#20 - Psychotherapy has been described as a form of moral

[asteroid]

Another one from PT 6,
the correct answer C seems odd to me.
I picked D at first time. Need explanations for this one.

[Steve Stein]

Hi Asteroid,

That's a good question. It would be helpful if you could clarify your thinking on this one. How did you break down the stimulus?

Thanks!

~Steve

[asteroid]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply.
When I first got this one, after reading the stimulus, I noticed "a form of moral coerction" in first line and "a form of coercion" in the last line, however, nothing dected in the answers covered this issue.

Then I picked D because the author use the "goals" of psychotherapy to jusify that it is not a form of coercion.

I guess D is wrong because there is no "any means that are used to achieve those goals" mentioned in the sitmulus?

-Asteroid

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Thanks for your response. In this one, it might be helpful to break down the basic components of the argument:

Coercion limits people's ability to make choices.
But psychotherapy seeks to enhance this ability. So it must not be coersion.

The problem is that psychotherapy might seek to enhance, but actually limit; that is what answer choice C provides: the author doesn't consider the fact that the goals of psychotherapy could run counter to the actual results.

Let me know whether that clears this one up.

thanks!
~Steve

[wisnain]

Hi,

Can I make a conditional diagram with this stimulus? I noticed there is a sufficient indicator “when,” so I thought I could draw:

coerced -> choice X

However, I’m unsure how to handle the rest. I wanted to know if this stimulus involves conditional reasoning logic.

Thanks.

[Dana D]

Hey Wisnain,

You can diagram the logic in this question using arrows or diagrams to keep track of the author's argument, but it's worth noting that you often also need to consider the content of the stimulus to identify the flaw or method of reasoning, etc.

If we try and diagram this stimulus, we'll end up with conflicting logical relationships, at which point we need to figure out how/why that is, which is the flaw of the argument.

We're told psychotherapy moral coercion.

But Coercion choices restricted, and this is the opposite of the goal of psychotherapy.

So instead of relying on formal logic too deeply here, I can think about the actual content of what the author is saying - they assert that there is no way psychotherapy can be moral coercion because moral coercion contradicts the goal of psychotherapy. Once the stimulus is framed that way, it should be easier to see the flaw, which is answer choice (C).

Does that make sense?

[sxzhao]

Hi

I understand C is the obviously correct answer, but why isn't A also correct?

the position: psychotherapy is moral coersion
redefinely unfairly: the goal of psychotherapy is moral coersion
easier to target: the author argumes PT isn't coersion by arguing its goal isn't coersion

May I know what the argument COULD look like if A were to be the correct answer?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi sxzhao!

For answer choice (A) to be correct, I think that the argument would need to rely more explicitly on two competing definitions. Perhaps as an alternative phrasing, it could look something like saying, "Psychotherapy is a type of therapy that often involves moral coercion," and then another sentence that says, "Psychotherapy always involves moral coercion." I'm not sure that's the best example, but that at least suggests what redefining a term could look like, and potentially redefining it to make it easier to attack (i.e., creating a straw man) than the original definition.