Q20 - Editorialist: To ensure justice in

[romanmuffin]

So I chose B on this problem, but I am now seeing where I went wrong. Tell me if my reasoning is correct:

Premise: If justice legal system is ensured, citizens capable of criticizing anyone involved in determining punishment of criminals

Premise: Sometimes system falls into hands of experts whose specialty is to assess how potential lawbreakers are affected by the systems punishments

Conclusion : Because citizens lack knowledge about such matters, justice is not ensured in system

So I see citizens lacking knowledge about how potential lawbreakers are affected by the system punishments means justice is not ensured. At first, I thought that was all I needed to connect, and so I chose B, because I thought that was the contrapositive of the conclusion. I'm still a bit hazy on why B is wrong. Is it because it talks about individual criminals and the stimulus discusses a more general group "potential lawbreakers?" Is it because B talks about legal system being just, rather than justice being ensured within the system (as the stimulus states)?


Looking at E, I can see it forces the reader to connect more of the premises. Citizens lacking knowledge about how potential lawbreakers are affected by the system punishments > citizens incapable of criticizing anyone involved in determining the punishment of criminals > justice is not ensured in the legal system.

A is obviously wrong because it discusses primary concerns.
C: ditto to the above.
D: I just felt this answer was wrong. Mainly because I didn't really understand the sentence in the stimulus where it talks about the legal system's purpose seen as deterrence.

[maryadkins]

Good thinking here! A couple of things:

I'd write out the core a little differently than you did. "Citizens lacking knowledge about such matters" is a premise as well.

Your breakdown of (A) and (C) is good. (B) is wrong because the core is not about the system's effect on individual criminals. It's about citizens not having knowledge and therefore justice not being ensured. (D) is too broad--in "a" legal system, first of all, is problematic. The Editorialist refers to it as "the" legal system, clearly meaning one legal system--not all legal systems in all societies, generally. The rest of it is too broad as well--we don't need to assume that a concern for punishment is incompatible with an emphasis on deterrence, generally in order to conclude that citizens lacking knowledge means justice can't be ensured.

[shaynfernandez]

E skips over the unnecessary information, "seen as a deterrence, the system..."
instead it ties evrything in the core together.

Premise: justice in the legal system having the requirement (nessary condition) of criticism by citizens:
Justice --> citizens capable of criticizing anyone involved in determining punishment or CRITICISM

To the conclusion: justice is not ensured... Why? Because citizens lack knowledge
(~knowledge --> ~justice)
Or contrapositive
(justice --> knowledge)

E ties it together with: citizens without knowledge are incapable of criticizing
(Criticism --> knowledge)

Combining all that we get a logical argument.

(justice--> criticism --> knowledge)

[ZohaibA27]

Hey Everyone,

So I'm currently drilling NA question types through the Cambridge packet things. I'm looking at question 20 in section 1 of PT 36, and it says its an NA question type.

I got the right answer quite quickly, but for the life of me I can't seem to figure out how this isn't also a sufficient answer choice - something which has never happened to me before. What I mean by that is, answer choice E being true seems to be sufficient to make the argument true.

Core:

P1: Ensuring Justice in the legal system ---> Citizens capable of criticizing anyone involved in determining punishments
P2: Legal system's purpose is to deter ---> System falls into hands of experts whose specialty is to assess how potential lawbreakers are affected by the system's punishments
P3: Most citizens lack knowledge about such matters
C: Justice is therefore not ensured in the legal system

E) Citizens without knowledge about how the legal system's punishments affect potential lawbreakers are incapable of criticizing experts in that area

I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS: Is the reason why E isn't sufficient for the argument is because P1 never states the number of citizens who must be capable of criticizing lawmakers? P3 says MOST citizens, meaning some citizens do possess the knowledge necessary to criticize lawmakers, and therefore justice CAN be ensured in the legal system? The argument requires it to be necessary, if you didn't need to understand the affect of the legal system's punishments, then the conclusion is completely wrong. But with E being true, the conclusion can still be true - we just don't know if it has to be true.