#26 - People should patronize businesses that meet high

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[oli_oops]

Hi,

can someone please explain why B is correct and A is not?

Also, if someone could breakdown the stimulus a little it would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks!!
oli

[James Finch]

Hi Oli,

This is one of the tricky late-section Weaken questions that tend to be some of the hardest on the exam. The stimulus is trying to prove that the news media should publicize whenever a business does a highly ethical act. Why? Because hearing about an ethical act is "often" enough to get people to patronize that business, and people should patronize businesses that meet high ethical standards, and the news media should help promote those businesses.

So where is the logical gap we can exploit? The stimulus is committing a part-to-whole fallacy, as one ethical act doesn't mean that a business necessarily meets "high ethical standards." Because we don't know what those high ethical standards are, we should be looking for an answer choice that defines them as something other than a single ethical act, so that the stimulus's logic falls apart, and businesses that engage in one highly ethical act could still fail to meet high ethical standards.

Answer choice (A) is immediately suspect based on its first word, "some;" this is an incredibly vague word that doesn't carry enough logical force to help or hurt much, an immediate red flag. However, what ultimately disqualifies (A) from contention is the scope it's dealing with; the stimulus is only concerned with businesses that actually meet high ethical standards, not ones that fail to do so. So this answer choice is dealing with a whole different group than the stimulus is.

Answer choice (B) works by doing exactly what I described above: it defines "meeting highly ethical standards" as something other than engaging in a singular ethical act, but instead as refraining from unethical behavior, making it quite possible to fail to meet high ethical standards and yet have the news media publicize a singular ethical act, essentially tricking people into thinking the business is ethical. This is especially strong as it would be quite difficult to publicize refraining from doing something, which makes the stimulus's argument absurd.

Hope this clears things up!

[jm123]

I am wondering why A is wrong for this question and B is right.

I want to make sure I am understanding the stimulus correctly.

Basically, people should patronize a business that meets high ethical standards and then jumps to a business performing a notably ethical action. However, just because one meets high ethical standards does not mean that they are performing an ethical action. Is this the avenue I should attack?

I feel like A is irrelevant and way too weak because "some" could mean just one.

B weakens the argument because it is going against what the stimulus is saying. It focuses on the jump made in the stimulus and says that just because you meet a high ethical standard does not mean that you perform an ethical action.

[Adam Tyson]

just because you meet a high ethical standard does not mean that you perform an ethical action.

I think you have that backwards, jm123. The problem here should be framed as "just because you perform an ethical action does not mean that you meet a high ethical standard."

Focus on the conclusion here. It's not about what people should do, but about what news media should do. Should they publicize a notably ethical act done by a business in order to help send business their way? That would be a good argument IF performing a notably ethical act was a good sign that the business in question meets high ethical standards. But what if a notably ethical act is NOT a good sign that the business meets high ethical standards? That's what our weaken answer is about, showing that meeting those standards is not about what you do, but is more about what you refrain from doing.

A is irrelevant because we don't care about some business having but not meeting high standards. We care about promoting the businesses that DO meet those high standards. All that matters is whether a notably ethical act is a sign that they meet high standards or not.

[kupwarriors9]

can this be diagramed?

just because you meet a high ethical standard does not mean that you perform an ethical action.

I think you have that backwards, jm123. The problem here should be framed as "just because you perform an ethical action does not mean that you meet a high ethical standard."

Focus on the conclusion here. It's not about what people should do, but about what news media should do. Should they publicize a notably ethical act done by a business in order to help send business their way? That would be a good argument IF performing a notably ethical act was a good sign that the business in question meets high ethical standards. But what if a notably ethical act is NOT a good sign that the business meets high ethical standards? That's what our weaken answer is about, showing that meeting those standards is not about what you do, but is more about what you refrain from doing.

A is irrelevant because we don't care about some business having but not meeting high standards. We care about promoting the businesses to DO meet those high standards. All that matters is whether a notably ethical act is a sign that they meet high standards or not.

[Adam Tyson]

Not exactly, because it's not a conditional statement. It's more like the denial of a conditional statement. Doing something ethical is NOT sufficient for the business meeting high ethical standards. We don't really have a tool for diagramming that, unless perhaps you were to diagram the conditional statement and then just cross out the whole thing, like this:

Ethical Act High Standards

I wouldn't choose to do that simply because it seems confusing to me (and I wrote it!), and I don't find it very helpful. But if you want to diagram the negation of a conditional statement, that's the way to do it, as opposed to just negating the necessary condition, which is a common mistake.

[Neil J]

Would the main conclusion here be "When a business performs a notably ethical action, the news media should publicize that fact"? I initially had thought "People should patronize businesses that meet high ethical standards, and the news media should help them to patronize those businesses" was the main conclusion.

Thank you!

[Robert Carroll]

Neil,

Indeed, the second sentence contains the main conclusion - everything before the last comma is the conclusion. There are two ways we can see this. First, that sentence contains a conclusion indicator ("Therefore"). Given the way the stimulus is written, that sentence has to follow from something else, including, seemingly, the first sentence. So the first sentence is evidence for something else, and can't be the main conclusion. Another way to see that the first sentence cannot be the main conclusion is to note that there is no attempt to offer any evidence for it. If we asked "Why should people patronize those businesses? Why should news media help people patronize those business?" we would see that the stimulus doesn't even attempt to answer that question. However, if we asked "Why should the news media publicize it when a business performs a notably ethical action?" the stimulus does offer evidence of that - the last clause of the second sentence (after "for...") and the first sentence are reasons why the conclusion is true.

Robert Carroll

[Neil J]

Thank you!

Neil,

Indeed, the second sentence contains the main conclusion - everything before the last comma is the conclusion. There are two ways we can see this. First, that sentence contains a conclusion indicator ("Therefore"). Given the way the stimulus is written, that sentence has to follow from something else, including, seemingly, the first sentence. So the first sentence is evidence for something else, and can't be the main conclusion. Another way to see that the first sentence cannot be the main conclusion is to note that there is no attempt to offer any evidence for it. If we asked "Why should people patronize those businesses? Why should news media help people patronize those business?" we would see that the stimulus doesn't even attempt to answer that question. However, if we asked "Why should the news media publicize it when a business performs a notably ethical action?" the stimulus does offer evidence of that - the last clause of the second sentence (after "for...") and the first sentence are reasons why the conclusion is true.

Robert Carroll