#10 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[mthomp24]

Hello,

Could someone explain where the author states that the community would determine the amount of the fine? I picked D, which I now recognize is incorrect since that would be the reasoning of the economists that the author finds "highly impractical, if not impossible", but I don't see how C would be the correct answer.

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

The last sentence here should help, mthomp24:

Thus, some other criterion in addition to the reckoning of cost and benefit—such as the assignment of moral weight to particular crimes—is necessary so that penalties for corporate crimes will be practical as well as just.

But where do we get that moral weight is related to community opinion, in order to pick answer C? For that we have to go back to the position of the economists starting around line 12, where they tell us that morality is determined at least in part by the values of the community and what they consider to be abhorrent. The economists are saying those opinions should not be a factor, but our author seems to think that morality should be a factor. We can put those ideas together and infer that the author would agree that community opinions about moral issues might be something worth taking into consideration, in opposition to the purely economic argument put forth by the economists.

That's a bit of work to put all that together, but ultimately it makes C the best answer of the bunch. Make the penalty high enough to deter, but not so high that we end up doing more harm than good by putting a bunch of people out of work.