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
25.
It can be inferred that ███ ██████ █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████
Question Type
Author’s perspective
Implied
We have to use the process of elimination to answer this question. Recall the author’s main point: PA does not entail the two implications that commentators claim it entails. He argues that PA is consistent with the beliefs that some governments are morally superior to others and that people have certain moral obligations.
a
people are subject ██ ████ █████ ███████████ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████
Unsupported. The author agrees that people are subject to certain moral obligations. But we don’t know what is “generally held to be the case” regarding moral obligations, so we can’t assume that the author thinks people are subject to more moral obligations than is generally held to be the case.
b
governments that are ███████ ████████ █████████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ████
Unsupported. The author is likely to agree that some governments are morally superior to others, since governments vary in their moral stature. But we have no idea whether these morally superior governments think that their citizens are obligated to obey the law or not.
c
one may have ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██ █████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ████
Supported. PAs think that people have a moral obligation to care for one another. The author says here that people might enact that obligation by supporting governmental efforts to help those in need, even though people are not morally obligated to obey the government’s laws.
d
there are some █████ █████████ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ █ █████ █████ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ████
Unsupported. The author defends PA, an argument claiming that citizens are not morally obligated to obey the law just because it’s the law. But he doesn’t mention any arguments about governments’ right to require obedience to the law.
e
the theory of █████████████ █████████ ███████ ███████ ███████████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████
Unsupported. The author doesn’t address how governments should enact or enforce laws. Instead, he addresses the PAs’ belief about how citizens should follow the law— we have no moral obligation to follow the law just because it’s the law, but sometimes we should follow laws if failing to follow them leads to harm.
Difficulty
75% of people who answer get this correct
This is a difficult question.
It is similar in difficulty to other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%145
153
75%161
Analysis
Author’s perspective
Implied
Critique or debate
Law
Answer Popularity
PopularityAvg. score
a
11%
158
b
2%
155
c
75%
165
d
5%
156
e
7%
157
Question history
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