When a lawmaker spoke out against a research grant awarded to a professor in a university's psychology department as a foolish expenditure of public money, other professors in that department drafted a letter protesting the lawmaker's interference in a field in which he was not trained. ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███████████ █████ █████████ █████████ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███████ █ ██████ ██████████ ███ ████ ██████████ ████ ██ ██████████ █ █████████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████████ █████████
The department chair refused to sign a protest letter against a lawmaker when he denounced public money being spent on her colleague’s research project, even though she agreed that the lawmaker was wrong. Why? Because the chair had previously praised the lawmaker for denouncing a foolish military expenditure.
The chair assumes a connection between her past praise of the legislator and whether she should sign the protest letter. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have brought up her past praise in support of her current decision.
So, a principle which will justify the chair’s decision will tell us that if someone has previously praised a lawmaker for denouncing a foolish public expenditure, that person should not protest the same lawmaker’s later attempt to denounce a public expenditure as foolish.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ████████████ ████████ ███ █████████ █████████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ███████ ███████
A person should ███ ████████ █████████ ███ ███████ ██ █ ████████ ██ █████████ █████ ███████ ██████ ███████ █████████████ ██ ███ █████████████ ██ ████ ██████████ █████
There are two issues here. One is that the chair’s reasoning doesn’t include any discussion of considering each case’s particular circumstances. The other is that this creates a necessary condition for criticizing a lawmaker, but we need a sufficient condition.
The chair of ██ ████████ ██████████ ███ ██ ██████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████ █████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████ ██████████ ███ █████ ███████
This is just irrelevant—the chair’s argument has nothing to do with whether or not she’s obligated to ensure that public funds are spent wisely in her department.
A person who ███ ███████ █ ████████ ███ ███████ █ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ███ █████████ ███ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ █ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ ███ ████████ ████████████ ██████████
We know that the chair has praised this lawmaker for playing a watchdog role regarding the military, so this tells us that she should not criticize him for doing the same thing in a case that involves a colleague in her department. That bridges the gap in the argument.
Since academic institutions ██████ ██████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ███ ██████ █ ██████████████ ██ ██ ████████ ███████████ ██████ ███ ████████ ████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ██████████ ██████████
This doesn’t justify the chair’s refusal on the ground she actually gives, which is that she previously praised this legislator—it just makes up a different ground. Also, the chair is only refusing to sign a specific letter, not refusing to ever pass judgment on officials.
Academic institutions have ███ ████ ██████████████ ██ ████████ ████████████ ████ ██ █████ ██████ █████ ███████
This doesn’t get us any closer to justifying the chair’s conclusion, which is about whether or not she should sign a letter, not about her department’s responsibility to spend money wisely.
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