23 is a pretty tough question. It's hard to get a sense of what the question stem is asking. It says,

the principle, that's to say this thing, if valid, meaning if it's true, most, helps to justify the reasoning in which one of the following arguments,

that's the five answer choices, concerning the problem, which is this thing, right? So,

the answer choices make some sort of argument concerning the problem, utilizing the facts of the problem, right?

Which means the answer choices, and here blue is going to represent the answer choices,

there's an argument, right? There's a premise, and there's also a conclusion. So that's the answer choices.

Now, in the problem and the principle, the principle must help to justify, right?

A implies B. The argument in the answer choices, right? The A and the B in the answer choices, concerning the problem.

Now, in the problem, there might be additional premises. I don't know, premises, right?

Premises. There might be additional premises here. So, somehow, all of this stuff has to fit together, right?

Our principle, our, the premises that are listed in the problem, plus the premise that's given us in the answer choice,

plus the conclusion that's given us in the answer choice, all of these must fit together to become a nearly valid,

nearly valid argument. I say nearly because they use the word most.

Now, if they didn't use the word most, if they just said justified, I wouldn't use the word nearly. I would just say valid.

Anyway, so that's the high-level structure of how you go about doing this really weird question stem.

But as you can see, I mean, like, this is just, this is like our principle question, right?

Our principle questions are like this, except they just sort of, you know, generally, principle questions would just give us a principle,

and then this bit of the problem would just get shoved into each of the answer choices, right?

That's what they would do. So that's the only difference here. So what's the problem?

Oh, okay, so she really does not want to congratulate this dude on his award.

So if she congratulates, though, she'll misrepresent, right? She'll misrepresent her feelings.

However, if she doesn't congratulate, if she doesn't congratulate, right, she will hurt his feelings.

She'll hurt Daniel's feelings. Okay, so I mean, like, imagine you're Shana, right?

This is a moral problem for you, right? It's a moral problem for you. Do you congratulate or not?

If you do, you'll be misrepresenting your own feelings, but if you don't, you'll hurt his feelings.

So it would be nice if there were some sort of moral principle to guide your decision-making.

And look, there's a moral principle, right? There's a moral principle. Forget this for now, okay?

One should never be insincere about one's feelings.

Now, if this principle just says, forever and always, you must be sincere, right?

Forever and always, you must be sincere. This is my principle, so I'll put it in a box, right?

These are all just premises, okay? Premise one, two, three. I mean, you can even connect the two, right?

You can see how you can just contrapose and then connect. But you should always be sincere.

Now, how is this relevant, right? Can you make some sort of conclusion from this?

Your problem, your principle, can you conclude something, right?

Because we represented all the text, and again, I'm saying forget this for now.

We represented all the text there is in the stimulus right over here, right?

It has nothing to do with her. Sincerity has nothing to do with it.

But it does have something to do with misrepresenting your feelings.

If you misrepresent your feelings, are you being sincere or insincere about your feelings?

You're being insincere, right?

Now, this bit, this arrow pointing to insincerity, that's not written in the text, right?

You're not going to find it. But we've seen the outside writers do this before.

This is what's called a common sense assumption.

They presume that because you live in this world, have had an education, you understand

that if you misrepresent your feelings, it implies that you're being insincere about your feelings.

Right? So now you see how this operates, right?

This principle, in effect, forces you to trigger the contrapositive.

If you must be sincere, right, then you can't be insincere.

Then you have to fold it back. That means you can't misrepresent, right?

You see how this is the negation of this, right?

This is negating your necessary condition.

Therefore, you must fold the contrapositive back. You don't get to misrepresent.

You don't get to congratulate. Therefore, you will hurt his feelings.

So you can make a couple of conclusions, right?

You don't get to misrepresent is one conclusion.

Therefore, you can't congratulate is another conclusion.

Therefore, you will hurt the dude's feelings is the third conclusion.

So that's all, like, nice and simple, right? That's all nice and simple.

We know exactly what will happen.

But there's this weird accept thing, right?

So what is this? How do you want to conceptualize accept?

Well, you want to conceptualize accept as a carve-out, as an asterisk,

as a carve-out, as a carve-out on this principle, which will be so nice.

Like, it'll be so nice if this asterisk just didn't exist, right?

Because like we said, if the asterisk didn't exist, we know exactly what happens, right?

But unfortunately, the asterisk does exist.

There is this accept carve-out. So what's in the accept carve-out?

Well, and I'm going to have to ask you not to look at this for now.

Don't look at it. Just forget it, possibly, right?

Except where one believes, who's one, right?

One believes that the person with whom one is speaking, oh, okay, now it must be, right?

It must be. Except where Shaina believes that, let's see, this bit has to be Daniel.

Except where Shaina believes that Daniel would prefer kindness to honesty.

Hmm, okay. Kindness to honesty.

Where are we being kind, potentially, or honest, potentially, or unkind, or dishonest, potentially?

Well, here, right? This is not very kind.

Hurting someone's feelings, not very kind.

Misrepresenting your own feelings, not very honest, right?

So, okay. If it's true that Shaina believes, see, and we don't know this, right?

Do we have any facts about Shaina's knowledge state of Daniel's character?

You know, pretend you're Shaina. Hmm, I wonder if Daniel's a softy.

I wonder if Daniel prefers to be told that he's beautiful, intelligent,

even though I think he's ugly and stupid, right?

Or do I think that Daniel is actually just tough and can take it, right?

It's prefer, or prefer honesty, right?

So, we have to ask ourselves, what does Shaina believe?

What does Shaina believe?

Kindness v. honesty.

If it's true that Shaina believes that kindness is what's preferred by Daniel, right?

If kindness is what's preferred by Daniel, Daniel would rather that Shaina be kind to him

than be honest with him, then this carve-out triggers.

This principle then goes away.

In which case, she's free to do whatever, right?

Do you see that?

Because this principle is what forced her hand to be sincere, therefore not misrepresent,

therefore not congratulate, therefore hurt.

It was all on the, it was all triggered by this principle of you must be sincere.

Now, if this carve-out is met, and again, how does she meet this carve-out?

You meet the carve-out if it's true that Shaina believes that Daniel prefers kindness over

honesty, then the carve-out is met, the principle goes away.

And once the principle goes away, she's free to do whatever she wants, right?

I mean, just with the consequences, you bear your consequences, right?

Would you rather misrepresent your feelings?

Would you rather hurt him?

It's up to you.

You have no guiding principle anymore, right?

So that's what happens when the carve-out is triggered.

So now, why did I tell you to, so we understand, right?

Like, we totally understand this, right?

What happens if the carve-out goes away?

If the carve-out goes away, then the principle triggers, then principle operates,

tells you to not congratulate, which then, of course, you hurt his feelings.

But if the carve-out doesn't go away, if the carve-out triggers,

then the principle goes away, in which case she's free to do whatever she wants.

So why did I tell you not to read this possibly?

Because it just further muddies the water, and the outside writer is doing it on purpose.

Now, when you include this word possibly, you're saying this is not just a carve-out,

you're saying this is possibly a carve-out, which I'm like, what the,

what am I supposed to do with that?

Like, is it a carve-out or is it not a carve-out?

Oh, it's possibly a carve-out.

Well, shit, now I have to figure out conditions under which this carve-out is real,

and conditions under which this carve-out is not real, and you don't give me any,

you just, you just like irresponsibly say,

oh, this is sometimes a carve-out, it's possibly a carve-out.

Okay, under what conditions is a carve-out?

Right, you see, I'm so frustrated at this, because they, and you know,

they're totally doing this on purpose.

And at the end of the day, it actually doesn't even matter.

So all this frustration that you feel about, not,

uncertainty about whether this actually is a carve-out is irrelevant, right,

because of the answer choices.

Now, with answer choice E, we say,

Shana has no opinion about whether Daniel would prefer kindness to honesty, right?

This is like, I mean, so I'm going to have to,

this is our premise set under, underneath the lines are going to be our conclusion.

So with answer choice E, right, as a premise, over here, right,

you see the so is the conclusion, right, E's premise over here,

and E's conclusion down here.

So this is the premise.

This is E's premise, right?

She has no opinion about whether Daniel would prefer kindness to honesty.

Look at what that does to this carve-out.

It destroys the carve-out.

The carve-out says, right, that's why it doesn't even matter if it's possibly a carve-out or not.

Because even under, I mean, if it's not a carve-out, if it's not a carve-out,

then okay, then it destroys itself, right?

Destroys itself.

Principle operates, contrapose back, you're not allowed to congratulate, right?

But if it doesn't, if it is a carve-out, if it is a carve-out,

it still gets destroyed by E because Shana has no opinion

about whether Daniel would prefer kindness to honesty.

Look at this carve-out.

She needs to believe that he prefers kindness.

And here we're stating, as a premise, E is stating, nope, no opinion.

Therefore, carve-out goes away, right?

Principle operates, you must be sincere, contrapose back, you don't get to misrepresent,

you don't get to congratulate, right?

And look, that's exactly what the conclusion says.

You do not get to congratulate, right?

You do not get to congratulate.

Perfect.

Perfect answer choice, right?

That result, that like takes care of all of this stuff, even this like irresponsible kind of

bullshit, you know, possibly thing that's going on here, right?

So that's why E is the right answer choice.

Now the others, let's just work backwards.

so you should not congratulate, right?

This also has the same conclusion, you shouldn't congratulate.

Well, like under what conditions, according to our principle and our problem,

are we allowed to trigger you shouldn't congratulate?

Well, just like what under the conditions that E just triggered, right?

You need to make this carve-out go away, because if you make this carve-out go away,

then sincerity, our principle of sincerity demands that you contrapose back, don't congratulate.

Is this, does this make the carve-out go away?

Daniel's feeling would be hurt if he knew that the congratulations were insincere.

That shows nothing about Shana's belief state, right?

Does Shana believe Daniel is a softy or is he tough?

No clue.

Do you see that?

Like this is so utterly useless, even though it sounds so useful, right?

Even though it's using all the same words that were used over here, right?

It just has no bearing on our principle, right?

Because the principle is clear, don't be insincere, always forever be sincere.

Oh, maybe carve-out, right?

Here's a carve-out.

Okay, so you need to examine the carve-out.

This thing tells us nothing about the carve-out, right?

So that's why D is a terrible answer choice.

Okay, C says, Shana believes that kindness should be preferred, honestly, when speaking to others.

So in other words, she should misrepresent, right?

See, like, I mean, even to try to make C, I've got to be charitable with C just on this conclusion

right here to even somehow have this match up.

Like, because when you say true feelings, I have no clue what you're talking about.

Are you in love with him?

Is that what you mean by true feelings, right?

Or are you talking about this congratulate, not congratulate thing, right?

So I have to charitably interpret this to mean that you should misrepresent, right?

Don't tell your true feelings, misrepresent your feelings.

In other words, you should congratulate, right?

See, if you want to conclude congratulate, you got to realize to conclude congratulate,

your principle has nothing to do with it.

Because your principle only allows you to fold the contrapositive back to allow you

to conclude not congratulate, right?

So it's, I mean, your principle's got nothing to do with it.

Then, you know, then what are you making this decision based off of, right?

You're presented with these two decisions.

I don't know what you're basing it off of.

You're basing it off this thing, but then you're not answering this question at all,

right?

You've thrown the principle out the window, right?

C's really, really bad.

rather than for her to express true feelings.

So the conclusion is, we'll be doing nothing wrong in insincerely congratulating Daniel.

So congratulate.

Again, like I'm trying to get to the conclusion that therefore congratulating insincerely,

misrepresenting insincerely, right, is okay.

Like, again, I just, I can't.

You know, my principle won't allow me to do that, right?

I mean, even if this carb-out, this exception triggers, it just allows me to get out of

my principle, in which case I don't have a principled way anymore of making a decision.

Because my principle, my only principle is gone, right?

You see, so there's no, really no way for me to get to the conclusion that I have to

congratulate, or Shana has to congratulate, right?

She should congratulate if congratulate will avoid hurting his feelings.

I mean, I don't know.

It sounds nice, right?

Like, yeah, you know, be nice, people.

Don't hurt people's feelings.

So, but that's not, we're supposed to answer this question.