Self-study
Some people see no harm in promoting a folk remedy that in fact has no effect. ███ █████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ██ ███████████ ██████ ████████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ████ ████████ ████████████ ██████████ ████ █████ ██████ █████████ ████ █████
Summary
The author concludes that there is harm from promoting a folk remedy that has no effect.
Why?
Because many people who are convinced to use an ineffective folk remedy use it for a long time instead of getting conventional treatments that would almost certainly help them.
Notable Assumptions
The author characterizes the effect of encouraging people to use an ineffective product that keeps them from using a more helpful remedy as “harm.” But is that really “harm”? Should it be defined as something harmful? We want a principle that helps establish that it is harm:
If you promote a product that can keep people from using a more helpful product, you are doing something harmful.
16.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
One should not ███████ █ ██████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ █████ █████
Leads to wrong conclusion. We’re not trying to prove that someone should not promote the remedy. We’re trying to prove that promoting the remedy is harmful. (There’s a difference between calling something harmful and saying that someone shouldn’t do it.)
b
It is harmful ██ █████████ ████ ███████ █████ █████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ███████
(B) helps connect the premise to the conclusion. Promoting a folk remedy can convince people to use an ineffective remedy instead of using conventional treatments that would be more helpful. That can be characterized as interfering with someone that could be doing something that’s likely to benefit them. (B) allows us to call that harmful. (Notice that no other answer choice tells us when to call something “harmful.”)
c
To convince people ██ █████████ ███ █████ ███ █████ █████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ██ ██████████
Leads to wrong conclusion. We’re not trying to prove that something is dishonest. We’re trying to prove that it’s harmful.
d
A person is ███████████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ████ ████████████████
Leads to wrong conclusion. We’re not trying to conclude that someone is RESPONSIBLE for harm. We’re trying to prove that something IS HARMFUL. (D) would help an argument where we already knew that something was harmful, but we’re trying to conclude that a particular person is responsible for it.
e
A person who █████████ ███████ ██ ████ █ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ███████████ ███ ███ ████████████ ██ ████ ███████
Leads to wrong conclusion. We’re not trying to prove that someone is responsible for an action. We’re trying to conclude that something is harmful. The issue in the argument is that we don’t know whether to characterize promoting folk remedies as “harm.” So we want to prove that it is in fact harm. Who’s responsible for the action is a separate issue from whether something should be called “harm.”