Q24 - Principle: If a food product contains

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw (how is this stuff above vulnerable to criticism)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Principle: If most people who eat a certain product would be upset to discover it contains a certain ingredient, then that product needs a label saying that the product contains that controversial ingredient.
Application's Conclusion: Crackly Crisps doesn't need a label for the GMO ingredients.
Application's Evidence: Most people who eat CC's wouldn't care if they knew it had GMO ingredients in it.

Answer Anticipation:

The principle we were given says,
"if xyz is true, then product X needs to be labeled".
The author is trying to use that principle to say,
"since xyz is not true, then product X does not need to be labeled".

That's an illegal negation of the principle.

(I could say "if you earn more than $50,000 in wages, you need to file a tax return." That doesn't mean I get to say "Warren Buffet, however makes less than $50,000 in wages. Thus, he does not need to file a tax return." After all, maybe OTHER types of income are ALSO enough to justify needing a tax return.)

Similarly, just because Crackly Crisps doesn't trigger the "most consumers would be upset" rule doesn't mean that there isn't some other rule that requires labeling GMO ingredients that Crackly Crisp WOULD trigger.

When we're doing a Flaw question and the author botches conditional logic, we can always prephrase "necessary vs. sufficient" language, or we can look for a more conversational answer that says "there might be some OTHER rule about required labeling that DOES apply to Crackly Crisps"

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Would this weaken? No. The rule doesn't need the consumers of the specific food to be representative. The rule is phrased to be specifically about a majority of THE PRODUCT's users.

(B) Would this weaken? No. In fact, it sounds like it kinda strengthens the idea that CC doesn't need to warn people about its GMO ingredients.

(C) Does this match? No. The value judgment of "whether or not consumers would care" is VERY compatible with the principle; in fact, it's the entire essence of what the principle is based on.

(D) Was this assumed? No. This is an extreme idea, since it's a conditional rule. The author doesn't need to assume that EVERY time that most consumers would sign off on a few ingredients in a food, they would sign off on all the ingredients in that food. The author's argument is only about Crackly Crisps, and only about whether or not a label is needed for the GMO ingredients.

(E) Does this match? Yes! The provided rule was this:
"Under certain circumstances" = "when most consumers of a product would be freaked out about an ingredient",
"a certain action should be taken" = "the food needs a label disclosing that ingredient".

The author's application was this:
"In the absence of those conditions" = "most CC consumers would NOT be freaked out about GMO ingredients",
"the action should not be taken" = "CC need not be labeled as containing GMO ingredients".

Takeaway/Pattern: The most common Classic Flaw to still show up on modern Flaw questions is the Conditional Logic Flaw (aka "Necessary vs. Sufficient"). Since most Principles are conditional statements, we probably could have seen this coming from the question stem. The correct answer definitely had some challenging language, but it essentially spells out an Illegal Negation, going from "A --> B" to "~A --> ~B", in really fancy language.

#officialexplanation

[jardinsouslapluie5]

Could you go over the answer choices?
I don't understand what (C) means.
Thank you.

[timmydoeslsat]

This is a classic situation of:

A ---> Should do something.

We have ~A.

The application of the the principle above believes that gives right for the ability to conclude ~Should do something.

And this is a flawed way of thinking.

If I play basketball ---> I breathe

What happens if I don't play basketball? Can't I still breathe? Of course.

So there may in fact be multiple sufficient ways to arrive at the idea of "Should do something."

Showing us that one avenue is closed is not enough to claim that the necessary condition does not exist.

Yeah answer choice (C) is a very odd answer. That would reflect an arguer appealing to a principle that has no basis in the argument presented. That is not what is going on here. Answer choice (E) fully describes the idea of saying that an idea that is sufficient for a necessary condition to arise, is not something that is needed to make the necessary condition take place.

This application believes that if you in fact do not have A, you will never get B. And we do not have evidence that supports that.

[amil91]

This is a classic situation of:

A ---> Should do something.

We have ~A.

The application of the the principle above believes that gives right for the ability to conclude ~Should do something.

And this is a flawed way of thinking.

If I play basketball ---> I breathe

What happens if I don't play basketball? Can't I still breathe? Of course.

So there may in fact be multiple sufficient ways to arrive at the idea of "Should do something."

Showing us that one avenue is closed is not enough to claim that the necessary condition does not exist.

Yeah answer choice (C) is a very odd answer. That would reflect an arguer appealing to a principle that has no basis in the argument presented. That is not what is going on here. Answer choice (E) fully describes the idea of saying that an idea that is sufficient for a necessary condition to arise, is not something that is needed to make the necessary condition take place.

This application believes that if you in fact do not have A, you will never get B. And we do not have evidence that supports that.

Well said and exactly what is going on here, I'll add how I did it as well:
The principle in very basic conditional form is: If upset -> label.
The application in very basic conditional form is: If discover -> NOT upset (similar enough to 'not care' in the text).
Taking the contrapositive of the principle gives us NOT label -> NOT upset. Unfortunately, there is no way to link the conditional from the application to the conditional in the principle. We don't know what happens if people are NOT upset.

This question can also be done fairly easily with POE:
(A) - Is irrelevant as the application is not making a broad generalization about other foods, it is just talking about Crisps.
(B) - Also irrelevant, who cares if the ingredients are safe for humans, this principle is about the consumers' perception, not about reality.
(C) - Out of scope, there is no value judgement made in the application of the principle.
(D) - Is also out of scope, the principle is not about when/how/why people buy products it's about labeling them.

[ttunden]

you need to edit that 2nd post

you made me think the correct answer was C!!

anyways, to sum it up... the flaw here is a classic mistaken negation

principle: Most consumers upset 2 discover those ingredients --> Labeled as containing those ingredients


app: most consumers would not care if they discovered GE ingredients --> ~Labeled as containing those ingredients


so the sufficient is basically reworded but anyways it's basically a mistaken negation.

E describes this taking place.
A - nah not a sampling flaw as this would indicate
B - irrelevant. Even if you did address this, the application is still heavily flawed.
C - no value judgement being used. Just an incorrect application of the principle.
D- nah not assuming this