Q19 - Essayist: One of the drawbacks

[jrany12]

Could you please explain why D is the answer? And why C and E are wrong? I ended up choosing E, but is it wrong because it says it's "based on unrealistic expectations"?
Thanks!

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your post!

So, the premise here is that if people witness the consequences of extreme freedom, they may end up supporting totalitarian regimes that give zero freedom. From this, the essayist concludes that we shouldn't support political systems that allow extreme freedom.

But wait -- why shouldn't we? I mean, what if we really like totalitarian regimes? The argument is clearly making an assumption about what kinds of things we should and should not support: specifically, that we shouldn't support something that has a chance of leading to a totalitarian regime.

That's why (D) is correct. If we accept this principle, then we have to agree with the conclusion that we shouldn't support political systems that provide extreme freedom.

(A) is tempting, but the argument doesn't say that such a system inevitably leads to totalitarianism, just that it may.

(B) is out of scope because the conclusion is about whether we should support a system, not about whether we should expect everyone to thrive.

(C) is kind of tempting, too, but "freedom to make wise choices" is actually not a part of the argument; we can't assume it's the same thing as not having extreme freedom.

(E) is incorrect for more or less the reason you identify. We're not talking about systems that are based on unrealistic expectations, we're talking about systems that allow extreme freedom.

All right?

[MichaelC134]

Would (C) be closer if the "only" was moved to later in the sentence i.e. instead "One should support those political systems that give people only the freedom to make wise choices."

Thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

The rule in (C) is currently saying

"if you should support it, then it's a political system that gives freedom to make wise choices"
or by contrapositive
"if it doesn't give the freedom to make wise choices, then you shouldn't support it"

This is worth examining, because we're trying to prove
"You shouldn't support [systems that allow extreme freedom]"

and this rule is set up to prove
"you shouldn't support [it]"

Does the trigger of this rule apply to [systems that allow extreme freedom]?

i.e., do we know that "systems that allow extreme freedom" "do NOT give the freedom to make wise choices"?

We do not hear that. In fact, you would assume that extreme freedom DOES give us the freedom to make wise choices.

If we slid the "only" later in the sentence and (C) said
one should support those political systems that give people ONLY the freedom to make wise choices, then the rule would be

"If a system gives people ONLY the freedom to make wise choices, then one should support it"

This would not be a tempting answer choice, because this is a rule that lets you prove that you SHOULD support something.

We need a rule that lets you prove that you SHOULD NOT support something, since the conclusion we're trying to reach is that we "should NOT support [extreme freedom systems]"

Hope this helps.

[MichaelC134]

I am still a little confused.

I get the first part. That the current rule (c) of “One should support only those political systems that give people the freedom to make wise choices.” Becomes “If you should support a political system, then it must be a political system that gives freedom to make wise choices” or the contrapositive “If the political system does not give freedom to make wise choices, then you should not support the political system.”

So, I would think moving the only would likewise become “If you should support a political system, then it must be a political system that only gives freedom to make wise choices” or the contrapositive “If the political system does not give only the freedom to make wise choices, then you should not support the political system.”
“Does not give only the freedom to make wise choices” is the same as “giving the freedom to make some unwise choices” so wouldn’t the rule now be “If the political system gives the freedom to make unwise choices, then you should not support the political system.”

Thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

When you originally posed the altered sentence, you switched the "only" from being a conditional logic limitation to being an adverb meaning "a scarce amount".

You originally said:
Would (C) be closer if the "only" was moved to later in the sentence i.e. instead "One should support those political systems that give people only the freedom to make wise choices."


This time you put the 'only' in front of the give, which is the same thing as your original formulation. In both cases, the 'only' is an adverb modifying the verb 'give'.

If you say, "Awwww, no fair, you gave me only three Skittles?" (or "You only gave me three Skittles?")
that's using "only" as an adverb to mean "a scarce amount"

It becomes a conditional logic fulcrum when we say something like
"Only giving me three Skittles would tell me that you're sorry"

Telling me your sorry ------> gave me three Skittles


When we're looking at
"one should support those political systems that give people only the freedom to make wise choices"
it's the same form as
"one should support those political systems that X"

In that sentence, X is a sufficient condition for supporting a political system.