PT21.S3.Q24

PrepTest 21 - Section 3 - Question 24

Show analysis

Explanation must be distinguished from justification. █████ █████ ██████ ███████████ ███ ██ ████████████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ██ ████████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ █████████ ██ ████ ██████████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ █ █████████████ ███ ██ ███████ ████ █████████████ █████ █████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██████ █████ ██████████████ ████ ███ ███ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ █████████

Causes vs. Reasons

The stimulus tells us about two terms. Explanation means the causes of an action (what actually made it happen). Justification means the reasons someone has for the action (what would make the action warranted). These two don't always overlap.

To make it concrete, picture someone donating $100 to charity. The explanation (causes) might involve all sorts of things: their mood, social pressure, an article they read, whatever was actually firing in their head when they hit "donate." The justification (reasons) would be claims like "charity helps people" and "I had money to spare." The stimulus's point is that those reasons might not actually be part of what caused the donation. Maybe the donor was really trying to impress someone, and the talk about charity is just the story they tell themselves afterward.

The final sentence gives a principle for when an action counts as rational: only if the reasons are an essential part of the causes. Back to the donor: the donation is rational only if "charity helps people" and "I had money to spare" actually played a role in causing it, not just in narrating it after the fact.

Anticipation

Boiling the principle down: rational → reasons are an essential part of the causes. If reasons are essential to the causal story, they're at least part of the causes. So any rational action has reasons among its causes.

The contrapositive: if reasons are never causes, then no action is ever rational. So the existence of even one rational action requires that reasons sometimes be causes. That's the inference we can pull out before looking at the answers.

User Avatar Analysis by Kevin_Lin
Show answer
24.

If the statements in the ███████ ███ ████████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ██ ████████ █████████ ████ █████

a

When a human ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ██████ ███ ██ ████████████

b

If there are ███ ███████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ █████████

c

Some psychologists believe ████ ███ █████████████ ███ ██ ██████ █████ █████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ███ ████████████

d

There are actions █████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████████

e

If any human ███████ ███ █████████ ████ ███████ ████ █████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████

Confirm action

Are you sure?