Q25 - Marianne is a professional chess

[XEVIAN_ZONG]

Hello, I am stuck between C and D. Can you help me? Thanks!

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your post.

I think I know why you're stuck. First, let's take a look at the argument: Marianne says that she shouldn't be held responsible for her humming because it's involuntary, since she's unaware of it. Notice that "since": it indicates a logical step. So we're dealing with an intermediate conclusion:

unaware of humming --> humming involuntary --> shouldn't be held responsible

The most obvious assumption falls in the second arrow: that one shouldn't be held responsible for something involuntary. (That's how we get to answer (B) in the previous question.)

Anyway, let's check out the answers for this one. We're looking for something that weakens the argument.

(A) is incorrect because this is only about in-match behavior.

(B) is out of scope: this is about a professional player, period.

(E) is no good because the stimulus tells us that her humming distracts her opponents; it doesn't have to be true for ALL opponents to be distracted for this still to be an issue.

Okay, so we've narrowed it down. Let's look at (C).

(C) is tempting because it appears to affect the first logical step. The only problem is, it's backwards. If it said, "Not all actions of which a person is unaware are involuntary," that would indeed weaken the argument by undermining the step between "unaware" and "involuntary." But because it says the reverse, it doesn't affect the argument: Marianne is going from unaware to involuntary, not the other way around.

(D) is correct because if Marianne can easily learn to notice and overcome her humming habit, it's not really unfair for the chess officials to ask her to stop doing it. Her argument rests on the assumption that you can't stop doing something if it's involuntary.

Does that clear this one up for you?

[XEVIAN_ZONG]

Thank you very much! Your explanation is very helpful

[hippo3717]

Could C be wrong because it says "not all?"

Since Not all meaning that there are some involuntary actions that the person is aware of, and if humming is truly one of them, it won't weaken but rather strengthen the argument?


HELPPP!!!

[wj097]

(C) is tempting because it appears to affect the first logical step. The only problem is, it's backwards. If it said, "Not all actions of which a person is unaware are involuntary," that would indeed weaken the argument by undermining the step between "unaware" and "involuntary." But because it says the reverse, it doesn't affect the argument: Marianne is going from unaware to involuntary, not the other way around.

Hey Gilad, this is great mental exercise. Your modified (C) (some unaware actions are voluntary) would undermine in case the assumption was "all unaware actions are involuntary", but Marianne just talks/assumes for one particular action, humming. Seems like she is allowing anything for non-humming actions since its out of her scope. In rebutting, Marianne may simply say "yeah, I know that... some actions like fidgitting, but not humming..for me at least". What do you say??

Thx

[rinagoldfield]

Interesting question wj097! I’m gonna step in for Gilad on this one...

The crux of Marianne’s argument is unaware --> involuntary--> no responsibility. But you’re right; Marianne talks specifically about humming, so her argument doesn’t apply to other actions or action in general.

However, principles about action in general could apply to her argument, since humming is a subcategory of action. Big fish can eat little fish, even though little fish can’t eat big ones (does that make sense...?)

In this case, a broad principle that "some unaware actions are voluntary" does apply to Marianne’s argument. This principle would break the first link of her logic chain: maybe her humming is involuntary, but she can’t prove that it’s involuntary merely on the evidence that she’s unaware of it. And her unawareness of her action is the only solid piece of information she offers.

Hope this helps! Let me know if this makes sense or you have other questions.

[wj097]

The crux of Marianne’s argument is unaware --> involuntary--> no responsibility. But you’re right; Marianne talks specifically about humming, so her argument doesn’t apply to other actions or action in general.

However, principles about action in general could apply to her argument, since humming is a subcategory of action. Big fish can eat little fish, even though little fish can’t eat big ones (does that make sense...?)

Hey Rina, your right. Now that I think of it, I erred as I equated the intermediary conclusion as a mere truth. unaware->involuntary is definitely a necessary assumption, and thus supplying an exception would undermine the argument.

Just to confirm this distinction, if the argument said "since she was unaware and the humming was involuntary, she should not be held responsible for it" then I would say "some unaware actions are voluntary" is NOT a weakener. Would you agree?

Thx

[rinagoldfield]

Just to confirm this distinction, if the argument said "since she was unaware and the humming was involuntary, she should not be held responsible for it" then I would say "some unaware actions are voluntary" is NOT a weakener. Would you agree?

Yup! Totally agree.

Thanks for the interesting conversation.

[WaltGrace1983]

Let me get this straight...

We know that Marianne's action is something she is ~(aware) of. However (C) basically gives us that there are SOME actions that are both ~(voluntary) and (aware).

Thus (C) has two problems:

--We know Marianne's actions are ~(aware) so we cannot say anything about (aware)
--We don't know if the actions are actually ~(voluntary). That's what we are trying to prove! Thus, we cannot say anything about ~(voluntary).

Though let's say we took the following...

"She argued that since she was unaware of her humming and it was involuntary..."

(C) would still not be right because all it does is give us more information about stuff not relevant to the premise! We know that, in this case, we have both ~(aware) and ~(voluntary). We don't care about other combinations of (aware) and (voluntary).

EDIT: However (C) could be right if it said that, "Not all of a person's unaware actions are those that are involuntary." In other words, there are some (voluntary) actions that are also ~(aware).

[jasonleb1]

If we're going to approach the problem from a conditional perspective, doesn't D make an illegal reversal?

The premise and conclusion gives us:

not aware -> not voluntary -> not responsible

And D gives us the assertion that if you become aware of your humming ("notice it"), then you can stop it voluntarily ("control it") which translates to:

aware -> voluntary

Which is a reversal of the given conditional chain's contrapositive (responsible -> voluntary -> aware).

[renata.gomez]

Hi!

I'm having trouble seeing how a part of her argument is that she can't control it. can someone help explain how this comes into her argument?

Thanks!

[anurag111284]

Hi!

I'm having trouble seeing how a part of her argument is that she can't control it. can someone help explain how this comes into her argument?

Thanks!

'[C]an't control it' is the chess player's assumption that you can see in the jump from 'involuntary' to 'not personally responsible'. She is saying my humming is involuntary --> hence beyond my control --> so do not hold me personally liable for it. Answer choice D attacks this gap/jump by saying that involuntary does not necessarily mean beyond your control. And if there is a chance that it is within your control, then you could to be held personally responsible for it.

Hope this helps.

[renata.gomez]

I wasn't sure if that was a leap we could take, but I see how small and logical it would be.

Thank you!

[jeanne'sjean]

If we're going to approach the problem from a conditional perspective, doesn't D make an illegal reversal?

The premise and conclusion gives us:

not aware -> not voluntary -> not responsible

And D gives us the assertion that if you become aware of your humming ("notice it"), then you can stop it voluntarily ("control it") which translates to:

aware -> voluntary

Which is a reversal of the given conditional chain's contrapositive (responsible -> voluntary -> aware).

Just give my two cents on this tricky D. And please point out my mistakes if any!

The stim is concerning the cause-and-effect relationship, not the conditional one. It should be noted that although these two relationship can both be represented in the form of arrow (-->), I'm afraid the negation and reversal rules can't still be applied here.

The stim says, unaware (cause) --> involuntary (intermediate effect), and D says lack of notice (unaware) may not be, at least, the ONLY cause of the involuntariness, since "although he/she hums involuntarily, he/she is aware (notice) !"

But I don't know how to put the "control" factor into the whole argument...

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!