#16 - Political scientist: People become unenthusiastic

[AthenaDalton]

Complete Question Explanation

• Cause Effect
  Believe important problems solved by large unenthusiastic about voting
  attitude shifts (not government action)

Hello! I was wondering why this line of reasoning was considered causal and not conditional

Hi dbpk,

Good question! Sometimes it can be hard to tell causal reasoning apart from conditional reasoning. Here are some key differences that can help you tell them apart --

In general, cause/effect statements are related in time: the cause must happen first, and the effect happens second. In a conditional relationship, there is generally no time limitation -- the sufficient condition can happen before, after, or at the same time as the necessary condition. In this question, the political scientist tells us that people become unenthusiastic about voting after they adopt a certain belief. The belief about government's inability to solve problems necessarily comes before a decrease in turnout. There's nothing here that indicates that the relationship could happen in reverse.

Another key difference is that in causal reasoning, the cause always makes the effect happen (by contrast in conditional reasoning the two terms may be related but not necessary caused by one another). This cause/effect occurs here: the belief adopted by voters causes low turnout.

I hope that helps clear things up. Good luck!

Athena Dalton

[dbpk]

Hi Athena,

Thank you for your reply! When you say there is nothing that indicates this relationship could happen in reverse, are you referring to the contrapositive?

You stated that "In a conditional relationship, there is generally no time limitation -- the sufficient condition can happen before, after, or at the same time as the necessary condition."
And in this case, the sufficient condition (possessing a particular belief) does occur before the necessary condition (unenthusiasm about voting). I understand the cause MUST precede the effect for causal reasoning, so it matches nicely with this example but I wanted to better understand why this COULD NOT be conditional, if this before/after relationship is also acceptable with conditional reasoning.

I've noticed that I struggle on flaw questions that display causal reasoning and have an answer choice that says the author confuses a necessary condition for a sufficient one. Usually this answer is wrong because the reasoning is causal not conditional but it often seems to me that causal arguments do sometimes have sufficient and necessary components.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this thank you!

[AthenaDalton]

Hi dbpk,

Kudos on catching on to the fact that the answer choice "confuses a sufficient condition for a necessary one" is frequently an incorrect answer choice.

When I said there was nothing to indicate that this relationship could be reversed, I was getting at the fact that the effect will not precede the cause.

You're right that sometimes conditional relationships also fall into the before/after pattern. But there are key differences -- in conditional relationships, A can precede B without causing B. In causal reasoning, A always causes B.

To spot the difference, look at the language used to describe the relationship. Here, we're told that "decreasing voter turnout is due to a growing conviction that politicians cannot solve the most important problem." This strong verbiage ("due to") will pop up in causal reasoning, but not conditional reasoning. You could replace "due to" with "caused by" and get the same result: "decreasing voter turnout is caused by a growing conviction . . . "

The test makers will blur the lines between conditional and causal reasoning to confuse students. It's ok if you can't always put an argument into a specific category. For spot the flaw questions, try to focus on what the author is arguing and look for weak points.

Good luck!

[lemonade42]

Hello,

I'm having difficulty understanding why (A) is the answer even after looking through previous posts.

Q1) I'm don't understand how the author is taking a possible cause and saying that it the only cause. Is the possible cause the fact that attitudinal changes are usually not because of gov action? So the problem is that the author is saying the entire cause is because of government action (where government action is the fact that politicians cannot solve the most important problems)?

Q2) I'm confused how "important problems can be solved by gov action" is the same thing as "politicians cannot solve the most important problems". The answer choice is talking about "solving", but the conclusion is talking about "not solving". To me, the "politicians cannot solve the most important problems" doesn't mean that they CAN solve a FEW problems.

[Chandler H]

Hello,

I'm having difficulty understanding why (A) is the answer even after looking through previous posts.

Q1) I'm don't understand how the author is taking a possible cause and saying that it the only cause. Is the possible cause the fact that attitudinal changes are usually not because of gov action? So the problem is that the author is saying the entire cause is because of government action (where government action is the fact that politicians cannot solve the most important problems)?

Q2) I'm confused how "important problems can be solved by gov action" is the same thing as "politicians cannot solve the most important problems". The answer choice is talking about "solving", but the conclusion is talking about "not solving". To me, the "politicians cannot solve the most important problems" doesn't mean that they CAN solve a FEW problems.

Hi lemonade42,

I'll try to clarify things for you.

Q1) You're almost there, but not quite on the money. The author takes a singular cause and asserts that it is the only cause. The author argues that, since people become unenthusiastic about voting if they believe important problems can't be solved by government action, the decreasing voter turnout "is thus entirely due to" the conviction that politicians can't solve important problems; but couldn't decreasing voter turnout ALSO be due to, say, fewer polling places, and a lack of interest in voting, and distrust of the vote-counting system, and the feeling that politicians are untrustworthy, etc., etc.? All of these causes could work together to contribute to a decrease in voter turnout, so saying that any one of them is the ENTIRE cause would be incorrect.

Q2) The stimulus tells us that people believe important problems can only be addressed by large numbers of people changing their attitudes, and those changes don't result from government action. We can shorten this to simply say that people believe important problems cannot be solved by government action, right? Then, in the conclusion to the stimulus (the second sentence), the author talks about "politicians" not being able to solve the "most important problems." From this, we can figure that the author is using "government" and "politicians" synonymously. Combining these statements, we could say that "politicians/the government cannot solve the most important problems."

It's worth noting that, when answer choice (A) tells us that "few important problems can be solved by government action," it's not actually saying that a few important problems CAN be solved. That's a turn of phrase that just means "not many." If we look at answer choice (A) as instead saying, "Many important problems can't be solved by government action," we see that it likely agrees with the author's conclusion: "government action cannot solve the most important problems." (Even if the logic isn't airtight, it is still the best answer out of the five choices we're given, right? The phrasing doesn't have to be absolutely perfect.)

Does that make sense?

[lemonade42]

Thank you for the clarification!
When you simplify the stimulus, you say that "important problems can't be solved by government action" and "those changes don't result from government action", but you don't include the word "generally". I thought that word was the key to the problem, yet it seems like it keeps getting removed when summarized... Is it not as important as I thought?
And to clarify for Q1) The flaw in the reasoning is that the author says decreasing voter is caused by a single cause, when it could have been a different single cause or even a combination of causes. And that's because the word "generally" before "do not result from gov action" allows for there to be a different single cause or combination of causes? Or is the flaw because in general, any stimulus that says something is the "only" cause is suspicious because we know (from outside information) that many things can cause something.
Also thanks for the help on Q2!

[Dana D]

Hey Lemonade,

The 'generally' here is important for the reasons you touched on. "Generally" large numbers of people do not drastically change their attitudes because of government action, but there is a possibility that they could. We can't say for certain that the only reason people aren't voting is because of their lack of faith that the government can solve the most important problems.

In cause and effect arguments, there can only be one cause - the 'generally' is not enough to say with certainty that decreased voter turnout is "entirely due to" this.