mrudula_2005
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PT51, S1, Q9; Philosopher: An action is morally good...

by mrudula_2005 Sat Sep 04, 2010 5:54 pm

Can you help me understand why B and D are wrong?

Here is how the formal logic for the principle goes:
If an action both achieves the agent's intended goal AND benefits someone other than the agent --> the action is morally good.

The contra positive being:
If an action is NOT morally good --> the action do NOT achieve the agent's intended goal OR the action does NOT benefit someone other than the agent.

In my initial assessments of B and D where I found them to be very tempting, I think I am mistaking the fact that in both answer choices, the necessary condition for NOT acting morally is met and from there I accept the conclusion that the particular action was not morally good. When I can't really do that unless I have a sufficient condition? Is this analysis correct?

For example, in B - I thought sure Derek's action was NOT morally good because it did NOT achieve Derek's intended goal (of welcoming the new neighbors - while the neighbors were grateful for his EFFORT to welcome them, they were not flatly welcomed...I suppose this could be debatable?...but even assuming that it was explicitly stated that the neighbors were NOT welcomed, B would still be wrong, right? Because just because a necessary condition for an action NOT being morally good is met, it does not mean that that action was necessarily NOT morally good).

In D, I thought again, sure Louisa's action was NOT morally good because it did NOT achieve its intended goal - but is my error the fact that I am taking achieving a necessary condition as sufficient to conclude that it's NOT morally wrong?

Essentially then, for this question we cannot really conclude that ANY action is NOT morally good because we have no sufficient conditions for it. is that correct?

help please - I feel like I am making a HUGE Formal Logic blunder that i've never run into before....


thanks a lot
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by bbirdwell Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:53 am

That is all absolutely correct.

So here's a good question for you -- how could a choice on this problem leverage the contrapositive of the original statement and correctly utilize the phrase/concept "not morally good?"
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Re: PT51, S1, Q9; Philosopher: An action is morally good...

by mrudula_2005 Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:07 am

Phew! thank you for the confirmation.

Yeah, that's a very interesting thought and I can't think of any way an answer choice could correctly invoke the concept of "not morally good" unless it altered, for example, (D) to say at the end "Since she intended to harm Henry, it's possible that Louisa's action was not morally good." Or if an answer choice sets out a sufficient condition for "not morally good". ? this is a tough one, not really sure! what do you think?

I thought that based on this example, if ever I am given a similar question, I can be 100% certain that I cannot make ANY determinations about meeting the sufficient condition of the contra positive (here being "NOT morally good") since I am only privy to the necessary conditions to meet it...but now that you posed that question, I guess not?

thanks again!
 
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Re: PT51, S1, Q9; Philosopher: An action is morally good...

by jenndg100380 Sun Oct 31, 2010 5:01 pm

When I can't really do that unless I have a sufficient condition? Is this analysis correct?


Can someone please elaborate on this? I just want to make sure I understand. So, we can't make any determinations if an action is not morally good aka morally bad, because we don't have any conditions stating what would make and action not morally good/ morally bad. We can just determine that it doesn't fill that requirements of being morally good?

thanks.
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Re: PT51, S1, Q9; Philosopher: An action is morally good...

by bbirdwell Tue Nov 02, 2010 11:20 pm

So if I say A --> B, the contrapositive is ~B --> ~A.

I cannot make any determinations about anything that would involve going backwards against the arrow.

So, consider a statement that begins "If ~A..." We can't prove this! We can arrive at ~A, but we cannot begin there.

Likewise, a statement that arrives at ~B is incorrect. We can begin at ~B, but we cannot end there.

Does that help?
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PT51, S1, Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by cimani.w Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:21 pm

Why isnt B the correct answer?
 
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Re: PT 51 S1 Question 9

by cimani.w Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:33 pm

I saw it like this:

If an action achieves the agent's intended goal and benefits someone other than the agent then the action is morally good

If AIG and Benefits -------> Action is Morally Good

So the contrapositive would be:
If the action isn't Morally good, then it would not have achieved the agent's intended goal or it would not have benefited someone other than the agent

If Action is NOT Morally Good -------> then It did NOT achieve intended good or it did NOT benefit someone other than the agent

Welcoming the neighbors was Derek's intended goal and it was achieved b/c the passage says they were grateful in his efforts. Howeverm the meal did not benefit them becasue they were vegetarians.... which be what I diagrammed. The action wasn't morally good because it didnt fulfill one of the necessary conditions in the contrapositive...

I was stumped between B and E actually, i didnt know which one was right or wrong and why B was wrong and why E was right?
 
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Re: PT51, S1, Q9 - Philosopher: An action is morally good if it

by giladedelman Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:26 pm

Thanks for posting!

Here, the principle is given as a straightforward conditional statement:

achieves intended goal and benefits someone else --> morally good

As always, we should be aware of the contrapositive:

not morally good --> doesn't achieve intended goal or benefits no one else

Notice that there are only two things we can possibly conclude: that an action was morally good, or that it either didn't achieve the agent's intended goal or didn't benefit anyone else. We cannot conclude that anything is not morally good, based on that conditional statement.

So that's why (B) is wrong: it concludes that an action was not morally good, which we have no way of doing.

(E) is correct because we get the sufficient condition: Yolanda achieved her goal, and her action appears to have benefited her grandchildren and her father. So we can conclude that it was morally good.

(A) concludes that an action is morally good, but it's not based on the proper conditions. In fact, Colin clearly did not achieve his goal.

(C) is wrong for the same reason: if Ellen didn't achieve her goal, we can't conclude that her action was morally good.

(D) is incorrect for the same reason as (B): we can't conclude that any action is not morally good.

Does that answer your question?
 
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by jennifer Thu Nov 17, 2011 5:58 pm

I selected answer choice E, but then got spooked and changed my answer because, E states that Yolanda enjoyed the visit, which benefits "the agent". Is it Ok that the action hits the two other necessarys and also goes overboard and has this added perk of benefiting the agent?
 
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by giladedelman Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:34 pm

Yes, although be careful: this action hits both pieces of the sufficient condition. Since we have the sufficient, we know the necessary must be true: Yolanda's action was morally good. Anything else we want to throw on top of that -- as in, Yolanda benefited too -- is fair game; it doesn't change the fact that we know the necessary condition is true.
 
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by cdjmarmon Thu May 24, 2012 4:45 pm

The stimulus says "benefits someone other than the agent."

That doesnt mean the agent can't benefit? As in the agent and someone else can benefit or just someone else can benefit and that will work as sufficient?
 
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by eunjung.shin Tue Jun 05, 2012 4:08 am

cdjmarmon Wrote:The stimulus says "benefits someone other than the agent."

That doesnt mean the agent can't benefit? As in the agent and someone else can benefit or just someone else can benefit and that will work as sufficient?



I think as long as it benefited someone other than the agents regardless of the inclusion of the agent himself would work.
 
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by giladedelman Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:15 pm

Right, because it doesn't say "only benefits someone other than the agent," or, "benefits someone other than the agent and not the agent himself." So it leaves the door open to benefit the agent, as well.
 
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by shaynfernandez Sat Sep 15, 2012 2:46 pm

Great discussion. I chose E for the reason that the conclusion of the arguments of B and D was "not morally good" and the only conclusions we could make are "morally good" or "not goal met/ not benefit someone else".

I think something that is often over looked, and I know this isn't the same as conditional logic, but the premise to conclusion is pretty much the same thing as conditional logic. Only in the sense that the premise is sufficient for the conclusion (or meant to be) whle the conclusion works as a necessary. You can't use a conclusion negated or not to as a premise for the initial premise to be a conclusion...(sorry if that's confusing) in a question where your essentially paralleling reasoning.
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Re: Q9 - Philosopher: An action is

by Mab6q Tue Nov 10, 2015 2:49 am

giladedelman Wrote:Yes, although be careful: this action hits both pieces of the sufficient condition. Since we have the sufficient, we know the necessary must be true: Yolanda's action was morally good. Anything else we want to throw on top of that -- as in, Yolanda benefited too -- is fair game; it doesn't change the fact that we know the necessary condition is true.


Interesting point. Thanks for sharing!
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Re: PT51, S1, Q9 - Philosopher: An action is morally good if it

by NatalieC941 Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:49 pm

giladedelman Wrote:Thanks for posting!

Here, the principle is given as a straightforward conditional statement:

achieves intended goal and benefits someone else --> morally good

As always, we should be aware of the contrapositive:

not morally good --> doesn't achieve intended goal or benefits no one else

Notice that there are only two things we can possibly conclude: that an action was morally good, or that it either didn't achieve the agent's intended goal or didn't benefit anyone else. We cannot conclude that anything is not morally good, based on that conditional statement.

So that's why (B) is wrong: it concludes that an action was not morally good, which we have no way of doing.

(E) is correct because we get the sufficient condition: Yolanda achieved her goal, and her action appears to have benefited her grandchildren and her father. So we can conclude that it was morally good.


My question is - knowing that we will not be able to conclude that an action is morally wrong based on the conditional statement/contrapositive, then should we automatically have eliminated B and D from the get go? Or at least after seeing it was phrased as the conclusion of a statement?

Is this a transferrable skill for other problems?