ██ ███████████████
The premises tell us that all governments will have those who interpret the laws for their political gain. This answer choice attempts to weaken the argument by undermining that premise, so (C) is not necessary.
d
In any form ██ ███████████ ██ ███████ █████ █ ███████ █████ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ██████ █████ ████ ██████████ ██████ ████ ██ █████████
This bridges the gap between some people having more political power than others and the rights of other citizens being violated, so it is necessary.
e
People who have ████ █████████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ █████ ██ █████████ ██████
The premises already tell us that some people acquire more political power than others. It is not necessary to reinforce this concept by saying they then use it to acquire even more political power, and it also doesn’t address our strong prediction.