Self-study
Trade negotiator: Support Increasing economic prosperity in a country tends to bring political freedom to its inhabitants. ██████████ ██ ██ █████ ███ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ████████
Argument Summary And Rule Anticipation
The primary difference-maker between people who answer quickly and correctly and people who either get it wrong or take a long time is familiarity with the Value Judgment tag, otherwise known as the is-ought gap. You can’t jump from descriptive premises about how things are to normative conclusions about how things ought to be.
For real, the best way to approach this question (and it’s achievable with practice!) is to read the stimulus, think “ah we need a premise bridging the is-ought gap,” then spend a few moments evaluating (A), (D), and (E) on how well they take us from the specific “is” premise to the specific “ought” conclusion:
Descriptive Premise: Making countries richer makes them more free.
Normative Conclusion: Adopting policies that prevent other countries from getting richer is bad.
Recognizing the is-ought gap and following the Premise → Conclusion structure for PSAr questions yields the following anticipation:
Any policy that stifles freedom in another country is bad.
7.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ████████████ ██████████
a
Every country should █████ ██ █████ ████ ████████ ████ █████████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ██ █████ ██████████
(A) bridges the is-ought gap, but it’s a claim about what is right for countries to do. Our conclusion is a claim about what is wrong for countries to do.
So (A) is the inverse of the claim we want.
b
Both economic prosperity ███ █████████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████████ ████████████
(B) kicks the is-ought can down the road. It gives us a causal link from riches and freedom to well-being, but stays on the “is” side of the gap. (B) still requires the following principle:
Any policy that stifles well-being in another country is bad.
c
The primary reason ████ ███ ███████ █████ ████████ ██████████ ██ ██ ██████ █████████ ███████ ██ ████ ████████
A couple things. First, primary means main. The conclusion doesn’t care so much about whether countries care most about freedom or something else – it can still be wrong to hurt the second most important thing.
Like okay pick your favorite toe. Now I’m gonna chop off one of your other toes. Still wrong, even though it’s not your primary toe.
Second though, and more importantly, (C) fails to bridge the is-ought gap.
d
A country should ███ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ████████
(D) cleanly bridges the is-ought gap: If a policy is gonna hinder freedom in another country, don’t do it.
e
It is wrong ███ ███ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████████
(E) is close. Squinting blurrily at the principle, it bridges the is-ought gap for sure: If a policy hinders prosperity, it’s bad.
But our conclusion is that it’s wrong to adopt policies that hurt other countries, whereas the principle in (E) is about how it’s bad for a country to hurt its own inhabitants.
So (E) is a bridge to the “ought” side of the gap – it just ends up in the wrong place on that side.