Miriam: A moral theory, like an overcoat, can be quite useful even if it is not useful in every possible situation. Being useful in a wide variety of common circumstances is all we need from a moral theory.
Speaker 1 Summary
Laurel concludes that modern moral theories have to be abandoned or reworked, because they don’t provide guidance in extreme. Extreme cases are the times when people most need guidance.
Speaker 2 Summary
Miriam asserts that moral theories can still be useful, even if not useful in all situations. They serve their purpose if they’re useful in a wide variety of common situations.
Objective
We’re looking for a point of disagreement. They disagree about whether moral theories’ failure to help in extreme situations justifies abandoning or reworking them. Laurel think it does, but Miriam thinks it doesn’t.
A
it is preferable to develop a moral theory that provides solutions to all the moral dilemmas that could arise
Miriam doesn’t have an opinion. She describes what we need from a moral theory, but doesn’t describe whether it’d be better for a moral theory to provide solutions to all problems that could arise.
B
people abandoned earlier moral theories when they encountered dilemmas that those theories did not adequately address
Neither speaker has an opinion. They don’t discuss whether people abandoned earlier theories or why people abandoned earlier theories.
C
a moral theory’s adequacy depends on its ability to provide guidance in extreme cases
This is a point of disagreement. Laurel thinks a moral theory’s adequacy does depend on its ability to guide in extreme cases. But Miriam believes it doesn’t. A moral theory just needs to provide guidance in the most common situations.
D
just as people need different overcoats in different climates, so too do they need different moral theories on different occasions
Neither speaker has an opinion. They don’t discuss whether people ever need different moral theories during different situations.
E
a moral theory developed in the light of extreme cases is unlikely to provide adequate guidance in more usual cases
Neither speaker has an opinion. They don’t discuss whether moral theories that apply in extreme cases are unlikely to provide guidance in more typical cases.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author rejects the paleobiologists’ belief that all dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Since some dinosaurs lived in places where only warm-blooded animals could survive, the author implies that some dinosaurs must have been warm-blooded.
Identify Argument Part
It’s a premise. The author uses the claim that only warm-blooded animals could survive in those areas to prove that the dinosaurs that lived in those areas were not cold-blooded.
A
It is presented as a potential counterexample to the argument’s main conclusion.
The last sentence supports the conclusion, so it can’t be a counter-example to it.
B
It is a premise offered in support of the argument’s main conclusion.
This accurately describes the role of the last sentence. It’s a premise supporting the author’s conclusion.
C
It is presented as counterevidence to the paleobiologists’ assertion that dinosaurs lack turbinates.
The author never suggests that dinosaurs actually have turbinates. The claim that the author counters is the paleobiologists’ claim that all dinosaurs were cold-blooded.
D
It is the argument’s main conclusion.
The main conclusion is the claim that the paleobiologists are wrong. The last sentence supports that conclusion.
E
It is an intermediate conclusion for which the claim that some dinosaur species lived in Australia and Alaska is offered as support.
The claim that some dinosaurs lived in Australia and Alaska isn’t offered to help prove that only warm-blooded animals can live in freezing temperatures.
Summarize Argument
In a survey asking which party they want in the legislature, 40% said C, 20% said M, and 40% said L.
The author concludes that if the survey results are reliable, then most citizens would like to see a legislature that is roughly 40% C, 20% M, and 40% L.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The survey asked which party respondents would like to see in the legislature. It didn’t ask what % of the legislature should belong to each party. The author interprets the proportions that said they wanted to see a particular party in the legislature as relevant to the distribution of each party in the legislature.
Another framing of the flaw is that the author mistakenly thinks the overall breakdown of preferences for Conservative, Moderate, and Liberal legislatures is something that applies to most citizens’ individual preferences for the makeup of the legislature.
A
The argument uses premises about the actual state of affairs to draw a conclusion about how matters should be.
The conclusion isn’t about what “should” be the case. The conclusion is simply a statement about the preferences of most citizens.
B
The argument draws a conclusion that merely restates a premise presented in favor of it.
(B) describes circular reasoning. The conclusion is not a restatement of the premise, because the premise is a statement describing the results of a survey. The conclusion is not a description of the results of a survey.
C
The argument takes for granted that the preferences of a group as a whole are the preferences of most individual members of the group.
The 40/20/40 preference in the survey is the preference of the group of survey participants. But the author mistakenly thinks this 40/20/40 preference applies to individual participants in the survey.
D
The argument fails to consider that the survey results might have been influenced by the political biases of the researchers who conducted the survey.
The conclusion starts with “if the survey results are reliable” — this means the conclusion doesn’t assume the results are reliable. It makes a statement about what would be the case IF the results are reliable.
E
The argument uses evidence that supports only rough estimates to draw a precisely quantified conclusion.
The conclusion uses the word “roughly” when describing the 40/20/40 breakdown. So the argument doesn’ draw a “precisely quantified” conclusion. A statement of “rough” numbers is not precise.