#7 - Since empathy is essential for people to be willing to

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption—SN. The correct answer choice is (A)

This stimulus provides the following conditional argument:

• Premise: Empathy is essential to the following of moral codes, which sometimes require people
  to put the interests of others above self-interest.
  
  Conclusion: Therefore civilized society could not exist without empathy.

We can diagram the conditional reasoning in the premise and the conclusion as follows:

• Premise: MC E (that is, if moral codes are to be followed, empathy is required)
  
  Conclusion: CS E (that is, if civilized society is to exist, empathy is required)

When we examine the two conditional statements above, we can see that empathy is the overlapping
theme, the necessary variable in both the premise and the conclusion. In order to connect this
conclusion to this premise, the argument requires a supporter assumption: A premise which,
although not stated explicitly in the stimulus, bridges the gap between the two conditional statements.
Since we are asked to find the choice that provides the required assumption, we should look for the
answer that ties together the loose ends of this argument: Moral codes and civilized society.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, as it supplies the needed link between moral
codes and civilized society. We know from the stimulus that the following of moral codes requires at
least some who will put others interests over their own, so without such people, moral codes could not
be followed. If civilized society also depends on the existence of these sometimes selfless people, as
this answer choice provides, then we can conclude that without such people, moral codes could not be followed, and civilized society could not exist.

Answer choice (B): This choice is causal rather than conditional, so it should be eliminated. Conditional
reasoning requires conditional assumptions. Furthermore, since the stimulus specifies that empathy is
only sometimes required, this leaves open the possibility that, most of the time, civilized society is fine
without such empathy. Thus we need not assume that lack of empathy is usually detrimental.

Answer choice (C): This choice is the Mistaken Reversal of the required assumption, so we should
eliminate it. Also, the stimulus sought to establish a necessity, whereas this choice concerns a sufficiency.
That is, the stimulus says that civilized society requires some degree of selflessness, whereas this answer
choice presents the assumption that this selflessness guarantees that a society will be civilized.

Answer choice (D): The fact that certain moral codes have arisen in some civilized societies does not
establish a conditional link between civilized society and moral codes. It is therefore irrelevant to the
conditional argumentative strategy in the stimulus.

Answer choice (E): A description of the results of empathy does not establish a link between moral
codes and civilized society, so this choice is incorrect.

[student987]

I'm really lost on this. The premise and conclusion both need empathy; but civilized society doesn't necessarily require people who follow the said moral codes (civilized society just requires empathy, which is the necessary condition of the premise).

Also, is the negation of "there are people who are willing to at least sometimes ignore their own welfare..":
"there is no one who is willing to at least sometimes ignore..."? Do you have tips for quickly negating statements like this, which involves two levels of uncertainty ("there are people who are" = "can"; "sometimes" = "can")?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi.

Let's look at this bit by bit.

You are right that per the stimulus, empathy is the required condition for both moral codes being followed and for civilized society to exist. To find the assumption though, we need to look at what was unstated by still required. That means we need to link moral codes to civilized society.

We'd like the overall chain to look like this: CS MC E

Then we could easily draw the conclusion CS E as they do in the stimulus.

So now we have to think about what the stimulus left out. It left out that CS MC. And that's what we are looking for in the correct answer choice. A does that by stating that CS can exist only if people are sometimes willing to ignore their own welfare to help others. This can be simplified to CS requires MC (as described in the stimulus), and it therefore, is the correct answer.

Let's turn to discussion of negations. These can be really tricky, especially when the answer choices are lengthy and include multiple clauses. I start by focusing on finding the main clause of the statement, and looking to negate that.

In your example "there are people who are willing to at least sometimes ignore their own welfare.." I would look to "there are people" for the negation. So negated it would become "There are no people willing to at least sometimes ignore their own welfare....". This keeps the negation focused on the main portion of the sentence and does a better job at negating the entire idea of the answer choice. Otherwise, you can end up with a word salad of double negatives and other confusing phrasing.

I hope that helped!
Rachael

[student987]

Hello! Thanks for the reply. I'm still confused about why the stimulus becomes CS MC E
I realize that if it turns into that, CS E would be an assumption; but why must the stimulus turn to CS MC E ..? As opposed to, say, MC CS E ?

(I understand that CS MC E is a possible way to interpret the stimulus, but I don't understand why that must be the only way to interpret it.)

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi.

When we look at what the stimulus says directly we see:

Premise: MC E

Conclusion CS E

We need to think about what else we need. If we assume that MC CS, as you suggest, we haven't actually gotten our premise any closer to the conclusion. The argument would look as follows:

Premise: MC E

Assumption MC CS

Conclusion CS E

Our assumption there does nothing to connect CS to E. They are both necessary conditions in that case for MC, but cannot be linked to each other. Therefore the conclusion linking CS to E doesn't follow yet.

On the other hand, if we assume CS MC we get something like this:

Premise MC E

Assumption CS MC

Conclusion CS E

With this assumption, we can link the premise and the assumption into a chain, leading logically to the conclusion drawn by the argument.

Hope that helped!
Rachael

[student987]

Thank you for the reply! I see. I now have a question about the negation test in general.

I get why (A) "MC CS" makes sense when I think about the stimulus. But this should also make sense when I use formal logic correct? I'm confused why it works when I think about it but not when I use formal logic—could you clarify how to solve this via the latter?

Given this:
Premise: MC E
Conclusion CS E

The negated version of (A) wouldn't bring down the argument... right? What am I doing wrong with the negation test here?

Again, I totally understand your explanation; I also realize I can just solve it by understanding. And I get that if you have (A) the argument works. But I want to figure out how to work this via formal logic to straighten out what I'm doing wrong with the negation test. Would appreciate any help on how to properly use this technique on this question!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Student,

I'm not sure we are following your question clearly, but I'll try to explain as best as possible according to what I think you are asking.

First, you are mixing up various ideas here and I think it's causing confusion. We've gone from assumption to negations to formal logic, and so to really understand this, you have to first see what's occurring inside the problem. The explanations given above about the conditional nature of the premise, conclusion and correct answer are on the money, but, do they make sense to you? Can you explain it to me in your own terms? I ask that without regard to negations or formal logic, but as a straight understanding of the assumption that is required here.

Assuming so, would you mind stating the argument as you understand it? That will help me make sure you have the first piece in place here, and then we can move to the next step

Thanks!

[student987]

Thank you for your reply. My question can be summarized as: can you explain how to use the assumption negation technique, using this question?
I thought the argument goes from the premise that MC requires E, to the conclusion that CS requires E. (I’ll use “E” instead of “empathy” since this logic should still hold if we substitute random things for “E”.)

It seems the argument jumps from talking about (premise) "MC" to (conclusion) "CS"—so the assumption it depends on would be that MC and CS are somehow connected. The assumption “CS —> MC” would work, since if CS requires MC, then it makes sense that CS requires whatever MC requires. Thus, it would be established that CS also requires E.

So I’m happy with everything up til here. But since this is an assumption question, and the assumption negation technique technically works on every assumption question, I tried using it. The assumption negation technique has worked for me every time in the past, but I couldn’t work it here. My question I guess is how the negated assumption (the key to the assumption negation technique) brings down this argument, the way it is supposed to (since the assumption negation technique says that the negated assumption brings down the argument).

The negated assumption is: “CS —> NOT MC” right? That is, if there is CS, then there is no MC.
Yet even If that were true, the argument still holds: It is still possible to go from (premise) “MC requires E” to (conclusion) “CS requires E” with an assumption along the lines of “MC and CS have the same requirements”. This new assumption is possible even if “when CS exists, MC does not.” So it seems that while “CS requires MC” is a sufficient assumption, it’s not a necessary one. Again, that’s because the argument can be established without it.

That’s my thought process!

[Adam Tyson]

When negating a conditional statement, student987, the key is to make the necessary condition unnecessary. That is not the same as negating the necessary condition, which would mean that the opposite is necessary. Rather, it's just saying that the necessary condition doesn't have to occur. When you negate a conditional statement, you don't do it be creating a new conditional statement, but by saying that the original conditional claim simply isn't true.

In this case, the proper negation would be "civilized society can exist even if there are not any people who are willing to ignore their own welfare to help others." Using that "even if...not" approach doesn't mean that civilized society REQUIRES that there be no people who ignore their welfare to help others. It means that you don't have to have those helpful people. They are not necessary.

Your prephrase was spot on - we need a connection between CS and MC. Answer choice A, when negated as above, breaks that connection, and that is why is wrecks the argument.

In short: to negate a conditional statement, do not create a new conditional statement, but simply say that the necessary condition need not occur.

[student987]

Adam said "When negating a conditional statement...the key is to make the necessary condition unnecessary....to negate a conditional statement, do not create a new conditional statement, but simply say that the necessary condition need not occur." OK, I got that.

But I keep thinking: the assumption “CS —> MC” seems to not need to occur for the stimulus to work. I feel like I'm just a little step away from the answer, but I can't figure out what's missing.

The original argument is the following:

Premise: MC E
Conclusion CS E