The Question Stem reads: The philosopher's argument proceeds by attempting too… This is a Method of Reasoning question.
The philosopher begins by describing the phenomenon that wolves don't like when a wolf attacks another wolf showing its neck as a form of submission. The philosopher also claims that foxes and domesticated dogs exhibit the same behavior.
The philosopher says, "It would be erroneous to deny that animals have rights based on the grounds that only human beings are capable of obeying moral rules." That was a mouthful, so let's break it down. The philosopher concludes that a specific argument is bad. What is that argument? The argument is that animals do not have rights because only humans obey moral rules. We will call this argument "X." We can rephrase X to say:
Premise 1: Animals do not obey moral rules (because only humans do).
Conclusion: Animals do not have rights.
By now, you should be comfortable enough with Necessary Assumption to realize that X relies on assuming that obeying moral rules is necessary for having rights. However, we do not need to dive that deep. Argument X's premise that animals do not obey moral rules seems to contradict the philosopher's wolf example. The philosopher has used examples that deny the first premise of Argument X, which is why the philosopher rejects Argument X on the basis that it is not a sound argument (sound arguments are logically valid and have true premises). Importantly, we do not know whether or not the philosopher believes that animals have rights. All we know is the philosopher argues that Argument X is bad because the philosopher rejects a premise of Argument X.
Correct Answer Choice (A) is exactly what we discussed. The philosopher's wolf example directly contradicts the first premise of Argument X.
Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. The philosopher's position is that Arugment X is not sound. The philosopher does not attempt to show that all animals have morality. (B) would be correct if that philosopher tried to argue that all animals have morality by giving the example that wolves and dogs exhibit moral attitudes.
Answer Choice (C) talks about the wrong premise. The philosopher casts doubt that only humans obey moral rules, not that moral rules are necessary for rights.
Answer Choice (D) is incorrect because the philosopher might believe that Argument X is logically valid. Philsopher rejects the argument because they believe that one of the premises is false. This means that the argument is not sound.
Answer Choice (E) is antithetical to the philosopher's argument. If anything, the philosopher would argue that morality is not applied broadly enough. The argument the philosopher criticizes says that animals do not obey morality, which the philsopher rejects by giving the example of wolves.
The question stem reads: Of the following, which one is the criticism to which the reasoning in the travel agent's argument is most vulnerable? This is a flaw question.
The travel agent begins by claiming while most low-fare airlines have had few accidents, they also have not existed long enough to establish a reliable safety record. The agent goes on to claim that major airlines have long-standing records that indicate the airline's safety. The agent concludes that passengers are safe on major airlines than on low-fare airlines.
The author has made the comparative claim that major airlines are safer than low-fare airlines. So for evidence, we would need to compare how safe major airlines are versus how safe low-fare airlines are. However, the agent never actually mentions the safety of any airline; the agent only claims that major airlines have reliable records and low-fare airlines do not have reliable records. Using the agent's reasoning, we could conclude that Antarctica is hotter than Saudi Arabia because the thermometers in Antarctica are much more reliable! So the major airlines' very accurate records may indicate that they are unsafe. Let's take a look at the answer choices.
Answer Choice (A) is incorrect. The real number of accidents committed is of little use to us. Let's say the low-fare airlines crashed 10 out of the 100 flights they ran. Let's also say the major airlines crashed 100 of 100,000 flights. So the major airlines have crashed ten times more flights than the low-fare airlines. However, the major airlines only crashed 1% of their total flights, while the low-fare flights crashed 10%. So despite crashing more flights, the major airlines are much safe.
Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. The agent has claimed the major airline's safety records are reliable. The problem is we do not know what those safety records say.
Correct Answer Choice (C) is what we prephased. The agent has failed to consider that the major airlines could have very reliable safety records and be unsafe.
Answer Choice (D) is incorrect but very close. The agent never says that the major airlines have the most reliable safety records. The agent says the airlines have reliable safety records. (D) would look better if the agent said, "Major airlines have more reliable safety records than any other kind of airline."
Answer Choice (E) is incorrect. The agent claims that the major airlines are comparatively safer than low-fare airlines. So, the major airlines could have one or even hundreds of accidents. The agent's conclusion is ok as long as the major airlines have accidents less frequently than the low-fare airlines.
The question stem reads: The argument does which of the following? This is a Method of Reasoning question.
The argument begins by stating, "When a nation is on the brink of financial collapse, its government does not violate free market principles if, in order to prevent financial collapse, it limits the extent to which foreign investors and lenders can withdraw their money." That was a mouthful, so let's break it down. We can remove the embedded clause "in order to prevent financial collapse" and add it to the end of the premise. Now we have: "The government does not violate free market principles if it limits the extent to which foreign investors and lenders can withdraw their money in order to prevent financial collapse." Ok, that makes more sense. It seems like limiting withdrawals violates the free market, so let's see what evidence they offer us. The author describes how the right to free speech does not include the right to yell fire in a crowded theater because there might be harm resulting from the "stampede" to exit the theater. The author claims that yelling fire is analogous to allowing investors to withdraw money during a financial collapse. On the author's accounts, the mad dash to withdraw money can cause just as much harm as the stampede to exit the theater. The author has made an argument by analogy. Arguably a poor analogy, but our job is not to evaluate the strength of the author's argument; it is merely to determine how the argument proceeds.
Correct Answer Choice (A) is precisely what we are looking for. When we map the stimulus to (A), we get: "tries to show that a set of principles (the free market) is limited in a specific way (limiting investors ability withdraw money during financial collapse) by using an analogy to a similar principle (free speech) that is limited in a similar way (not being allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater), precisely what we prephased.
Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. It would be difficult to map the stimulus onto this answer choice. What facts are we trying to explain? There are none, so we can ignore this answer choice.
Answer Choice (C) can be quickly crossed off because the argument contains no experimental results.
Answer Choice (D) is incorrect because the argument does not claim that a certain explanation of an observed phenomenon is wrong.
Answer Choice (E) is incorrect because there is no empirical generalization. The author makes an analogy to the limits of free speech. However, that would not be considered an empirical generalization.