PTB.S1.Q17 - Manners and morals

shizuokatwin379

Can someone help me with this? It is one of the questions where the reasoning for the right answer completely eludes me...

The MSS Question basically states that:
"There is a difference between morals and manners. Manners are 'necessarily social in nature', whereas morals are 'not necessarily social in nature'. 'So the rules of etiquette do not apply when one is alone.'

The correct answer is:
A: "One could be immoral without ever having caused any other person any harm." - Huh?

I went with:
E: "What is social in nature could not be a matter of morality." - I figured, sure why not, if morals are 'not necessarily social in nature' and manners are, then something, say a manner, could definitely be social in nature while not a matter of morality... Right?

runiggyrun

I'm guessing you are talking about PTB.1.17 - I think you can change the title to correct that.
This is on my list of top 5 least favorite LR questions ever, and only after eliminating all the other answers was I able to sit and think about reasons A is right.
B. wrong because it implies no overlap between the rules of etiquette and moral rules. The stimulus says "morals are not necessarily social in nature", not that they are never social in nature. That means there could be an overlap.
C. Wrong pretty much on the same basis as B. The rules of morality apply even when alone (not necessarily social), but not only when alone. Not murdering people is a moral law, not just an etiquette rule, and it definitely applies when you're not alone.
D. Wrong. Sure, we might agree it's more important to be moral, but the stimulus doesn't say anything about that. Just because one rule applies even when alone doesn't mean it's necessarily more important than a rule that only applies in public. Maybe the author thinks it's more important to not fart in public (etiquette) than it is to not watch porn at home (moral). We don't know for sure.
E. Wrong. Of course things that are social in nature can be a matter of morality. Same reasoning as B and C. The stimulus tells us that morals are not necessarily social, not never social. In real life, probably most moral rules have some sort of social component in them, and they are designed to protect others from harm.
That leaves us with
A. One could be immoral without ever having caused any other person any harm. That is correct, because from the fact that morals are not necessarily social we can infer that there's no need for a second "actor" to make an act immoral. Maybe there are some moral rules that are there not to make us be nice to each other but to fulfill some other purpose, like salvation of our own immortal soul (some societies might consider being an atheist or a wiccan as an immoral stance, even though it harms nobody).

shizuokatwin379

Thanks for the reply runiggyrun!

The title does say PTB.S1.Q17? At least it does for me.

Yeah, well I know for sure that B, C, and D are incorrect. I guess I should have eliminated E, because there is just a little bit of leeway there and gone with A as a process of elimination, but still, just a weird LR.

runiggyrun

Weird. It does now, but I could have sworn it said PTB.S3.Q17. Maybe I'm losing my marbles...

inactive

I edited it, you're not losing your marbles yet.