PT10.S1.Q18 - People cannot be morally responsible for things

alexanderthegreat4-2-1-1alexanderthegreat4-2-1-1 Core Member
edited December 2018 in Logical Reasoning 474 karma

I been drilling the question types. Right now I am at MSS/MBT. However, I came across an error that was reoccuring with me in logic. What do you do when there's two group 4 indicators. For example in PT 10 S.1 People cannot be morally responsible for things over which they have no control. Would it be represented like this IF ~ C implies Not MR.

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  • Lucas CarterLucas Carter Alum Member ⭐
    2798 karma

    MR-------> Control or /Control----------->/MR so it looks like you have it correct. When there are two logical indicators like this you can use either one but the key is seeing the other one as a negation. This is covered in this lesson : https://7sage.com/lesson/group-3-group-4/.

  • alexanderthegreat4-2-1-1alexanderthegreat4-2-1-1 Core Member
    474 karma

    Thanks Lucas. It really helped. I just got a little confused when applied to two group 4 indicators.

  • alexanderthegreat4-2-1-1alexanderthegreat4-2-1-1 Core Member
    edited December 2018 474 karma

    My problem is I get Two different conditionals for the statement: Cannot MR No Control. This is the first sentence.
    So When I identify cannot applying to the MR I get this
    ~C implies ~MR
    When I used Cannot to apply to No control I get this:
    Mr implies C
    But this is not the issue, when I start with no indicator I get an opposite of the first equation. For instance, when i apply no with cannot mr
    C implies Mr
    Just applying the rule no negate necessary to control
    ~Mr implies Not C
    So my problem is i get two different conditionals for one conditional and I'm still trying to figure it out. I know that the sentence is not necessary to get the answer, but I noticed an error when I'm applying two group 4 indicators that I need to fix.

  • ExcludedMiddleExcludedMiddle Alum Member
    737 karma

    Part of this is building your intuition for this sort of statement. "People cannot be morally responsible for things over which they have no control." I'm assuming that that's the original statement from the question. Intuitively I would just translate that as CMR --> HC or /HC ---> /CMR (if you can be morally responsible, you have control; or the logical equivalent that if you don't have control you're not morally responsible). It just feels intuitive to me that they're saying having control is a necessary condition for being morally responsible. This is, to me, a lot simpler than following the translation rules suggested for a situation such as this one. Do everything you can to get as comfortable as possible with intuiting this sort of statement.

    I see what you are saying about applying the rules in the way in which you seem to be applying them. If you just randomly pick something and follow the rules suggested, I don't think it really works. As you said, "Cannot MR no control." Choose either one, negate necessary, then negate the other statement. You get two statements. C --> MR and MR ---> C. The issue is the the original statement definitely isn't trying to indicate biconditionality such as you'd get with C <---> MR, since C is just the necessary condition for moral responsibility. Again, I suspect this is where your intuitive reading of the statement has to come in and tell you that they're trying to say having control is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. That is how I see it, and I'd be happy to be corrected if anyone thinks that's not entirely correct.

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