PT54.S2.Q25 - to face danger solely because

Comments

• BinghamtonDave Alum Member ⭐ 🍌🍌

  November 2016 8711 karma

  It isn't actually the contrapositive of the last sentence. The inclusion in (E) of the word "any" puts the scope of this answer choice beyond what our stimulus states. In a nutshell, our stimulus states thats that if there is "real courage" then there is a person who perseveres in the face of fear/acting towards a goal. The stimulus seems (to me at least) to be situation specific. Meaning, because of the inclusion of the words "...prompted by one or more dangers involved." The stimulus seems to be indicating that this litmus test for real courage is applicable to specific situations.
  
  This might be a bit convoluted at first blush so here are a few examples:
  The stimulus roughly states that: Real courage---->preserves in the face of fear while acting towards a goal.
  So a good samaritan who comes across a car accident in which the engine is smoking and might be about to explode is acting in real courage while attempting to rescue the driver because they have persevered in the face of the fear they had while acting towards the goal of saving that person's life.
  
  What (E) is saying here is that if that good samaritan had no fear of that situation (that we would all fear) then that good samaritan "cannot be courageous in any situation."
  
  Thats not what our stimulus states. If we were to find that good samaritan in our example who had no fear of that engine-smoking rescue, our stimulus doesn't give us anything to help us concluded that therefore that person wouldn't be courageous to fight a boxing match, or wash windows on the 75th floor of a skyscraper or disarm a bomb. The issue with (E) is the issue of scope.
  
  
  I hope that is clear.
  -David
  
  
• Barack Obama 2.0 Alum Member

  November 2016 edited November 2016 87 karma

  Thanks a lot David, that makes a lot more sense! This answer choice is definitely out of scope and you're right the word "any" extends this answer choice beyond the scope of the argument. Perhaps a person that is not fearful of situations in which other people are could be fearful in situations that others aren’t and thus could be courageous by persevering in the face of that fear to attain a particular goal.
  
  
  My problem was that I kept assuming that a failure to fear situations in which other people would be fearful = a failure to persevere in the face of fear when acting towards a goal and as a consequence I erroneously inferred that it was the contrapositive of the second sentence. However the two statements are not all all equivalent because as I said earlier, even if someone did not fear situations that everyone else did, they could fear other situations (situations that are not feared by everyone else). If they persevered in face of that fear to attain a goal then that person would indeed be acting courageously as indicated by the stimulus.