The Question Stem reads: The philosopher's argument proceeds by attempting too… This is a Method of Reasoning question.
The philosopher begins by describing the phenomenon that wolves don't like when a wolf attacks another wolf showing its neck as a form of submission. The philosopher also claims that foxes and domesticated dogs exhibit the same behavior.
The philosopher says, "It would be erroneous to deny that animals have rights based on the grounds that only human beings are capable of obeying moral rules." That was a mouthful, so let's break it down. The philosopher concludes that a specific argument is bad. What is that argument? The argument is that animals do not have rights because only humans obey moral rules. We will call this argument "X." We can rephrase X to say:
Premise 1: Animals do not obey moral rules (because only humans do).
Conclusion: Animals do not have rights.
By now, you should be comfortable enough with Necessary Assumption to realize that X relies on assuming that obeying moral rules is necessary for having rights. However, we do not need to dive that deep. Argument X's premise that animals do not obey moral rules seems to contradict the philosopher's wolf example. The philosopher has used examples that deny the first premise of Argument X, which is why the philosopher rejects Argument X on the basis that it is not a sound argument (sound arguments are logically valid and have true premises). Importantly, we do not know whether or not the philosopher believes that animals have rights. All we know is the philosopher argues that Argument X is bad because the philosopher rejects a premise of Argument X.
Correct Answer Choice (A) is exactly what we discussed. The philosopher's wolf example directly contradicts the first premise of Argument X.
Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. The philosopher's position is that Arugment X is not sound. The philosopher does not attempt to show that all animals have morality. (B) would be correct if that philosopher tried to argue that all animals have morality by giving the example that wolves and dogs exhibit moral attitudes.
Answer Choice (C) talks about the wrong premise. The philosopher casts doubt that only humans obey moral rules, not that moral rules are necessary for rights.
Answer Choice (D) is incorrect because the philosopher might believe that Argument X is logically valid. Philsopher rejects the argument because they believe that one of the premises is false. This means that the argument is not sound.
Answer Choice (E) is antithetical to the philosopher's argument. If anything, the philosopher would argue that morality is not applied broadly enough. The argument the philosopher criticizes says that animals do not obey morality, which the philsopher rejects by giving the example of wolves.
A
Residents of area L typically value aspects of living conditions different from the aspects of living conditions that are valued by residents of adjacent areas.
B
Between the times that the two surveys were conducted, the average living conditions in L’s country had substantially declined.
C
Optimal living conditions were established in the survey by taking into account governmental policies and public demands on three continents.
D
Living conditions in an area generally improve only if residents perceive their situation as somehow in need of improvement.
E
Ten years ago the residents of area L were not aware that their living conditions were below the national average.
Travel agent: Although most low-fare airlines have had few, if any, accidents, very few such airlines have been in existence long enough for their safety records to be reliably established. Major airlines, on the other hand, usually have long-standing records reliably indicating their degree of safety. Hence, passengers are safer on a major airline than on one of the newer low-fare airlines.
Summarize Argument
The travel agent concludes that passengers are safer on major airlines than on low-fare airlines. He supports this by saying that most major airlines have long-standing, reliable safety records, while low-fare airlines often don’t have enough history to establish reliable safety records.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The travel agent draws a comparative conclusion about major airlines being safer than low-fare airlines. However, he doesn’t actually establish the safety of either kind of airline, so he can’t accurately compare the two.
Just because major airlines have reliable records doesn’t mean that those records indicate that the airlines are safe. In fact, the reliable records might show that major airlines are unsafe. Similarly, just because low-fare airlines don’t have established safety records doesn’t mean that they are actually unsafe.
A
The argument fails to address adequately the possibility that the average major airline has had a total number of accidents as great as the average low-fare airline has had.
If anything, having the same number of accidents as low-fare airlines would support the idea that major airlines are safer, since they’ve been around longer than low-fare airlines. Also, (A) simply doesn’t point out the argument’s key vulnerability.
B
The argument draws a general conclusion about how safe passengers are on different airlines on the basis of safety records that are each from too brief a period to adequately justify such a conclusion.
The agent says low-fare airline records are too short to be reliable while major airline records are not. His argument is vulnerable because it draws a general conclusion about passengers’ safety on different airlines without actually establishing the airlines’ safety at all.
C
The argument fails to consider the possibility that long-standing and reliable records documenting an airline’s degree of safety may indicate that the airline is unsafe.
The agent concludes that major airlines are safer because their safety records are more long-standing and reliable. However, he fails to consider that those reliable records might actually show that major airlines are unsafe.
D
The argument takes for granted that airlines that are the safest are also the most reliable in documenting their safety.
The agent assumes that airlines with more reliable records are safer. But he doesn't necessarily assume that the safest airlines are the most reliable in documenting their safety.
E
The argument fails to address adequately the possibility that even airlines with long-standing, reliable records indicating their degree of safety are still likely to have one or more accidents.
The agent is simply saying that major airlines are comparatively safer than low-fare airlines. As long as they have fewer accidents than low-fare airlines, it doesn’t matter whether major airlines still have some accidents.
The question stem reads: Of the following, which one is the criticism to which the reasoning in the travel agent's argument is most vulnerable? This is a flaw question.
The travel agent begins by claiming while most low-fare airlines have had few accidents, they also have not existed long enough to establish a reliable safety record. The agent goes on to claim that major airlines have long-standing records that indicate the airline's safety. The agent concludes that passengers are safe on major airlines than on low-fare airlines.
The author has made the comparative claim that major airlines are safer than low-fare airlines. So for evidence, we would need to compare how safe major airlines are versus how safe low-fare airlines are. However, the agent never actually mentions the safety of any airline; the agent only claims that major airlines have reliable records and low-fare airlines do not have reliable records. Using the agent's reasoning, we could conclude that Antarctica is hotter than Saudi Arabia because the thermometers in Antarctica are much more reliable! So the major airlines' very accurate records may indicate that they are unsafe. Let's take a look at the answer choices.
Answer Choice (A) is incorrect. The real number of accidents committed is of little use to us. Let's say the low-fare airlines crashed 10 out of the 100 flights they ran. Let's also say the major airlines crashed 100 of 100,000 flights. So the major airlines have crashed ten times more flights than the low-fare airlines. However, the major airlines only crashed 1% of their total flights, while the low-fare flights crashed 10%. So despite crashing more flights, the major airlines are much safe.
Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. The agent has claimed the major airline's safety records are reliable. The problem is we do not know what those safety records say.
Correct Answer Choice (C) is what we prephased. The agent has failed to consider that the major airlines could have very reliable safety records and be unsafe.
Answer Choice (D) is incorrect but very close. The agent never says that the major airlines have the most reliable safety records. The agent says the airlines have reliable safety records. (D) would look better if the agent said, "Major airlines have more reliable safety records than any other kind of airline."
Answer Choice (E) is incorrect. The agent claims that the major airlines are comparatively safer than low-fare airlines. So, the major airlines could have one or even hundreds of accidents. The agent's conclusion is ok as long as the major airlines have accidents less frequently than the low-fare airlines.