#9 - Every action has consequences, and among the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (E)

This is one of those stimuli put in the middle of the test to tangle up your brain as you attempt to sort through all of the "actions" and "consequences." We know from the stimulus that knowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good, and that we cannot know the future. This information is combined to lead to the conclusion that good actions are impossible. However, the information provided is insufficient to lead us to this conclusion, so we must find the answer choice that fills the gap.

Answer Choice (A): This answer choice is completely irrelevant and should be discarded.

Answer Choice (B): This answer choice is also irrelevant to the argument. Just because we can know that past actions are good does nothing to address the argument that our inability to know the future makes good actions impossible.

Answer Choice (C): Again, this does nothing to address the issue that we must know whether consequences are good and since we cannot know the future, good actions are impossible. Everything here deals with whether an action is good, which is completely separate from the determination of whether an action is bad.

Answer Choice (D): This is another answer choice that is completely irrelevant and should be discarded quickly.

Answer Choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. The stimulus conclusion is based upon the fact that our inability to know whether an action will be good makes good actions impossible. Using the assumption negation technique, if you were to say that for an action to be good we do not need to be able to know that it is good, that would directly attack that basis for the stimulus conclusion.

[vas]

Hello,

I am having problems determining what assumption is needed to link the information in the stimulus to the conclusion. Based on my understanding, we're given the following information:

Premise: Actions good ---> Know whether consequences are good
Premise: We cannot know the future
Conclusion: Good actions are impossible

I think the "We cannot know the future" portion is throwing me off. How do we need to link the premises together (would it be in a chain?) so the conclusion makes sense?

Thanks so much!

[David Boyle]

Hello,

I am having problems determining what assumption is needed to link the information in the stimulus to the conclusion. Based on my understanding, we're given the following information:

Premise: Actions good ---> Know whether consequences are good
Premise: We cannot know the future
Conclusion: Good actions are impossible

I think the "We cannot know the future" portion is throwing me off. How do we need to link the premises together (would it be in a chain?) so the conclusion makes sense?

Thanks so much!

Hello vas,

slash ga (good actions are impossible)
kag kcg (knowing if action good needs knowing if consequences good)
"We cannot know the future" equals slash kcg
slash kcg slash kag
So what we need is an arrow from slash kag to slash ga. And behold, that is what answer E gives us, in contrapositive form, since answer E is diagrammed ga kag.

Hope this helps,
David

[vas]

Thanks, David! I now see that we can equate [slash of] "knowing if consequences are good" with "we cannot know the future." I didn't know we could equate the two since they weren't worded the same.

[lsatwinner68]

The problem is an assumption questions that starts off like, "Every action has consequences, and among the consequences of any action are other actions"

This is how I diagrammed out the problem to eventually compare it to the answer choices:
to know whether an is action good--> we need to know whether the consequences are good
But we cannot know the future, which leads to this contrapoitive:
So we cannot know whether the consequences are good-->and so we cannot know whether the action is good
conclusion:Good actions are impossible.

So We are trying to connect : We cannot know whether an action is good-->good actions are impossible

And E basically gives the contrapositive by saying: for an action to be good we must be able to know that it is good.

Would anybody be so kind as to check my reasoning here? And with these kinds of direct prephrases in hand would it be even worth spending time on other answers?

(Also, the negation technique was nto really helpful for me here which is why I wanted to know if my way was correct)

[David Boyle]

The problem is an assumption questions that starts off like, "Every action has consequences, and among the consequences of any action are other actions"

This is how I diagrammed out the problem to eventually compare it to the answer choices:
to know whether an is action good--> we need to know whether the consequences are good
But we cannot know the future, which leads to this contrapoitive:
So we cannot know whether the consequences are good-->and so we cannot know whether the action is good
conclusion:Good actions are impossible.

So We are trying to connect : We cannot know whether an action is good-->good actions are impossible

And E basically gives the contrapositive by saying: for an action to be good we must be able to know that it is good.

Would anybody be so kind as to check my reasoning here? And with these kinds of direct prephrases in hand would it be even worth spending time on other answers?

(Also, the negation technique was nto really helpful for me here which is why I wanted to know if my way was correct)

Hello lsatwinner68,

The reasoning seems pretty sound. And yes, if you can paraphrase well, that is helpful, especially since the first sentence of the stimulus is sort of a red herring and doesn't really lead anywhere. (Answers A and D riff off of the first sentence of the stimulus)
The negation technique is always useful, though with all the moving parts, negatives, etc., in this problem, using the negation technique may be a little more difficult or unhelpful than in other assumption problems.

Hope this helps,
David

[mherrera]

so the conclusion is "and knowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good" right??

[Jonathan Evans]

MHerrera, good question. Look for indicator words for the conclusion, and notice the different kinds of language used in the stimulus. Finally, be certain to test anything you identify as a possible conclusion to make sure that it has premises. To begin, read through the stimulus and ask yourself, "What is the author driving at?"

You identified "[K]nowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good" as a possible conclusion. Remember that a conclusion must have facts backing it up, so ask yourself, "What evidence has the author given me to back up this statement?" I will often repeat the line to myself as I ask this question: "What evidence has the author given me that 'knowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good'?"

If you look around, you will notice that there are no reasons backing up this statement. It is not a statement of opinion, it is just a statement of fact, so move on to another candidate. It might help just to try to think: Big picture, what's the author's opinion?

Look for indicator words. Look connections that link facts (premises) to inferences/deductions/possible conclusions. Here you notice the conjunction "so" in the last sentence: "[K]nowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good, but we cannot know the future, so good actions are impossible."

In that sentence, the first two clauses are just statements of fact; the last clause is what the author posits as a conclusion or deduction. The linking word "so" makes this connection. You will also notice that this last clause passes our test: "What evidence has the author given me that 'good actions are impossible'?"

The first two clauses of this sentence are the answer to this question. Therefore, the last statement "[G]ood actions are impossible" is the conclusion. I hope this helps. Please follow up with further questions.

[mankariousc]

Hello!

I was really hung up on A and D because I thought they were both dealing with the first sentence. Could you explain further why they were eliminated? Also, could you explain why the premise in the first sentence wasn't really used to get to the answer?

Thank you!

[Kristina Moen]

Hi mankariousc,

Whenever you have an argument in a stimulus, play close attention to the conclusion. The conclusion here is "so good actions are impossible." This is an Assumption question, so the correct answer is something that the conclusion depends on. It's something that MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to hold. Here, the premise that the author uses to justify his conclusion is that we can't know whether an action is good. There is a disconnect in the language between the premise and the conclusion. The conclusion is about performing good actions and the premise is about knowing whether an action is good or not. I'll type this out in a bit more detail.

The first sentence is a premise: actions have consequences.
The second sentence is also a premise: in order to know if an action is good you have to know if the consequences are good.
BUT! Here the author throws in the curveball - we can't know the future! (aka we can't know if the consequences are good)
So using the contrapositive, that means that we can't know if an action is good. That would be a very reasonable conclusion. But here, the author concludes that we can't perform good actions. Disconnect!

The disconnect is NOT between the first premise and conclusion. Even if some actions did not have actions as their consequence, that would not change the disconnect between the 2nd premise and the conclusion. Actions would still have consequences. And we can't know what those consequences are. Thus, we can't know if an action is good. But that STILL doesn't get us to the conclusion "good actions are impossible."

Hope this helps.