Mary, a veterinary student, has been assigned Support an experiment in mammalian physiology that would require her to take a healthy, anesthetized dog and subject it to a drastic blood loss in order to observe the physiological consequences of shock. ███ ███ █████ ███████ ██████ █████████████ ███ ███████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███████ ███ ██ ██ ████ ███████████
Mary, a veterinary student, concludes that she will not do an assignment. The assignment would involve causing blood loss to an anaesthetized but healthy dog so that Mary could observe the dog going into shock. The dog would not wake up, and would not survive.
When we're looking for a principle that matches Mary's reasoning, we want to find an answer that is triggered by the correct factual situation and which leads to the right conclusion. The conclusion is straightforward: don't do the experiment. But we have a fair number of facts leading there, so the correct answer could be more or less specific. Ideally, though, it will be triggered by a situation of causing catastrophic injury or death to an animal for the sole benefit of gaining physiological knowledge.
Even with that in mind, it can be tricky to find the principle that matches exactly. To help eliminate wrong answers, we should be detail-oriented when considering each answer choice. Even one wrong element in the answer choice means it's wrong.
Mary’s decision most closely accords ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
All other things █████ ██████ ████████████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ████████████
The dog in the stimulus is not suffering pain: it will be under anaesthesia and unconscious the entire time. So (A) is not triggered by the facts we're given.
Although causing the dog's death and causing the dog to suffer pain are related ideas, they're not quite the same. The correct principle has to lead to the exactly correct conclusion, and (A) isn't precise enough.
Taking the life ██ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████ █████ ██ █████ ███████████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████ ██████ █████ ██ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██ █ ███████
In other words, if taking an animal's life would not immediately help to save animal lives or protect a person's health, then it's not justified. (B) is triggered by our facts: taking this dog's life would contribute to Mary's learning, but wouldn't address any imminent medical situations. And it leads to the correct conclusion that the experiment is not justified.
The only sufficient █████████████ ███ █████████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████ █████████ ██ ███████ ██████████
In other words, if experimenting on animals doesn't prevent future animal suffering, then it's not justified. But we don't know whether this experiment would help Mary prevent animals from suffering in the future, so (C) is not triggered by our facts.
Practicing veterinarians have █ ████████████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████████ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ██ ███████ ███████ █████ █████████ ███ ████████ ███ ████
(D) is close, but it gets an important detail wrong: Mary is not a practicing veterinarian. Mary is just a veterinary student, so this principle doesn't apply to her, and can't match her reasoning.
No one is ████ █████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ██ █ ██████ ██████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ██████
In other words, if an action has the sole intention of causing another living being's death, then it isn't justified. But (E) isn't triggered by our facts, because the experiment doesn't have the sole intention to cause death. It has the intention to teach Mary about physiology as well.