Q2 - A lack of trust in one's neighbors

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
We start with the conclusion (we know it's the conclusion only after we read the next sentence and see a study provides evidence for it): Not trusting your neighbor's turns them into criminals (people who lack respect for the law). So it's your fault.

What did the study show that led the researchers to this conclusion? Neighborhoods where people regularly lock their doors are also the neighborhoods with higher burglary rates.

Answer Anticipation:
As soon as we identify that first sentence as the conclusion, the ""leads to"" should stick out like a sore thumb. That's a causal claim. In a flaw question, this makes a Correlation vs. Causation flaw the most likely culprit. We should head into the premises expecting it to give us a correlation, and it does - it tells us that locking doors and high burglaries go together.

More specifically, I'd expect an answer that talks about reversed causality. Here, the purported cause is lack of trust leading to lack of respect for the law. The reverse–people committing crimes led people to lock their doors–makes sense. When reversed causality makes sense, it's generally the answer.

There would probably be a moment of confusion for me on how a lack of respect for the law and committing burglarly are related, but they seem to at the very least align with each other (I don't see many burglars as being defenders of the letter of the law), so I'd get past that and only revisit it if the correlation/causation answer doesn't pan out.

Correct answer:
(E)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Wrong flaw (illegal reveral). There is no sufficient/necessary language or relationships in this argument.

(B) Wrong flaw (perception vs. reality). The conclusion isn't really moral (for that, there should be language such as "right/wrong"), though we do have factual evidence.

(C) Wrong flaw (self-contradiction). This answer choice is a common wrong answer; it's rarely correct.

(D) Wrong flaw (circular reasoning). Good ol' circular reasoning. Our conclusion adds causality in, which we don't see in the premises, so this answer doesn't apply.

(E) Bingo. I might have even done a quick scan of the answers to find the one that brought up cause/effect (especially this early on, there would probably be only a single answer bringing up those concepts). Not only is this the Causal Flaw answer, it hits on the reversed causality that we predicted.

Takeaway/Pattern: In any flaw-based argument, a causal conclusion should stick out as problematic. Always follow up on that to see if the argument is based on a mere correlation.

#officialexplanation

[LolaC289]

Can someone please further clarify what exactly is a "moral conclusion"? I chose (B) for this question due to misreading. I misinterpreted the "their" in the first sentence to mean people who don't trust their neighbors, so I thought it drew a wrong conclusion on reversed/mixed-up subjects. Now I look at it I understand that it is saying not trusting neighbors will make neighbors turn into criminals. Classic correlation/causation flaw, (E) is right.

However, though I don't know what a "moral" conclusion is, I thought this conclusion can be somehow regarded as a moral conclusion since it deals with trust and the consequence of lacking it, and trust is something closely related to morals. However, I think maybe what's wrong with (B) is the latter part, which claims the evidence could only support a factual conclusion. But in strict sense the evidence is not strong enough for any conclusion, since it only brings up correlation. From mere existence of correlation we can't conclude any other conclusion other than the existence of correlation itself.

With that being said, I would appreciate if any trainers help check is my reasoning above is correct.