Self-paced
Journalist: To reconcile the need for profits sufficient to support new drug research with the moral imperative to provide medicines to those who most need them but cannot afford them, some pharmaceutical companies feel justified in selling a drug in rich nations at one price and in poor nations at a much lower price. ███ ████ ████████ ██ ████████████ █ ██████ ████ █ ███ ███████ ██████ ███ █████ ████ █ ███████████ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ███ █████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ ██ ███████ █████████ ███████
Summary
The journalist concludes that selling a drug at a higher price in wealthier countries and a lower price in poorer countries is unjustified. Why? Because there may be many middle-class people in poor countries who are more able to afford the drug than many poor people in rich countries.
Notable Assumptions
The journalist concludes that charging more for drugs in rich countries and less in poor ones is unjustified, but his premises never tell us what would make such a practice unjustified. He assumes that companies aren’t justified in basing drug prices on a country’s overall wealth instead of the wealth of certain people or groups of people.
To help justify his reasoning, we need a rule or principle that satisfies his assumption and confirms that giving people special support or pricing based on their country’s income instead of their personal situation is unjustified.
8.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████████ ██████████
a
People who are ███ ███████ ████ █████████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██████████ ██ █████ ████████ █████████████ ██████████
This doesn’t help justify the journalist’s reasoning. He argues that people’s relative socioeconomic positions should be taken into consideration when it comes to drug prices. He doesn’t mention or compare ilI people and healthy people.
b
Wealthy institutions have ██ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ██████ █████ █████████ ██ █████████ ███████████
This leads to the wrong conclusion. The journalist doesn’t mention wealthy institutions at all. (B) supports the idea that wealthy institutions should help cover drug costs for people who can’t afford them. The journalist doesn’t make this argument.
c
Whether one deserves ███████ █████████████ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ████████
This helps to show that charging more for drugs in rich countries and less in poor ones is unjustified, because this practice bases special considerations (drug prices) on the characteristics of one’s society (their country’s wealth), rather than on one’s needs (their own wealth).
d
The people in ███████ ███████ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████
The journalist argues that companies shouldn’t charge more for drugs in wealthy nations and less in poorer nations. (D) doesn’t help to justify this conclusion. If anything, it suggests the opposite.
e
Unequal access to ██████ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ████████████ ██ ███████
The journalist never compares unequal health care access to unequal wealth distribution. Even if (E) is true, it doesn’t help justify his conclusion that the companies’ pricing practice is unjustified.