Self-study
Essayist: Commitment to relationships or careers is commonly held to be virtuous. ███ ███ ███████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ████████ █████ ████ ████ ███ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ██ █ ████████████ ████ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ ███ █████████ ███ ████████ ██████████████
Summary
The author concludes that all commitments should be seen as morally neutral.
Why?
Because a commitment can either be good or bad.
Some commitments deserve no praise.
Some commitments have outlasted their original justification.
Notable Assumptions
Notice that the conclusion asserts that “all” commitments are “morally neutral.” But the premises don’t tell us about “all” commitment — they only tell us some random facts about some commitments.
In addition, the premises don’t tell us about what should be considered “morally neutral.” In fact, one premise indicates that some commitment are “good” or “bad.” So it’s odd for the author to conclude that “all” commitments are morally neutral.
We want a principle that gets us from at least one of the premises to the claim that “all” commitments are morally neutral.
21.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████████
a
Any commitment that ██ ███████ ███████ ██████ ███ █████████ ███ ████████ █████████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████
Leads to wrong conclusion. (A) is a principle that triggers if we start off knowing that a commitment is morally neutral. It tells us that if a commitment is morally neutral, then it either outlasted the original justification or deserves no praise. But (A) cannot get us to the conclusion that all commitments are morally neutral.
b
Commitment to a ████████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ████ █████ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████ ██ █████
Leads to wrong conclusion. (B) gives us a principle that allows us to conclude that certain commitments are or are not virtuous. But we’re not trying to conclude that commitments are or are not virtuous. We’re trying to prove that all commitments are morally neutral.
c
If a commitment ████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████
Not strong enough. We’re trying to prove that ALL commitments are morally neutral. (C) allows us to prove that if a commitment deserves no praise, that commitment is morally neutral. But it doesn’t allow us to conclude anything about commitments that do deserve praise — we still need to show that these are morally neutral, too.
d
If a commitment ███ █████████ ███ ████████ ██████████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████
Leads to wrong conclusion. (D) is designed to prove that a commitment isn’t virtuous. But we’re trying to prove that all commitments are morally neutral. Showing that some commitments are not virtuous doesn’t establish that all are morally neutral.
e
All commitments are ███████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████
According to (E), if there is at least one commitment that is undeserving of praise, then we can conclude that “all” commitments are morally neutral. We know from a premise that some commitments deserve no praise — that triggers this rule. So, based on (E), we can conclude that all commitments are morally neutral.