Self-study
Ethicist: Support Only when we know a lot about the events that led to an action are we justified in praising or blaming a person for that action—as we sometimes are. ██ ████ █████████ ██████ █████████ ████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █ ███ █████ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████
Summary
The ethicist concludes that there are some situations in which we would still regard an action as freely performed even if we knew a lot about the events that led to said action. The support for this is the claim that, if we’re justified in praising or blaming a person for an action, then we must know a lot about the events that led to that action.
Missing Connection
The conclusion is about regarding an action as freely performed, but the premise doesn’t mention that! At minimum, we need a “some” relationship to link the term “justified” from the premise with the term “regard action as freely performed” from the conclusion. We know that all justified actions are ones we know a lot about; if we knew that some were also actions we’d regard as freely performed, then we could conclude that there’s an overlap between “know about” and “regard as freely performed.”
23.
Which one of the following, ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████
a
People should not ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██████ █████ ████████
This doesn’t mention actions regarded as freely performed, so it can’t be right. The conclusion is about actions regarded as freely performed, but the premise doesn’t mention this concept, so the correct answer needs to bridge that gap. (A) has nothing to do with the conclusion!
b
Whether an act ██ ███ ███ █████ ███ ██████ █████ ██ ██ █████████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ███████████ ██████ ███████ █████ ████ ████
This doesn’t mention actions regarded as freely performed, so it can’t be right. The conclusion is about actions regarded as freely performed, but the premise doesn’t mention this concept, so the correct answer needs to bridge that gap. (B) has nothing to do with the conclusion!
c
We can be █████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ █ ██████ ███ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████
As shown below, by chaining the conditional statement in (C) with our map of the stimulus, we can infer the conclusion: some actions we know a lot about we regard as freely performed. (C) exceeds the minimum sufficient assumption, which would be a “some” relationship between the terms.
d
The responsibility a ██████ █████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ ███ █ ██████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████ ██ ██████ ███████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████████ ██████████
This doesn’t mention actions regarded as freely performed, so it can’t be right. The conclusion is about actions regarded as freely performed, but the premise doesn’t mention this concept, so the correct answer needs to bridge that gap. (D) has nothing to do with the conclusion!
e
If we do ███ ████ ████ █████ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████
The conclusion is about actions for which we do know a lot about the preceding events, whereas (E) is about actions for which we do not. Because it discusses an entirely different set of scenarios from those named in the conclusion, (E) can’t be right!