Self-study
Principle: Support The government should not prevent someone from expressing a true belief unless expressing it would be harmful to people generally.
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Summary
Principle:
If expressing a true belief would NOT be harmful to people generally → government should NOT prevent expression of that belief
Conclusion:
The government should not have prevented Calista from expressing her belief that there’s evidence cancer rates have increased over the last two decades and that this increase was due at least partly to cell phone usage.
Find or Complete the Application
We want to learn that Calista’s expression of her belief would NOT be harmful to people generally. We also want to learn that her belief is true. If we don’t learn these things, then we have no reason to believe the principle applies to Calista’s circumstances.
17.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████████
a
The government has █████████ █████████ ████████ ██ █████████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ███ ███████
This doesn’t help show that Calista’s belief is true. It also doesn’t tell us whether anyone would be harmed by Calista’s expression of her belief.
b
Several studies have █████ ████████ ████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ███ ████ █████████ ███████████ ███ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ████████ ███ ██ █████ ███████ ██████ ██ ████ █████
This provides evidence that Calista’s belief is true. And, because it would benefit people to learn about the potential causal connection between cell phones and cancer, this establishes that Calista’s expression of her belief would NOT harm people generally. (If it would benefit people to hear about the potential causal connection, then it wouldn’t cause general harm to people.)
c
Calista firmly believes ████ ███████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ █████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ██████████
This doesn’t help show that Calista’s belief is true. It also doesn’t tell us whether anyone would be harmed by Calista’s expression of her belief. Whether Calista believes people would benefit doesn’t relate to whether people actually would or would not benefit from hearing her belief.
d
Unless there is ██████ ████████ ██ █ ████ ███████ ███ ██ █ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ███████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██ ███████
This doesn’t help show that Calista’s belief is true. It also doesn’t tell us whether anyone would be harmed by Calista’s expression of her belief.
e
Most people would ██████ █████ ███ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ █████ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████
This doesn’t help show that Calista’s belief is true. It also doesn’t tell us whether anyone would be harmed by Calista’s expression of her belief.