Self-study
Essayist: Conclusion It would be wrong to defend current testing procedures for new medications simply by appealing to the fact that test subjects are volunteers who are both apprised of and compensated for the risks involved. ███ █████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ ██ ███ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████ █████ ███████
Objective: Necessary Assumption Questions
Necessary Assumption questions provide an argument in the stimulus that is invalid in some way, then ask us to identify an unstated premise – i.e. an assumption – that absolutely must be true for the argument to stand a chance. That is, if you take the correct answer and tell the argument “you’re not allowed to have this,” the argument will completely fail.
These questions feature an extraordinary range of argument styles – they can exhibit common flaws, causal reasoning, analogies, cost-benefit analysis, chains of conditional claims, and a thousand things besides. It’s critical, therefore, to approach the stimulus with an open mind. All we know is that the argument somehow falls short of complete validity – the rest we’ll have to discover as we go.
In approaching the answer choices, remember that weak claims are much more likely to be necessary than strong ones. You need to get at least 1 hour of sleep on at least some nights to be well rested. You do not need to get 100 hours of sleep every night.
Argument Summary
At its core, this argument’s conclusion (which is sentence 1, as indicated by the word “For” opening sentence 2) is about sufficiency: You can’t say [stuff] is okay based on [this reason] alone. [This reason] alone does not suffice to show [stuff] is okay.
Undermining this conclusion means suggesting [this reason] does suffice to show [stuff] is okay. Put that in your back pocket for now.
Let’s bring in the argument’s other claims, and tone down the abstraction a bit:
Claim 1: When people freely choose to do stuff, it’s okay to pay them to do stuff.
Claim 2: When people don’t freely choose to do stuff, it’s not okay to pay them to do stuff.
Claim 3: The procedures involve test subjects who are volunteers, who know about the risks, and who are paid for the risks.
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Conclusion: Claim 3 doesn’t make the procedures okay.
The support claims establish freedom as the critical difference-maker. Yes freedom? The procedures are okay. No freedom? The procedures are not okay.
The weak point in this argument comes with the question of how the characteristics described in Claim 3 relate to the concept of freedom. Do volunteers who know the risks count as free choosers? If the answer is no, the author is elated: if these test subjects aren’t free, the procedures are not okay.
If the answer is yes, the author is screwed: The procedures use volunteers who know the risks, which makes them free choosers, which suffices to prove the procedures are totally okay.
That’s the necessary assumption here: the author needs volunteering, knowledge, and being paid to NOT count as freedom.
17.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████████
a
Possessing information about ███ ████████ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ███████ ███ █████
(A) touches on
The author needs knowing the risk to not ensure one’s choices are free.
b
No transaction can ██ █████████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ █████ █████████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ██ ████████████
(B) strengthens the author’s argument, but it’s not strictly necessary. Let’s imagine a world where (B) is not true, and ask whether the author is screwed. In this world, you can sometimes justify transactions merely on the grounds of volunteering.
That would be scary for our author, but not a dealbreaker – maybe the transactions we’re talking about (paying test subjects) are meaningfully different from the kind you can justify merely on the grounds of volunteering.
(B)’s strong language is the killer here. Change (B) to “Transactions cannot always be justified…” and it’s right.
c
Anyone who acts ███████ ████████ ███████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███████
The argument does seem to treat freedom and duress as two sides of a coin – duress is treated like not freedom, and freedom is treated like not duress.
(C) supposes that treating them this way is necessary to the argument succeeding. Negated, it asks: What if there are some situations where a person isn’t completely free, but also isn’t under so much pressure that we’d count them as being under duress?
That would be fine. What really matters is whether we’re in a situation where one of the two statuses applies: if someone is free, it’s okay, if someone is under duress, it’s not okay.
d
There is nothing █████ ████ █████████ █████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ █████
Far from being necessary, if (D) were true it would weigh against our author’s argument. It would act as another justification for the procedures (where they pay people to put themselves at risk) being okay.
It’s easy to get caught up in all the negation NA questions require.
NA questions ask “Which of the following, if not true, would destroy the argument?”
This answer choice is best understood as one primarily targeted at people who are asking “Which of the following, if true, would destroy the argument?”
e
People should be █████████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████
(E) has some terrifying implications that our author’s argument absolutely does not require.
I have freely chosen to set your house on fire. (E) says that’s fine!
I have freely chosen to gnaw your arm off. (E) says that’s fine!
These are not positions to which our author is bound.