#12 - Pundit: People complain about how ineffectual their

[happy8473]

Not sure I see this as cause and effect. Can we say that? Would it be right to say that answer choice A is the kind of necessary assumption required for causal arguments but that the author isn't making a causal argument? I'm sorry to be pedantic but I had a very tough time eliminating D and I just want to be sure my understanding is crystal clear. Would this be the right way of eliminating it and getting to the right answer?

Premise: Complaints about ineffectual legislative representatives/apparent ineffectuality —> legislative representatives just doing what they do

Conclusion: Dissatisfaction with legislative representatives —> legislative representatives just doing what they do

Missing assumption/takes for granted: Dissatisfaction with legislative representatives —> Complaints about ineffectual legislative representatives.

A) the apparent ineffectuality of legislative representatives is the only source of popular dissatisfaction with those representatives. This fills the gap in the conclusion.

D) legislative compromise inevitably results in popular dissatisfaction with politicians. And it would be accurate to say this is a mistaken reversal as has been previously said? Generally speaking, is “inevitably results” a causal or conditional indicator?

[Amber Thomas]

Hi happy8473!

Let's break down our premises:

Premise 1: People complain about how ineffectual their representatives are.
Premise 2: However, this ineffectuality is due to the compromises representatives had to make to get elected .
Conclusion: Therefore, when people express dissatisfaction with representatives, we can be sure that the representatives are just doing what they are elected to do.

The causal relationship here would be: Ineffectual --> Dissatisfaction

Now, let's look at our answer choices.

Answer Choice D states: "Legislative compromise inevitably results in popular dissatisfaction with politicians."

Terms like "results in" can be taken as presenting a causal relationship. I do A, which then results in/causes B. If you haven't already, you may find Nicholas' explanation as to why D is wrong helpful: viewtopic.php?p=41094#p41094

Our author doesn't state that representatives compromising always causes dissatisfaction. Rather, our author just tells us that dissatisfaction can arise from ineffectuality, which is a result of compromise. Therefore, Answer Choice D doesn't quite fit.

Answer Choice A states: "The apparent ineffectuality of legislative representatives is the only source of popular dissatisfaction with those representatives."

This is correct! Our conclusion tells us that if people are dissatisfied, that means elected representatives are doing what they were elected to do. However, representatives being ineffectual does not have to be the only cause of dissatisfaction. There could be a wide variety of other reasons that cause dissatisfaction, like scandals, embezzlement, etc. Therefore, if people were dissatisfied regarding something other than ineffectuality, our conclusion does not follow.

I hope this helps!