Self-study
Support There are only two possible reasons that it would be wrong to engage in an activity that causes pollution: because pollution harms ecosystems, which are valuable in themselves; or, ecosystems aside, because pollution harms human populations. ██████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████ ████████ █████ ██ █████ ███████ █████ ███ █████ █████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ █████████ █████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ █████
Summary
The author concludes that it would not be wrong to perform mining operations on Mars. Why? Because of the following:
These are the only 2 reasons it could be wrong to engage in an activity that causes pollution: (1) the pollution harms ecosystems, OR (2) pollution harms human populations.
Mining operations on Mars would pollute, but would not harm human populations.
Missing Connection
In order to be wrong, the mining operations must either harm ecosystems or harm human populations. We know that the operations won’t harm humans. But the premises don’t establish that the operations won’t harm ecosystems. So if we want to conclude that the operations would not be wrong, we want to know that they won’t harm ecosystems.
4.
The conclusion drawn above follows █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████████
a
Mining creates less █████████ ████ ████ █████ █████ ███████████
(A) doesn’t establish that the mining operations on Mars won’t harm ecosystems.
b
There are no ██████████ ██ █████
(B) establishes that the mining operations won’t harm ecosystems. After all, if there are no ecosystem on Mars, then the mining operations there have no ecosystems to harm.
c
The economic benefits ██ ██████ ██ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ██████
(C) doesn’t establish that the mining operations on Mars won’t harm ecosystems.
d
It is technologically ████████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████
(D) doesn’t establish that the mining operations on Mars won’t harm ecosystems.
e
The more complex ██ █████████ ███ ███ ████ ████████ ██ ███
(E) doesn’t establish that the mining operations on Mars won’t harm ecosystems.