Self-study
The government is being urged to prevent organizations devoted to certain views on human nutrition from advocating a diet that includes large portions of uncooked meat, because eating uncooked meat can be very dangerous. ████████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ███ ████████████ █████████ ███ ███████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ ██ █████████ ██ █████████ █ ██████ █████████ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████ ███ █████ █████████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████ ███████ █████ ██ █████ ██████████
Summary
The author concludes that the government shouldn’t silence nutrition groups that promote eating raw meat just because eating raw meat can be harmful. He supports this with an analogy, saying the government shouldn’t silence political groups just for promoting harmful policies.
Notable Assumptions
The author supports his conclusion with an analogy, but his premises never establish that potentially harmful nutrition groups and potentially harmful political groups are relevantly similar. He simply assumes that the two scenarios are analogous.
To help justify his argument, we need a principle or rule that either confirms that these situations are relevantly similar, or else, more broadly, a principle that asserts that the government should never silence any group just because its opinions could be harmful.
12.
Which one of the following ██████████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
The government should ███ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ██████████ █ ████████ ████ █ ███████████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ██ ███████████
Wrong trigger. The author doesn’t argue that the government shouldn’t silence the nutrition group because a significant portion of society supports their position. In fact, we have no idea how many people believe that eating raw meat is beneficial.
b
The government ought ██ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ██ ████████
Is it in the best interest of society for the government not to silence any groups? Or is it in the best interest of society for the government to silence groups with harmful opinions? We don’t know. So (B) can’t help us justify the argument.
c
One ought to ████████ █ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████████
This leads to the wrong conclusion. The argument isn’t about whether people should advocate for certain political or nutritional positions; it’s about whether the government should silence these positions.
d
The government ought ███ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████████ ███ ████████
This supports the conclusion that the government shouldn’t silence nutrition groups just because their views might be harmful. It also shows that political groups are relevantly similar, since the government shouldn’t silence them just for supporting harmful policies either.
e
One ought to ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ██████
This leads to the wrong conclusion. The argument isn’t about whether someone should urge the government not to silence harmful groups. It’s about whether the government is justified in silencing harmful groups in the first place.