Help with conditional logic

Codell Beckham

Hello, so I was working through the conditional logic translation quizzes and came across this sentence: "Businesses do the environmentally "right" thing only if doing so makes good business sense."

I recognized that "only if" is in group 2, and makes what is after it a Necessary condition. What tripped me up is that I thought "doing so" was a referential phrase to "environmentally "right" thing." Thus, I thought that "only if" was directly working on "doing the environmentally right thing." So my lawgic translation was Good business sense --> Environmentally right thing.

However, this is wrong. It should be Environmentally Right Thing --> Good Business Sense

Why should the referential phrase of "doing so" stay as a necessary condition and not be expanded to "environmentally right thing" making "makes good business sense" the sufficient condition?

andre3000

Hey, I think your getting too caught up in the referential phrasing & leaving out important information when you try to translate it. So try looking at it without truncating the ideas.

Bus do environmentally right thing --> environmentally right thing makes good business sense

Now you could push up the common elements after, but I would make sure what's above makes sense to you first.

From there you can do define things however you want. Maybe even package the ideas in the following manner:
doRT = bus do environmentally right thing
MGBS = environmentally right thing makes good business sense

doRT --> MGBS

Just because the referent is in the SC does not mean they are the same ideas. One is talking about doing an action while another is talking about making good business sense. Sure, they introduce the environmentally right thing idea in the SC, but that doesn't meant you can drop the rest of the NC & then switch.

Hope this helps.

Codell Beckham

Thank you so much for this explanation. I couldn't logically set it out in my head, but you did a great job explaining. Again, I appreciate your time to answer this!