Self-study
Objective: Justify the Conclusion
The antiwhaling activist comes to the conclusion that all whale-hunting should be banned. In support, the activist explains that hunting endangered whales should be banned. Furthermore, it's impossible to enforce any such ban on hunting endangered whales unless whale-hunting is banned in its entirety.
From the activist's premises, we can infer that if we want to enforce a ban on hunting endangered whales, then we should ban all whale-hunting. However, the activist doesn't tell us that we should enforce a ban on hunting endangered whales, only that such a ban should be put in place. To justify the conclusion, we need to build a premise-to-conclusion bridge that takes us from banning hunting endangered whales to enforcing that ban by banning all whale-hunting. The correct answer may be phrased abstractly, but when applied to the argument, it will have an equivalent effect.
15.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ████████████ █████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
The fishing industry ███ █ █████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ███████████
(A) actually undermines the conclusion: if fishers have a right to hunt non-endangered whales, maybe we shouldn't ban all whale-hunting.
b
If a certain ████████ █████ ██ ██ ███████████ ██ ██████ ███ █████ ████████ ████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ████ ████████████
(B) is a bit abstract, so let's apply it to the stimulus. The stimulus says hunting endangered whales should be prohibited, so that's the first "activity" mentioned. And we also know hunting non-endangered whales would interfere with enforcing that ban, so whale-hunting in general is the "other activity".
If we make those substitutions, we get: if hunting endangered whales ought to be prohibited, so should whale-hunting in general. And since the stimulus affirms that sufficient condition, this justifies the conclusion that whale-hunting should be fully banned.
c
No industry should █████ ███ ████████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ████████████ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ █████████
The stimulus discusses technologies that are already in use, but adopting new technologies isn't in question. (C) doesn't apply to the stimulus.
d
All actions that ███ ████████████ ██ █████████ ████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ████████████
Preventing endangered whales from being hunted is certainly a "permissible end", and banning all whale-hunting would be instrumental in achieving that end. However, (D) leads to the conclusion that a total whale-hunting ban is permissible, while the stimulus reaches a stronger conclusion that it's desirable. (D) justifies the wrong conclusion.
e
If a commercial ████ ██ █ ███████ ████████ █████ ██ ██ ███████████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ █████████████ █████ ██ ████ █████████
The stimulus doesn't distinguish between commercial and non-commercial whale-hunting, so (E) doesn't apply. We need to know that measures necessary to enforce a ban on hunting endangered whales should be taken, which we don't get from (E).