#18 - Land developer: In a certain nation, stringent regulations

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. 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!

[ikim10]

I was stuck between (A) and (C) on this question, and ended up choosing (A). I thought it was (A) because I thought the argument was confusing the presence of regulations and protecting endangered species.

I diagrammed it something like:

Premise: regulations present endangered species protected
Premise: regulations present landowners discouraged
Conclusion: regulations NOT present endangered species protected

I thought (C) was wrong because I thought "certain factors tend to produce an effect" was referring to regulations (certain factors) tend to discourage landowners from protecting endangered species) (effect). However, the second part of the sentence confused me. I guessed that "countervailing effects" meant an opposite effect that canceled out the other one, but couldn't reconcile it with the substitution I made for the first part of (C).

Could you please explain why (A) is wrong and how (C) is correct, with the proper references for each bit? Thank you!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi ikim10!

For (C), I've bracketed what the answer choice seems to be referring to: "It unjustifiably overlooks the possibility that even if certain factors [lifting the regulations] tend to produce a given effect [it takes away an incentive for people not to protect endangered species], they may be likely to produce stronger countervailing effects as well [perhaps lifting the regulations will lead to the rapid extermination of the endangered species]." In other words, the land developer sees that the proposed course of action might have one beneficial effect but overlooks the possibility of countervailing effects (i.e., offsetting effects) of this course of action.

For answer choice (A), I'm not entirely certain what each component of that answer choice is referring to in the stimulus. There's nothing in the stimulus, for example, that is saying that the regulations are required or necessary in order for endangered species to continue to exist.

[kimcke]

I'm still having trouble understanding this flaw in the stimulus. So since the land owners are discouraged from protecting the endangered species, how would the removal of the regulations not harm the species? Am I not understanding the stimulus correctly?
I don't get how the flaw is overlooking the possibility that certain factors tend to produce a given effect but rather it looks like it does address that possibility. any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi kimcke,

Let's start by looking at the argument itself.

This land developer who is making the argument is not a fan of these strict land use regulations that prevent land owners from building on their land if there are endangered species on their land. This land developer points out that this creates a financial liability for the land owners (since they can't build on their land as they would like) and this in turn makes the land owners not want to protect the endangered species on their land. In other words, since the endangered species are causing a problem for the land owners, the land owners may not want to protect these endangered species.

In short, the land developer is pointing out that these land use regulations create a bad incentive that runs counter to their goal. The purpose of the regulations is to protect the endangered species, but because the regulations harm the land owners, the land owners have an incentive not to protect the endangered species since these endangered species are preventing the land owners from doing what they want to do with their land (i.e. build on it).

The flaw, however, appears in the conclusion of the argument (as it often does). The land developer concludes that removing the regulations would not likely harm the endangered species. The flaw is that the argument overlooks what harm might occur to the endangered species from the buildings that the land owners would build on their land if the regulations were removed. If the land owners demolish the habitats of the endangered species in order to build houses or other buildings, this could cause tremendous harm to the endangered species.

Answer C captures this flaw, but can be tricky to understand. It means that the argument overlooks the fact that even though the regulations may have one bad effect (the bad incentive that it has on the land owners not to want to protect the endangered species on their land), the regulations still may be preventing even worse effects (the land owners destroying the habitat of the endangered species). These are the "stronger countervailing effects" mentioned in the answer. In other words, the regulations are probably still doing more good for the endangered species than harm, which is what the argument overlooks. The argument only focuses on the downside of the regulations without considering their benefit (to the endangered species).