#17 - Hospital executive: At a recent conference on...

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Question #17: Flaw. The correct answer choice is (B).

The executive argues that the hospital should make the protection of their clients' confidentiality a top priority, because the computer experts said that data breaches represent the most significant threat faced by large institutions, such as hospitals. This is a classic Appeal to Authority flaw: just because the experts warned you about something doesn't mean you should immediately worry about it. The experts could be biased, incompetent, etc. Appeal to Authority is always a logical flaw: if you recognize it as such, this question would be relatively straightforward.

Answer choice (A) is incorrect, because the argument does not commit an error in causal reasoning.

Answer choice (B) is the correct answer choice, as it matches our prephrase above.

Answer choice (C) is incorrect, because the argument does not commit an error in causal reasoning.

Answer choice (D) is attractive, but incorrect. Notice that both the premise and the conclusion are about the same sample group - large institutions such as hospitals and universities. Therefore, there is no hasty Overgeneralization here.

Answer choice (E) is also attractive, but incorrect. There is no Error of Composition here, because the conclusion is not about all institutions: it's about a particular hospital, which is a large institution.

[Mmjd12]

I can see why (B) is correct but I fell for choice (A) on this one.

I thought it was (A) because the hospital exec says "In light of this testimony, we should make the protection of our clients' confidentiality our highest priority." But had confidentiality been a top priority already, then data leaks wouldn't be as big of a problem? Maybe I overanalyzed this one.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Mmjd12!

Answer choice (A) states, "The argument confuses the causes of a problem with the appropriate solutions to that problem." Presumably the problem is data leaks, and the solution is protecting client confidentiality. Even if that's right, there's no clear confusion that the hospital executive is making about the problem versus the solution. The executive merely recognizes the problem and recommends a plan of action in light of it (even if it were the case that counterfactually taking that plan of action earlier might have been even better).

[timtim]

Can someone explain why B is correct?
It implies that the computer experts made the "general claim" that protection of clients' confidentiality should be the highest priority, but the computer experts never claimed this, it is the hospital executive who did.

Also how do we know E is wrong?
The prompt never says the hospital in question is indeed a "large" hospital, so wouldn't this be a flaw in the argument too?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi timtim!

You are right that it is the hospital executive, rather than the computer experts, who makes the claim about what should be "our highest priority." At the same time, the computer experts do make the general claim that "the most significant threat" that large institutions like hospitals and universities face is unauthorized access to confidential data.

So the executive's argument relies on the testimony of computer experts about what those experts see as the most significant threat to large institutions like hospitals and universities. But perhaps that is only because the computer experts see this problem more than others. It's possible that something else--perhaps financial problems--actually is the most significant threat and should be the highest priority, but the computer experts might be completely oblivious to this. In other words, the executive seems to appeal to an authority that may not have broad enough expertise to make the broad claim it makes. This might have been different if the experts were, say, university or hospital administrators, as they are more likely to have broader expertise about how their institutions function and the most pressing problems they face.

Regarding answer choice (E), that doesn't seem to track a flaw in the stimulus. We're told that universities and hospitals are large institutions, so we take that as true. I'm not sure I see why it's relevant whether or not the hospital at issue is a large hospital. In addition, there's no equivocation by the executive on that point--the executive takes a point about "large institutions" and applies it to a hospital, which we are told is a large institution.