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

[FIDELIO]

Hi. Thanks for the quick reply. My prephrase for this problem was quick and was something along the lines of, " Just because a reform makes "somebody" happy doesn't mean it's achieving its purpose as it could make 1 person happy and a trillion others unhappy".

I actually considered sentence two an Intermed. conclusion because it is supported by the opening sentence.

but anyways you mentioned that in B we are NOT concerned with "everyone's" happiness, but if you look closely at B it says FEW. If FEW people are happy but for "most others" or "everyone" else it would NOT increase their happiness, then the reform is no good.

What pisses me OFF is that my field was narrowed down to B and D and I chose B over D because in relation to the argument as a whole they seem equivalent EXCEPT D does NOT mention "Reform" or "Happiness in terms of Reform", ect.

D seems to POWERFUL and seems to reflect on ALL HAPPINESS not just happiness in relation to good social reform. Obviously "happiness" is different for social reform than it is from the happiness you get from scoring your favorite prize in a box of honey smacks. Why? because happiness in terms of good social reform is based on a "sum total of human happiness" where other types of happiness are not.

[Sherry001]

Hello hello !
I got this question wrong and I don't seem to understand why the correct answer is the correct answer. ( I chose B) Where did I go wrong ? Here is my reasoning .


1- it has been said that the first purpose of a good social reform is to increase the sum total of human happiness.
2- any reform that makes someone's happy is achieving its purpose.
3- my reform makes my constituents happy
C: The reform propose would is a good social reform.

My thought process before going to the answer choices was that the author takes the sum total happiness of people to any or a few... Anywho I am looking for an answer choice that would weaken the idea that his social reform would be a good one.

A)irrelevant
B) I chose this. It looked good to me because I thought well few doesn't necessarily mean sum.

C)irrelevant , or doesn't weaken.

D)this is the correct answer .. The only reason I didn't choose it was because of the word "if" I mean how are we to know if it would make other unhappy ... I saw this answer as weakening and strengthening !

E)irrelevant.

Thanks so much
Sherry

[Ladan Soleimani]

Hi Sherry,

Your reasoning on the problem in the argument is spot on. The author jumps from sum of total happiness to anyone's happiness increasing. Answer choice (B) is somewhat getting at this idea. It does limit the happiness increasing to just a few people, but the problem is that if those few people had increased happiness, and everyone else just stayed the same (not increase), then that would still be an overall increase in the sum of happiness and the author would be right. We are looking for a scenario where the sum of happiness may not go up in order to weaken the argument. For the total sum of happiness to not increase when some people's happiness is increasing, then other people's happiness must be going down to offset that increase in happiness.

Answer choice (D) is the only one that provides the possibility or explanation that the the sum of happiness might not go up. The 'if' is not a problem. The answer is that the sum of happiness might not go up when increasing some people's happiness if other people are unhappy: the increase in unhappiness might outweigh the increase in happiness. You don't need to know definitively if other people are unhappy with this proposal; you just need something that casts doubt on the conclusion in the stimulus. Answer choice (D) cast doubt by saying it it not always the case that increasing happiness of some people will increase the total sum of happiness, so the member of Parliament may be wrong in concluding that his proposal achieves its purpose.

You are correct about the weakness in the stimulus. I think the specific wording in the answer choices just tripped you up. I hope this helps!

Ladan

[Sherry001]

Thank you so much for such a great and detailed reply ! I loved it !

[JennuineInc]

Its weird, I got it right the first time (D) when I timed myself and didn't read into it. Then I read into it and got it wrong (B). Finally after reading this whole post this is my logic. Please let me know if it's correct:

P: The first purpose of good reform is to increase the sum of total happiness
C: Any reform which makes somebody happy is achieving its purpose

Rephrase conclusion:
If it makes at least 1 person happy It must have achieved its purpose of increasing the sum of total happiness.
As long as 1 person is made happy then the total sum of happy will definitely increase.

Prephrase Weaken (negate the conclusion): Making at least 1 person happy does NOT mean it MUST increase the sum of total happiness.

B. The proposed reform would make at least 1 person happy, but not increase happiness of most other people.

"Make at least 1 person happy" = Sufficient condition is met.
According to the conclusion. As long as the sufficient condition is met, then it has increased the sum of total happiness.
(100 people were happy before +1 more happy person = 101 people are happy) Total sum of happiness increased.
Conclusion is still true. "As long as 1 person is made happy then the total sum of happy will definitely increase."

"But not increase happiness of most other people"
(100 people were happy before + 1 more happy person + 51 not happier (Logical opposite of happy, but not necessarily MORE UNHAPPY - Polar opposite) = 101 happy people, 51 people who didn't change their minds.
Sentence doesn't do much to refute or support.
Total sum of happiness is still increased.

D. If others are made unhappy, increasing at least one person's happiness might not increase the sum of total happiness"

Rephrase Answer D: If Unhappy ~ Conclusion
Rephrase Answer D: If Unhappy It must be that increasing at least one person's happiness might not achieve its purpose of increasing the total sum of happiness.

In Weaken, assuming this conditional is true:
If the sufficient condition of unhappy was met, it would weaken (not destroy) the conclusion that "as long as 1 person is happy then it will increase the total sum of happy"

If Unhappy condition is met, then the author's conclusion that the total sum of happy will increase, might not happen, thereby weakening the conclusion.

[David Boyle]

Its weird, I got it right the first time (D) when I timed myself and didn't read into it. Then I read into it and got it wrong (B). Finally after reading this whole post this is my logic. Please let me know if it's correct:

P: The first purpose of good reform is to increase the sum of total happiness
C: Any reform which makes somebody happy is achieving its purpose

Rephrase conclusion:
If it makes at least 1 person happy It must have achieved its purpose of increasing the sum of total happiness.
As long as 1 person is made happy then the total sum of happy will definitely increase.

Prephrase Weaken (negate the conclusion): Making at least 1 person happy does NOT mean it MUST increase the sum of total happiness.

B. The proposed reform would make at least 1 person happy, but not increase happiness of most other people.

"Make at least 1 person happy" = Sufficient condition is met.
According to the conclusion. As long as the sufficient condition is met, then it has increased the sum of total happiness.
(100 people were happy before +1 more happy person = 101 people are happy) Total sum of happiness increased.
Conclusion is still true. "As long as 1 person is made happy then the total sum of happy will definitely increase."

"But not increase happiness of most other people"
(100 people were happy before + 1 more happy person + 51 not happier (Logical opposite of happy, but not necessarily MORE UNHAPPY - Polar opposite) = 101 happy people, 51 people who didn't change their minds.
Sentence doesn't do much to refute or support.
Total sum of happiness is still increased.

D. If others are made unhappy, increasing at least one person's happiness might not increase the sum of total happiness"

Rephrase Answer D: If Unhappy ~ Conclusion
Rephrase Answer D: If Unhappy It must be that increasing at least one person's happiness might not achieve its purpose of increasing the total sum of happiness.

In Weaken, assuming this conditional is true:
If the sufficient condition of unhappy was met, it would weaken (not destroy) the conclusion that "as long as 1 person is happy then it will increase the total sum of happy"

If Unhappy condition is met, then the author's conclusion that the total sum of happy will increase, might not happen, thereby weakening the conclusion.

Hello JennuineInc,

That seems like a very lengthy way to get to the conclusion, but I appreciate the work you put in! It seems relatively correct.
However, the part where you put "51 people" may not be true or needed: rather, "most other people" might refer to most people in the world. So, for answer B, maybe something makes 2 people happy, then 7 billion other people not happier.

Hope this helps,
David

[brownstc]

My confusion with B vs D is that his conclusion is "Since the reform I propose would make my constituents happy, it is a good social reform." Since this is the conclusion I disregarded D which does not directly mention his reform. Thus, I concluded that it did not directly interact with his argument whereas B did. I understand why B is not correct now, but I am still confused on why D is correct.
Thank you!

[Paul Marsh]

Hi brownstc!

So for Weaken questions, we're always looking for a gap between the premises and the conclusion in the stimulus. There are a couple gaps in the stimulus's argument - the most glaring gap is that the argument assumes that making some people happy will necessarily increase the sum total of happiness (as a side note, another potential gap here would be that the argument assumes that any social reform that meets its primary purpose is necessarily a good one). So to mend that glaring gap, we would Pre-Phrase a Weaken answer which shows that while the plan may make some people happy, it could potentially make other people less happy.

Both (B) and (C) suggest that the constituents would be the only people who are made happy, but we're looking for an answer choice that addresses the possibility of certain people being made less happy - (D) is the only Answer Choice that does this. So while (D) does not specifically mention the proposed reform from the stimulus, it still accurately points out the gap in the stimulus's reasoning and thereby successfully weakens the argument. Would (D) be an even stronger weakener if it said something like, "The proposed reform will not increase the sum total of human happiness since it will make those who are not constituents of the member of Parliament unhappy"? Yes. But it is not a requirement that the correct Weaken answer choice must be the strongest imaginable weakener of the argument; the correct answer only needs to slightly weaken the argument. Pointing out the exact gap in the reasoning certainly does that.

Hope that helps!

[brownstc]

Yes that helps a lot thank you!

[JocelynL]

I chose answer C because I reasoned "well if only the constituents are happy, it doesn't mean everyone is happy" but I guess in this a/c the constituents ARE everyone and thats why it actually strengthens the conclusion? Sorry for the stupid question, just want to be sure in my reasoning here.