Q10 - Philosopher: People are not intellectually

[geverett]

Premise: People are not intellectually suited to live in large bureaucratic societies.

Conclusion: If people can find happiness then it is only in smaller political units, for example: a village.

Question: What's the flaw in the reasoning

Prephrase: Alright, there are some big assumptions the philosopher has made in drawing his/her conclusion. The first gap is between using a premise about not being intellectually well suited for something to drawing a conclusion about a necessary condition for happiness. The second gap would be the assumption that based on the fact that people are not suited for living in large bureaucratic societies that they can only find happiness in smaller political units.

So I just think to myself, okay just because you know people are not well suited for something does not mean that you can draw a conclusion about what is necessary to make them happy.

Also, just because you know people should not living in large bureaucratic societies does not mean that you can draw a conclusion about it being necessary for them to live in smaller political units.

(A) Negate this assumption and you get "Some people can be happy living in society in which he/she is not intellectually well suited to live." This would definitely hurt the author's argument as it addresses the first assumption I listed in my prephrase. It basically casts doubt on the reasoning used in the argument by saying that just because someone is not intellectually well suited living somewhere does not mean that they cannot find happiness in that society.
(B) The author states that living in smaller political units is a necessary condition for happiness, but nowhere in the argument does the author assume/take for granted that happiness is the primary purpose of smaller political units. Get rid of it.
(C) This argument is trying to extract a conditional logic statement from the first sentence of the argument. The author only addresses bureaucratic societies that are also large. Nowhere in the stimulus does the author make any kind of assumption that all societies that are excessively bureaucratic are large.
(D) This is a mistaken reversal of the conclusion of the argument. The answer choice states that living in a small village is sufficient to find happiness while the author states in the second sentence that if it is possible to find happiness then one must live in smaller political units. Get rid of it.
(E) This answer is not supported at all. Just because people must live in smaller political units in order to have a chance at achieving happiness does not mean that everyone wants to living in smaller political units. Even if the conclusion were true it does not necessarily mean that everyone would want to living in a smaller political unit. Perhaps there is a more compelling reason for people to want to live somewhere else that does not involve happiness.

[mcrittell]

Is this correct diagramming?

IWS-->~LLBS
_______
FH-->~LLBS

Assumption IWS-->FH

[Key: IWS=intell well suited, LLBS=live in large bureau soc, FH=find happiness]

[ottoman]

Can someone diagram the conclusion and explain the reason why D is not correct?

Thanks!

[sumukh09]

Can someone diagram the conclusion and explain the reason why D is not correct?

Thanks!

Premise: People ---> ~Intellectually Well Suited to Live in Bureaucratic Societies

Conclusion: People find Happiness ---> Villages

D is not correct because it is a mistaken reversal of the argument, as mentioned above.

D says Live in Village ---> Find Happiness

[slimz89]

I would like to explain why D Is wrong.

I personally did this question without any formal logic and narrowed it down to A and D. I eliminated D because it included a qualifier that the passage didn't say at all therefore it was out of scope and too narrow.
D said anyone who lives in a village or other small political unit that is not excessively bureaucratic can find happiness. This answer is really qualified and is out of scope from the passage because E the passage never mentioned that the villages weren't overly bureaucratic.

[slimz89]

I would like to explain why D Is wrong.

I personally did this question without any formal logic and narrowed it down to A and D. I eliminated D because it included a qualifier that the passage didn't say at all therefore it was out of scope and too narrow.
D said anyone who lives in a village or other small political unit that is not excessively bureaucratic can find happiness. This answer is really qualified and is out of scope from the passage because the passage never mentioned that the villages weren't overly bureaucratic.

[christine.defenbaugh]

A great discussion going on here! geverett really knocked it out of the park with an excellent and thorough breakdown above! Here's a much condensed reiteration:

PREMISE
People are not intellectually well suited to large/bureaucratic societies.
CONCLUSION
People can only find happiness in small political units (villages).

The flaw here is phrased straightforwardly as a necessary assumption ("takes for granted"), so we can use the negation test. Two term shifts reveal the central assumptions:

1) intellectually well suited =/= happiness
2) large/bureaucratic societies are bad =/= only good option is villages

(A) targets the first term shift: the argument assumes that you can't be happy if you're not well suited to where you live! Negate it: If people can be happy even while not intellectually well suited, then maybe they're perfectly happy in those large bureaucratic societies and don't need to be shipped off to villages!


For the conditional logic geeks:
It is not necessary to diagram this question out, but if you're a conditional logic lover, you might be so inclined. Here's what it would look like:

PREMISE: IWS --> ~LBS
CONCLUSION: H --> SPU

How does the author get from H to SPU?

H ----------------------------------------> SPU

The author is somehow driving all the way from H to SPU, with only the premise for support. If we could connect H to that premise, and the get from the premise to SPU, that would do it!

H ---------------IWS --> ~LBS------------> SPU

So there are two assumptions being made in getting from H to SPU:

1) H --> IWS
2) ~LBS --> SPU

(A) translates into H--> IWS!


A quick recap of the incorrect answers:
(B) primary purpose - out of scope!
(C) excessive bureaucracy - new modifier, out of scope! Conditional logic: EBS (excessively bureaucratic society) --> LBS
(D) excessively bureaucratic - new modifier, out of scope! Also, attempts a reversal of the conclusion. Conditional logic (without the new modifier): SPU --> H
(E) willingness - out of scope!

Note that there are two reasons (D) is incorrect! slimz89 correctly points out the modifier, and geverett points out the reversal of the conclusion!

Please let me know if you have further thoughts!

[contropositive]

I initially missed this question but during review I realized there was a crucial point I missed in this question and hopefully this helps anyone who is out there struggling with this one.

All flaw question types fall under the "assumption family tree" but sometimes the correct answer is not really pointing out the assumption. But in this one, the question is explicitly asking for the assumption which is why A is correct.

When I read this argument during review, I thought "hmm so the author is telling us if people are not intellectually suited for large societies, then they can find happiness in smaller ones...weird"

A was a direct match of that assumption.
B to E all were out of scope. D is also an incorrect reversal of last one.

I think in these question types its really important to pay attention to the whole question stem. I often look for key words in the question stem, which is why I ended up eliminating all the answer my first pass and just made a wrong guess at the end.

[jeanne'sjean]

PREMISE: IWS --> ~LBS
CONCLUSION: H --> SPU

So appreciated for your clear explanation.

However, I'm wondering if the PREMISE would be LBS-->IWS? (IF living in large bureaucratic societies, THEN people need to be intellectually well suited to live there.) Although the assumption of H-->LBS would not be affected.

Or it doesn't matter either way?