#9 - Joshi is clearly letting campaign contributions

[Jeremy Press]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning, CE. The correct answer choice is D.

The stimulus makes a classic correlation-causation error, and it pays to spot it before you dive in on the answer choices. The premises establish, via two comparative claims, a correlation between two things: (1) Joshi's reelection campaign's financial support from property developers (which is stated to be higher than any other city councilor); and (2) Joshi's voting record in favor of property developers (which is stated to be more favorable than any other city councilor). From this correlation, an erroneous conclusion is drawn that one of these things must be causing the other, in other words the conclusion says that the financial support from the developers (their campaign contributions) must be influencing (a clear causal indicator term) Joshi's city council votes (his voting record favoring the property developers).

In many mistaken correlation-causation arguments, there is a possibility that the cause and effect relationship runs in the opposite direction from what the author has concluded. That is true here as well. It is entirely possible that Joshi (for independent reasons like his ideology or his past) often votes in favor of property developers. And since property developers notice this and like it, that leads them to give him campaign contributions. Such "reversed causation" doesn't have to be true. But it is a possibility that the argument hasn't ruled out, thus it undermines the conclusion, which was stated with certainty. We need to look for an answer choice describing an error in causal reasoning (our prephrase).

Answer Choice (A): The argument doesn't refer to the events in question occurring sequentially, so this cannot be the correct answer. In other words, we cannot tell from the premises whether the contributions to Joshi's campaign preceded Joshi's votes favoring property developers.

Answer Choice (B): This answer choice describes an error of conditional reasoning. There is no conditional relationship explicitly stated in the premises, making this answer very unlikely to be correct. Furthermore, the argument's structure clearly shows (because there are two premises) that the author is not treating just one thing by itself as "sufficient" to prove the conclusion.

Answer Choice (C): The conclusion does not make a "moral judgment." The question of influence is one of fact (was there causation or not?) and does not imply moral judgment (i.e. a "right" or a "wrong"). We're very likely to read the conclusion as a moral condemnation, but that's only because of our outside assumptions. When a claim merely refers to influence without more, one cannot tell whether the person making that claim thinks the fact of influence is right or wrong.

Answer Choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. This answer choice fits our prephrase. The argument presumes that one thing (campaign contributions) caused another (Joshi's voting record) when there is a possibility (since nothing in the argument rules it out) that the campaign contributions could be an effect of Joshi's voting record.

Answer Choice (E): Answer choice E describes a "circular reasoning" flaw. Because none of the premises restate the conclusion's claim about "influence," this cannot be the correct answer.

[mpoulson]

Hello,

Can you explain why the answer to this question is D and not C. I thought by explicitly saying that the campaign contributions were influencing his vote, stimulus was making a moral claim that this is wrong. Why is this wrong? My guess would be that this isn't explicitly mentioned. However, I thought it was implied since why else would it be a mentioned if it was not wrong. Thank you.

- Micah

[Nikki Siclunov]

Micah,

I've noticed this pattern in your posts, and think I should bring it to your attention: you read into the argument too much, which causes you to actually misread it. Furthermore, I don't think you prephrase as diligently as you should be. You need to work on both of these issues

The argument observes that property developers are funding Joshi's campaign, and also observes that his voting record favors these developers. But, which is the cause and which is the effect? The author argues that campaign contributions are influencing his vote, whereas it could have been the other way around: his favorable voting record may be causing the developers to give him money. This is a classic Reverse Cause/Effect fallacy, which agrees with answer choice (D).

As far as (C) is concerned, the author did not make a moral judgment. The conclusion was factual - Joshi is letting campaign contributions influence his vote. A moral, or ethical, judgment would have a normative dimension to it. For instance, if the conclusion stated that Joshi should not, or ought not to, let campaign contributions influence his vote, then I'd agree that answer choice (C) would be appealing. As it stands now, the conclusion is only a matter of fact, not judgment.

Thanks!

[lunsandy]

Hi Powerscore,

When I was doing this timed, I was stuck between A and D and ultimately chose the wrong answer, A. I thought A was the correct answer because I thought the author is making a correlation between event 1 happening: "re-election has received more financial support from property developers" then event 2) voting record favours interest of property developers, thus concluding that campaign contributions influence Joshi's vote in city council. I also found it tempting to see it as sequential because of "And more than any"

I see how D is the correct answer- that it could very much be because Joshi is running for re-election, property developers are giving more financial support.

Thanks a lot!

[Adam Tyson]

You're welcome! The big problem with answer A is the introduction of "sequential", as you figured out. There is no evidence in the stimulus to tell us what came first, so the author didn't base his causal conclusion on a sequence, just on a correlation.

Well done!

[jahr13]

I understand why D is the correct answer but I don't understand why B isn't equally as viable. A necessary condition for Joshi's vote to be influenced by campaign contributions is that campaign contributions to be made. It seems to me the argument takes for granted that the campaign contributions being made is sufficient for his vote to be influenced. Can you explain why B isn't a viable answer answer in this light? Thank you.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Jahr,

That's some really deep reading of the answer choices, and I'm impressed that you've gone that far!

It's entirely fair to say that one necessary condition for the conclusion is that campaign contributions were made. But, and this is the key, for us to read the author's argument as saying the making of such contributions is sufficient to prove the conclusion, we'd need one of two things (neither of which we have): (1) we'd need an explicit statement from the author that such contributions would by themselves be enough to support the conclusion (the author never says this); or (2) we'd need the bare fact of such contributions to be the only premise in the argument (from which we could infer that the author thinks such a premise is sufficient to validate the conclusion). But the problem for that second way of getting to sufficiency is that there are actually two premises, the second of which goes well beyond the bare fact of contributions, to say that "more than any other councilor's, his voting record favors the interests of property developers." So all we can say for sure is that the author thinks the two stated premises together are sufficient (and those two things together are not necessary for the conclusion, or at least there's no way for us to know whether they are).

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[quan-tang@hotmail.com]

You're welcome! The big problem with answer A is the introduction of "sequential", as you figured out. There is no evidence in the stimulus to tell us what came first, so the author didn't base his causal conclusion on a sequence, just on a correlation.

Well done!

actually, there is evidence of sequential, just the opposite.
Its an RE-election, so the election happens after Joshi already on the council

[Adam Tyson]

But nothing sequential is being used as evidence, quan-tang. The author is not basing their conclusion on the fact that this is a subsequent election. They are basing it on the correlation between contributions and voting record, which has nothing to do with sequence. What came first - the contributions, or the votes? The author never says one way or the other, so there is no evidence that a sequence indicates causality.

In other words, answer A describes something that does not occur in the stimulus. That makes it a wrong answer.