Most people acknowledge that not all governments have a moral right to govern and that there are sometimes morally legitimate reasons for disobeying the law, as when a particular law prescribes behavior that is clearly immoral. ██ ██ ████ ████████ ████████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███ ███ █████ ███ █████ ██ █████████ ████ █ █████ ████ ██ ████ █ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ███
Most people's perspective ·Moral duty to obey law because it's law; some rare exceptions
Commentators' perspective ·Reject PA because PA has 2 implications that are absurd
PA allegedly implies (1) all governments are morally equal, and (2) people are morally allowed to do whatever they want (kill people, commit fraud, etc.)
Deny implication 2 ·PA doesn't have to think people can do whatever they want
People still have moral duties not to harm others (a duty that doesn't stem from law). Also, There's a moral duty to help others, which might justify supporting government policies/actions. And, there's a moral duty to follow laws if failing to follow them leads to harm.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
22.
The author's stance regarding the ██████ ██ █████████████ █████████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ██
Question Type
Author’s attitude
Implied
This is an Inference question about the author’s attitude toward PA. The author spends P2 and P3 defending PA against the commentators and reinforcing some of its key positions, so we can infer that he accepts at least some aspects of the theory.
a
ardent approval of ████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████
Unsupported— too strong. The author seems to approve of some aspects of the theory, but his approval isn’t “ardent.” Also, we don’t know whether the passage even addresses most aspects of PA, so we can’t infer that the author approves of most aspects of the theory.
Supported. The author spends P2 and P3 defending PA against the commentators’ criticisms. He also reinforces some of its basic positions— that we can evaluate the morality of governments based on how much good or harm they cause, and that we have a moral duty to care for others. This suggests that the author accepts some of the basic positions of the theory.
Anti-supported. The commentators think that PA includes certain extreme views— that all governments are morally equal, and that people are morally allowed to do whatever they want. The author does believe that the theory avoids these extreme views, but he isn’t pessimistic about it. Instead, he seems to approve of the theory’s positions.
Anti-supported. Since the author spends P2 and P3 defending PA against the commentators and reinforcing some of its basic positions, we can infer that he actually accepts some of the central features of the theory.
Anti-supported. The commentators seem to dislike the logical consequences of PA, but the author spends P2 and P3 defending the theory and rejecting the commentators’ criticisms. We can infer that he actually accepts at least some aspects of the theory.
Difficulty
72% of people who answer get this correct
This is a moderately difficult question.
It is somewhat easier than other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%141
152
75%163
Analysis
Author’s attitude
Implied
Critique or debate
Law
Answer Popularity
PopularityAvg. score
a
20%
160
b
72%
164
c
2%
152
d
2%
151
e
4%
157
Question history
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