Q5: Lawyer: In a risky surgical procedure that is performed

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Principle-Support

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: If the patients life functions don't resume following the procedure, the medical team is guilty of manslaughter.
Evidence: The medical team is deliberately stopping the patient's life functions.

Answer Anticipation:
If you were trying to get this medical team acquitted of manslaughter charges, what would you say? We'd argue that "yes, they deliberately stopped the patient's life functions, but they did so with the patient's informed consent and in the hopes of providing ultimate benefit to the patient."

If this author is saying, "it's still manslaughter", he must be thinking that the technical definition of manslaughter doesn't care about informed consent or best intentions: it cares about whether you deliberately did something to someone that caused them harm. We need a rule similar to "If you deliberately stopped someone's life functions, then you're guilty of manslaughter."

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) "Charged with manslaughter" is not the same as "guilty of manslaughter", which is what we're trying to get to.

(B) This rule doesn't allow us to conclude someone IS guilty of manslaughter, only that they AREN'T guilty of manslaughter. It says "If the doctors are guilty of manslaughter, then we know that the patient died", or "if the patient didn't die, then the doctors can't be guilty of manslaughter".

(C) Same as (B). This rule says "IF guilty of manslaughter --> yada yada yada". We need a rule that says "IF you deliberately stopped life functions, THEN guilty of manslaughter"

(D) YES, this seems to work. The "if and only if" definitely absolves us of caring about left side vs. right side of the arrow, since it creates a double sided arrow. The medical team is deliberately bringing about the cessation of a person's life functions. And the conclusion is saying "if the functions do not resume (if the cessation is permanent), then it's manslaughter". This rule agrees.

(E) Close, but confusing. This IS an exceptional case where the patient did agree to the procedure, so we can't use this rule to show that the medical team's intentional stopping was manslaughter. The rule would technically sound like "If you intentionally stop a patient's life functions and the patient didn't agree to it or wouldn't die if he refused treatment, then it's manslaughter." We can't trigger this rule because the patients DID agree to it and we're not sure whether or not they'd die without treatment.

Takeaway/Pattern: This might be the first correct answer to Principle Support I've ever seen in which they use an "if and only if". At any rate, our only concern is "CAN I apply this rule to what I know in order to better derive the Conclusion?"

The big shortcut on Principle questions is understanding that the Conclusion should be on the right side of the arrow. If an answer choice doesn't give us a rule that lets us say
" if _____ ----> guilty of manslaughter"
then it's useless to us.

(A) said "if _____ --> could be charged with manslaughter".

(B) and (C) gives us rules that say "if guilty of manslaughter --> then ____ ".

Only (D) and (E) give us rules that led us conclude someone was guilty of manslaughter, but the information we have only lets us trigger the rule in (D).

#officialexplanation

[TaeC572]

One additional opinion on why (A) is incorrect:

The conclusion is pretty solid saying the medical team IS technically guilty. (A) only says "could be" which leaves the possibility of being not charged/guilty.

[EricaL584]

I think when we solve "Justify" question, we can take it as a sufficient assumption question. The answer can be "equal to or more than" what we need to get the conclusion.

We only need that "if these function don't resume following the procedure (cession is permanent) , the medical team is technically guilty of manslaughter".

E gives us something evens after "if and only if the cession is permanent, the medical team is technically guilty of manslaughter".

[AnthonyT113]

I get now why B isn't correct, but is B a nested conditional? Or do nested conditionals require the use of "unless"? Thanks.