#26 - A member of the British Parliament is reputed to have

[Adam Tyson]

That's not a stupid question at all, JocelynL! The problem with answer C is that it is possible that only the member's constituents are made happier, and that could still mean the sum total of all happiness is increased. If one person is made happier, then we can add that happiness to the total of all happiness, and that total would go up! One smile makes the whole world brighter, right? The issue isn't who is made happier, but whether the total of all happiness has increased. The problem is that the member of Parliament has not taken into account the possibility that the total could go down even though his constituents' happiness went up. What if making them happy made a lot of other people unhappy?

So, the constituents are not ALL of the people that matter, but they are a part of the total, so they DO matter.

[bonnie_a]

Hello I've got a question on an intermediate conclusion. I figured the part where it says any reform that makes somebody happy is achieving its purpose is an intermediate conclusion. As far as I know, intermediate conclusion also acts as a premise for the main conclusion and we are supposed to accept premises as true no matter what. So when I was doing the question myself, I took them as true (if somebody is made happy, then it's achieving its purpose) and focused on the main conclusion (just because a few people are made happy and the purpose of good social reform is to increase the sum total of happiness, the author thinks it's a good one). But, as I was reading through the posts here, I noticed people seemed to find fault with this intermediate conclusion (though I agree that that intermediate conclusion is not a reasonable one). In cases like this one, are we expected to find what's wrong with an intermediate conclusion, even if it acts as a premise and we have to take premises as true all the time?

[Robert Carroll]

bonnie_a,

We don't have to take premises as true for a Weaken question at all. So there's nothing wrong with undermining this intermediate conclusion. Nor would there be a problem undermining a premise that isn't an intermediate conclusion, if the question type is Weaken. As long as the answer weakens the conclusion, it's ok for it to do anything.

Robert Carroll

[askuwheteau@protonmail.com]

Hi,

The logical gap here is the conclusion assumes that making some people happy is equivalent to increasing the “sum total” of human happiness. Also, I saw that I didn't need to take time diagramming problems which are not clearly centering around conditionality. In this case, the first sentence was not conditional and even if the other two conditional sentences were diagrammed, it would not matter since they don’t relate to each other in any meaningful way.

Re answer choice C: Why would increasing the happiness of all one's constituency increasing the sum total of human happiness? Couldn't it be just as likely that the sum total doesn't increase if other group's happiness decreased simultaneously along with the increase of happiness in all of the constituency?

A: NI (irrelevant)

B: NI (Doesn’t weaken. This answer choice shows that the total happiness level could increase if we understand happiness to be quantified in a quantifiable gram-like context)

C: NI (In weaken questions, we can bring in outside assumptions into the mix. If taken as true, that all the constituents are made happy by their rep, then it is possible that the sum total of human happiness can increase)

D: Weakens (When understanding happiness in a quantifiable gram-like context, this answer definitely weakens the argument)

E: NI (irrelevant)

[Jeff Wren]

Hi askuwheteau,

You're correct about the logical gap and the fact that you don't need to diagram the conditional statements in this argument. Not every argument that contains conditional statements would be classified as a conditional reasoning argument that needs to be diagrammed. Only when the conditional reasoning is central to the reasoning of the argument itself is it truly a conditional argument, and only when the diagramming is helpful (such as for complex conditional chains and contrapositives) is diagramming a good idea.

(Although I generally recommend that students err on the side of over diagramming conditional statements rather than under diagramming, especially at first. The process of diagramming actually helps solidify the concepts of conditional reasoning. It also can be helpful in figuring out exactly where any mistakes were made. You can always reduce the amount of diagramming later once you've gotten a good handle on the concepts, especially for more straitforward conditional statements.)

As for Answer C, it's important to note the answer states that the "reform would affect only the member of Parliament's constituents" (my emphasis). This means that other constituents (or even non-constituents) would not be affected by this reform in any way whatsoever. In other words, the reform will not affect the happiness of anyone other than member of Parliament's constituents, who will increase in happiness. Since the only people affected by the reform will have an increase in happiness, then the reform would increase the total sum of happiness.

[askuwheteau@protonmail.com]

Hi Jeff,

Got it! I appreciate the helpful explanation.

Best,

Jonathan

[waffle0808]

Hi,
So, I chose (E) for this question, which states "Good social reforms usually have widespread support", and it doesn't seem like a common choice. With identifying the problems in this premise, I did notice that there's a leap from talking about 'somebody' to 'constituents' and the explanation for D makes sense.
Another problem I've noticed, though, is the first part of that premise that states ""The first purpose of good social reform is to increase the sum total of human happiness." Because it's the FIRST, that obviously implies making people happy isn't the only thing for good social reform. Therefore, the member of Parliament making the argument that his reform is a good one solely on the basis that it makes people happy becomes inadequate.
I thought (E) addresses this problem by stating another factor that makes for a good reform, which is widespread support. If widespread support is also part of the list of things that makes for a good reform, that addresses the problem identified.

Thank you.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi waffle,

The first thing to note about Answer E is that it is simply describing a common feature of good social reforms rather than a requirement or defining characteristic. In other words, the fact that "good social reforms usually have widespread support" (my emphasis) doesn't mean that a good social reforms must have widespread support.

Second, even if widespread support were required for good social reforms (which it isn't), we don't actually know whether or not this particular proposal has widespread support. You might assume that it does not, but we don't really know for sure.

Answer D, on the other hand, directly weakens the argument by showing how this proposal may not increase the sum total of human happiness even if it does make some constituents happy.