#23 - Philosopher: An action is morally right if it would be

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Question #23: Justify. The correct answer choice is (C).

The argument in the stimulus features conditional reasoning, and is structured as follows:

• Premise (1): Expected to increase well-being Morally right
  Premise (2): Expected to reduce well-being Morally wrong
  
  Conclusion: Expected to increase and reduce well-being[/s] Morally right

The conclusion talks about actions that would be reasonably expected to leave unchanged the aggregate well-being of the people affected by them, i.e. that neither increase nor reduce the well-being of the people affected by them. To conclude anything about such actions from the first premise would be a Mistaken Negation. However, since the second premise establishes a bi-conditional relationship, we can automatically conclude that actions that are expected NOT to reduce the well-being of people are NOT morally wrong:

• Contrapositive of Premise (2): Expected to reduce well-being Morally wrong

Alright, so we can prove that the actions in the conclusion are not wrong. But does that make them right? Not necessarily! This is why you're being asked to Justify the conclusion, i.e. to determine an answer choice that, if true, would bridge the logical gap between the premises and the conclusion. Here, all we need to do is establish that actions are either morally right or morally wrong:

• Justify: Morally wrong Morally right

This prephrase agrees with answer choice (C).

Answer choice (A) is incorrect, because it merely restates part of the conditional relationship in the second premise:

• Expected to reduce aggregate well-being Morally wrong

The conclusion cannot be justified with an inference already present in the stimulus.

Answer choice (B) can be diagrammed as follows:

• Right Wrong
  Wrong Right
  (Right Wrong)

This relationship prevents actions from being both right and wrong, but it leaves open the possibility that an action is neither right nor wrong. Thus, we cannot conclude anything about an action that is NOT one of these two attributes: actions that are not morally wrong are not necessarily morally right. As a result, answer choice (B) does not help justify the conclusion.

Answer choice (C) is the correct answer choice, as prephrased above.

Answer choice (D) is incorrect, as it merely posits the existence of actions that would be reasonably expected to leave unchanged the aggregate well-being of the people affected by them. The existence of such actions may be an assumption upon which the argument depends, but it does not justify the judgment reached in the conclusion.

Answer choice (E) is incorrect, because the element of "good consequences" is extraneous to the logic of this argument.

[Applesaid]

Hello!

I don't have a big problem with this justify the conclusion question. Just wonder why A is incorrect. Thanks!

[David Boyle]

Hello!

I don't have a big problem with this justify the conclusion question. Just wonder why A is incorrect. Thanks!

Hello,

Answer A seems to be included already in what the stimulus says.
I.e., one could diagram the second sentence of the stimulus as "rerw <---> mw" (reasonably expected to reduce well-being means morally wrong, and vice versa, biconditionally). Answer A could be diagrammed as the first part of the above diagram, that is: rerw ---> mw (arrow going one way).

David

[sodomojo]

I got to (C) fine in the end, but couldn't come up with a prephrase that made any sense before hitting the answer choices (all I could think of was "actions that leave well-being unchanged actions that increase well-being" ... which would've been nonsensical). Did not think to negate the 2nd premise and link that up with the conclusion as the correct answer ultimately does.

While I understand why the 1st premise is useless to us for the purposes of establishing a logical chain, why would attempting to use it actually be a mistaken negation as the explanation above suggests? Thanks in advance.

The conclusion talks about actions that would be reasonably expected to leave unchanged the aggregate well-being of the people affected by them, i.e. that neither increase nor reduce the well-being of the people affected by them. To conclude anything about such actions from the first premise would be a Mistaken Negation.

[Claire Horan]

Hi Sodomojo,

The Administrator was just saying that Premise 1 would be potentially helpful if instead of saying "Expected to increase well-being Morally right," it instead said "Expected to increase well-being Morally right". But we can't do that because it would be a Mistaken Negation.

[LSAT2018]

Would Answer (C) be inappropriate for a necessary assumption question because it is too broad ('any action')? What would be an appropriate answer for necessary assumption?

[Adam Tyson]

Actually, answer C here also works as a Necessary Assumption (which we usually just call an Assumption), because the author did indeed assume that there are only two possibilities, right and wrong, and there is no third possibility that is neutral. We can prove this by using the Assumption Negation Technique on that answer - what if some actions are neither morally wrong nor morally right? That would wreck his argument that something that has no impact on the aggregate well-being must be right, because it could be neutral.

Some answers are like that - they justify and are assumptions.