Q21 - Professor: It has been argued that all judges

[Laura Damone]

Question Type:
Principle Support

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: It is a bad idea for judges to be elected rather than appointed.

Premise 1: If judges ran for election, they would have to raise campaign funds.

Intermediate conclusion 1: Judges would be likely to accept campaign contributions from special interests.

Premise 2: Contributions from special interests create conflicts of interest for politicians.

Intermediate conclusion 2: We can expect they would cause conflicts of interests for judges, too.

Answer Anticipation:
The main conclusion is that electing judges is a bad idea. The premises and intermediate conclusions all lead to the idea that electing judges would lead to conflicts of interest. Predict an answer that says conflicts of interest for judges is a bad idea, or should be avoided.

Correct answer:
E

Answer choice analysis:
(A) No. While this might be tempting because it could establish that judges should avoid conflicts of interest, it can only do so if we're told that politicians should avoid conflicts of interest. We're not told that, so we should eliminate.

(B) This is a reasonable conclusion we might draw from this argument if we assume conflicts of interest to be a bad thing, but it doesn't help prove the conclusion that judges should be appointed rather than elected.

(C) Tricky: We want to conclude that judges should be appointed. A principle that says "judges should be appointed only if … " can't help us reach that conclusion. When you apply a principle, you can only conclude its necessary condition, or the necessary condition of it's contrapositive. You can never conclude the principle's sufficient condition, so we can get rid of this answer.

(D) Same problem as D: It has judges being appointed as the sufficient condition.

(E) Bingo. We can translate the conditional logic of this principle thusly: If election campaigning would be likely to produce conflicts of interest, then it shouldn't be changed from an appointed to an elected office. That applies to the situation of judges presented in the premises of the argument, and helps us to draw the conclusion that we shouldn't make the switch.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Principle Support questions are overwhelmingly governed by conditional logic. When you break down the argument, know what it's concluding and anticipate that the right answer will have one of these two forms:
"If (stuff from premises), then (conclusion)"
Or, the contrapositive:
"If not (conclusion), then not (stuff from premises)"
Rule out any answer that has this form: "If (conclusion), then (stuff from premises)."

#officialexplanation

[MarthaO689]

"Tricky: We want to conclude that judges should be appointed. A principle that says "judges should be appointed only if … " can't help us reach that conclusion. When you apply a principle, you can only conclude its necessary condition, or the necessary condition of it's contrapositive. You can never conclude the principle's sufficient condition, so we can get rid of this answer."

Can you explain this further? What can we conclude about principles?