PT70.S1.Q23 - Columnist: Although most people favor the bill

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• 1 Like

  drbrown2 Alum Member

  May 2019 edited May 2019 2227 karma

  Ok so first we need to look at the situation: Most people favor & violate rights
  Sub conclusion/MP: bill pass
  Why?: People who are negatively affected are powerful

  Taken together the first part of the stimulus supports the overall conclusion: this country is well functioning democracy

  Answer choice E can be roughly translated as follows:
  If a country is a well functioning democracy and the situation described above happens, then the bill will be passed.

  WFD and (MPF & violate rights) ------> bill pass

  After negating the necessary condition, since the bill will not pass, we have to negate either WFD or the situation (MPF & violate rights). We know the situation above holds, so if the bill doesn't pass then we must negate WFD, which matches our premises and conclusion from the stimulus perfectly.
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  BlindReviewer Alum Member

  May 2019 855 karma

  There's a lesson on embedded conditionals that might be good to review:

  https://7sage.com/lesson/mastery-embedded-conditional/

  This isn't the same kind of embedded conditional, but I think a similar thought process is required to really make sense of jumbled up conditionals and modifiers stacked on top of each other. There are also two ways to think about embedded conditionals -- one is the translation in the lesson, and the other is the "carve-out" method JY mentions in a few LR videos. I personally like the latter, because it's more intuitive to me, but I can explain in terms of both.

  What's really important here is figuring out the grammar. If we make a few cosmetic changes, the relationships are a lot easier to see. First, let's move "in a well-functioning democracy" to the beginning of the sentence. This is kind of like an implied condition to be met -- the sentence is basically saying "if we're in a well-functioning democracy, then all of this stuff matters."

  If we're in a well functioning democracy -> (a bill that doesn't violate any rights AND most people favor -> will be passed into law)

  If you want to think of it as the translation in JY's video, then you can see that if you just transform this into:

  Well function democracy AND a bill that doesn't violate any rights and most people favor -> passed into law

  Which is pretty intuitive.

  But the way I think of it is less based on translations, and more based on a kind of "eligibility" for the conditionals to matter. So the first check for me here is are we in a well-functioning democracy? If yes, proceed, if not, then this conditional doesn't matter.

  The second difficulty is the "the" in "if the bill does not violate anyone's rights." "The" is pointing to "a bill most people favor." So with one word, you're combining two kinds of "conditions" together so that only when you have both together are they sufficient for a law to be passed.

  So the tricky part beyond the embedded conditional type situation going on here is just modifiers, and how modifiers can present kinds of "conditions." With the "carve-out" mentality I can similarly break up the relationships as "Is this law favored by most people?" if yes, then I have to ask, "does it violate any rights?" but if the law isn't favored by most people, then the conditional just doesn't apply.

  Hopefully this makes sense? It's a lot! And the fact that the test writers expect you to rip through this under timed conditions is pretty crazy.
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  TheDeterminedC Member

  May 2019 edited May 2019 1025 karma

  Hello! So I went to check out the question and I remember it. I posted a comment translating E in the comment section two months ago:

  "E) favored by most people & not violate human rights & WFD → passed promptly.

  We know our bill was passed promptly, so we can conclude the negated sufficients as “or” statements.

  Either we have favored by most people or violate human rights or WFD.
  We know our bill was favored by most people and it did not violate human rights, so THE ONLY idea we are left with is our goal, WFD.
  Now we can successfully conclude that “this country is WFD.”"

  This is the formal logic side, but I can expand on identification cues. This really requires an intuitive understanding of how conditionals work, as the traditional indicators are a tad tricky.

  "E) A bill that most people favor will be passed promptly into law in a well-functioning democracy if the bill does not violate anyone's basic human rights."

  So we have to ask ourselves what the necessary condition is here. In other words, if X happens, what must be true? Here that necessary condition is, "[a bill] will be passed promptly into law." What are the conditions sufficient for when a bill must be passed like this?

  Lets start with the "in a well-functioning democracy" part. It seems as if this phase is specifying part of a carve-out for when the necessary here must happen. I have understood carve-outs to be a form of reducing liability for the person making the argument and/or giving the condition. In other words, each carve-out adds a sufficient condition that must be met in order for the necessary to be a MBT. The more carve-outs there are, the more opportunities there are for a person can fall back to say their sufficient conditions were not met whenever someone tries to argue their necessary didn't happen. An example is a weather person saying "it will rain tomorrow." If it doesn't rain tomorrow they are wrong. However, they can reduce their liability on their condition by adding carve-outs, or sufficient conditions. For instance, "it will rain tomorrow... if the temperature drops below 40 degrees, there is a 20 MPH wind and humidity is high." So, if it doesn't rain tomorrow, the weather person can point to sufficient conditions not being met for their conclusion. And we know that if the sufficient is negated, the rule and/or argument is irrelevant. It's basically a contract. The more sufficient conditions there are, I'd say one is lessening liability more than if they didn't do so. Thus, "a well-functioning democracy" is another carve-out condition that, if met, would help ensure the necessary. If it's not met, the author would respond "well I only stated my necessary would happen if this condition is true."

  The "it doesn't violate anyone's basic rights" is a sufficient condition by using the "if" indicator.

  Now there is one last idea --- most people favor the bill. I think this one can be taken as a sufficient via two lines of reasoning. First, we can look at this condition being a carve-out for the necessary just like the first idea above, meaning it too is a sufficient condition. Alternatively, we can use the "will" here as a necessary indicator separating the sufficient, "most people favor the bill," and the necessary, "[a bill] will be passed promptly into law."

  The final understanding can be understood as, a bill MUST be passed promptly into law. When must it be true that this happens? If we are in a well-functioning democracy & the bill doesn't violate anyone's basic rights & most people favor the bill. If these conditions are met, it must be true that a bill will be passed promptly into law.
• PreWorkout Alum Member

  May 2019 198 karma

  Thank you to everyone who commented, I was having a really hard time but these helped clarify the question I had!