Necessary assumption q

lschoolgo

60.3.22
Is there a solid reason as to why C is not a necessary assumption?

The premises clearly say that increasing demand causes gasoline price raise. This is same as saying gasoline demand can't increase without gasoline price increase, which is C.

Just because it's a premise doesn't mean it's not a necessary assumption in case that is one of the reasons one used for elimitating this choice. I see why A is a required assumption but don't see why C is not.

c.janson35

This is a tough one to eliminate. If you take the negation of C, it says: "consumer demand for gas can sometimes increase without causing gas prices to rise." If you think about it, this does not have to be true for the argument to hold.

We know from the stimulus that consumer demand increase did in fact cause the price increase, but must this relationship always be true? What if, in another instance, demand were raised very slightly, so slightly that the price never reflected the increase? Does that destroy the argument that, in this instance, the government is responsible for rising gas costs because they were responsible for the increased demand that cause the price increase?

Because we take the premises as fact, the causation here is fact; so just because demand can sometimes increase without a similar price increase does not mean that the conclusion isn't true.

Hope this helps!

lschoolgo

what you're saying would be true if the stim said that demand causes price increase only in certain conditions. but that's not what the stim says. it uses the premise that gasoline demand causes price increase without specifying any conditions on this premise - "as a result of increasing demand, the price of gasoline has risen steadily".

thus the argument seems to assume that X (demand increase) causes Y (price increase). which is the same as assuming X can't occur without Y, which is choice C.

c.janson35

Well, what you are implying is that the consumer advocate issues a general principle about gas price increases, when in fact he/she does not. The consumer advocate is making an observation about the increased price of gasoline in Country X (that being the government's country).

Answer choice C, however, does issue a general principle. But this general principle need not hold for the argument to hold. It does not matter if pent up demand always produces increase in prices or not, because it is the case that in this instance the increase in demand did cause higher prices.

lschoolgo

IMO the argument is using a general principle as a premise when it says that ""as a result of increasing demand, the price of gasoline has risen steadily."

I'd interested in what experts may have to say about why this is or is not a general premise.

c.janson35

If the consumer advocate were talking generally, then the sentence would read "there is no doubt that governments are responsible for increased fuel costs," but instead, and I'll add emphasis, the author writes "there is no doubt that THE government is responsible for increased cost" as a result of THE government's policies [in the government's country]. So the consumer advocate is in fact discussing a specific situation, rather than all cases generally. And where is the price rising? In the government's country. Everything points to the interpretation that the author is talking about a specific instance of increasing prices in a specific country.

There is nothing in the stimulus that supports the idea that whenever demand increases prices increases as a cause and effect relationship does not presuppose generality. For example, I could run a red light and cause an accident--the accident would be caused by my reckless driving, in the same way that the increased demand caused the increased cost in the government's country. But it would not be true to infer from the fact that I caused an accident by running a red light that "whenever you run a red light, an accident ensues" in the same way that the cause and effect relationship in the stimulus cannot be read as "whenever there is increased demand, increased prices ensue."

lschoolgo

IMO there is a bit of hindsight 20/20 going on here in your reasoning. once one knows what the right answer is it's easy to see the argument in light of the credited response, which in this case is the view that demand increase causes price increase is a premise used by the argument only within the context of the government policies in the government's country. Just using the definite article ("the" in this case) imo doesn't make the premise specific only to the stimulus' context. plus the government responsibility is referred to only in the conclusion of the stim. The premise is separate from that.

a neutral literal reading of the argument suggests something else.

premise-1: government's policies have significantly increased gasoline demand
premise-2: increasing demand causes increased gasoline prices
conclusion: government responsible for gasoline cost increase

premise-2 has nothing to do with government or "the government" in the country in question. the red light example is not the same as what this stim is, the example is a strawman.

c.janson35

Your interpretation of premise 2 might be where you are getting caught up. Nowhere does it say "increasing demand causes increased gasoline prices." This is not logically the same as "as a result of the increasing demand, the price of gas has risen steadily." You are imputing a generality that does not belong onto this statement by paraphrasing it as "increasing demand causes increased gasoline prices."

gs556

The "premises" for this argument are just statements of fact.

1. Gov policies increased demand
2. Increased demand caused increase prices
Conclusion: Gov responsible for increased prices

Negation Test for (C): Even if gas prices DO NOT always rise as a result of demand, they *could* (and did) rise in this occasion. Prices ALWAYS rising is NOT necessary for the argument.

gs556

Example to clarify:

Let's say you have 100 million consumers of gas in the US. Now suppose that a teenager just bought a new car and needs gas for it. Demand has now risen to 100,000,001. Despite the fact that demand has "risen" it is very unlikely that this will cause an increase in price.

If you consider this example a bit and how it's related to the argument, you'll see why (c) is just plain wrong.