Q2 - Tom: Critics of recent high

[clarafok]

hello,

can someone explain to me why the answer is A and not B? i got this question right the first time i did it, clearly i didn't really know what i was doing...

thanks!

[bbirdwell]

This one is a little complex because we have to distinguish several points of view: Tom's, Mary's, the critics', and the courts'.

However, you should follow the same process that I outlined in response to your question about Jay and Helena and old/new ivory.

The short answer is this:

(A) is correct because Mary would agree: "overturning any recent legal ruling diminishes the law." Tom, however, would disagree, because he supports the recent court decisions by undermining criticism of the courts and saying that "no harm ensued" when courts did similar things in the past.

(B) is wrong because neither party mentions an opinion about the courts' motivation. Don't misread Tom here, as he thinks that the critics were politically motivated -- not the courts. And as for Mary, she says nothing whatsoever about political motivation.

[clarafok]

thank you!

[WaltGrace1983]

This is an identify the disagreement question.

Tom:

High courts often repudiated legal precedent
+
No harm done
→
We should ignore the critics objections that abiding by earlier decisions is necessary to prevent chaos
+
Such objections are politically motivated

Mary:

If the high courts repudiated precent, then they were careful and only did so when precent was outdated
→
Overturning any recent legal ruling diminishes the law

They seem to disagree about the scope of overturning precent. Tom seems to think that just because there have been instances in the past in which precedent has been overturned that overturning precedent is okay, period. Mary disagrees by saying that, while it can be okay to overturn precedent, one should be very careful in doing so and it should ONLY be done when the precedent itself is outdated. She says no recent precedent should be overturned as they are not outdated.

I'm going to work backwards for fun.

(E) One key word here is "quickly." We have no idea about the speed of precedent becoming outdated. This is a fairly easy elimination as this is not a temporal argument.

(D) I think this is the trickiest one out of the bunch. However, Tom nor Mary never talk about necessity. Mary says (overturn → outdated) but never says (outdated → overturn). Meanwhile, Tom thinks anything can be overturned it seems but doesn't put any stipulations on it.

(C) I don't think that anyone is repudiating the fact that critics have said this. Tom definitely agrees as he bases his argument on it and Mary never speaks to it directly but doesn't seem to disagree - we assume she agrees! This is not what they are arguing about. They are arguing about the implications of what the critics said, not if the critics said it at all.

(B) As said above, we know nothing about the court's motivations. Also, Mary never discusses political motivation or lack thereof.

(A) This is correct. Tom thinks that it won't while Mary thinks that it definitely will. This is the main point of contention between them.