Self-study
Political theorist: Support The purpose of government is to prevent individuals from injuring others in the pursuit of their own welfare. ██████ ██ ████ ███████████ ████ █ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ █████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████ ██████ ██ █████
Summary
The political theorist concludes that if most people take a reasoned approach to getting what they want, then the power of the government should be less. She supports this by stating that the purpose of government is to prevent people from hurting others in the pursuit of their own goals.
Notable Assumptions
The key assumption is that a reasoned approach will be less harmful to others. The stimulus doesn’t provide any information about what a reasoned approach actually involves. We don’t know whether a reasoned approach means people will do fewer things that injure others.
An additional assumption is that if fewer people are being injured, the government should be less powerful. Even if most people are taking a reasoned approach, maybe the government needs to remain equally powerful to deal with the few people who don’t.
13.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████ ██████████ █████████
a
Governments alone are ███ ████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████ █ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ █████
Let’s negate this. If governments are able to make people take a reasoned approach, it doesn’t change the author’s argument that a reasoned approach means less of a role for the government, because fewer people are inuring others.
b
Government can serve ███ ███████ ███████ ███████████ ████████ ███████ ██ ███████ █████ ███ ████████
Even if the government had to diminish people’s ability to promote their own welfare to serve its purpose, the conclusion could still be true. The argument is about preventing people from hurting others — not what happens to the people who it prevents from injuring others.
c
People who take █ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ████
This is necessary to conclude that if people take a reasoned approach, the government should have less power. If people who take a reasoned approach are equally likely to injure people, then the government still needs to serve its role of preventing people from injuring others.
d
People who injure █████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ███████
It only matters for the argument whether people will injure others — not what eventually happens to them.
e
The more interest ██████ ████ ██ █████████ █████ ███ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ██ ██ ███████ ██ ███████
What we want to know is that people with a reasoned approach injure other people less. We’re concerned with preventing people from injuring others — it doesn’t matter who specifically is more likely to be injured.