#17 - People want to be instantly and intuitively liked.

[ataraxia10]

Thanks Robert! That was mighty helpful.

[blade21cn]

This might be splitting hairs, but the premise is a "most" statement with "generally," but the conclusion is conditional. Thus, the argument's conclusion might not be properly drawn regardless, due to a weaker premise. Any thoughts of ways to get around that? Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi blade21cn!

It's good to be paying careful attention to that language! And you are correct that the premise just states that being prudent generally causes people to resent you, not that it always causes resentment. In this case, though, answer choice (E) still enables the conclusion to be properly drawn.

Answer choice (E) doesn't say that it is imprudent to cause ALL people to resent you--just that it's imprudent to cause people to resent you. And if appearing prudent generally causes people to resent you, it doesn't have to cause all people to resent you all of the time--it's still generally causing people to resent you. Thus, if it's imprudent to cause people to resent you and appearing prudent causes people to resent you--even if it's not all people, all the time--then it is imprudent to appear prudent.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[ihenson]

Could someone explain why A is wrong?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi ihenson,

This is a Justify question, which is asking you to find the answer that, when added to the premises in the argument, will 100% prove the conclusion.

The first step in solving a Justify question is identifying the conclusion in the argument that we are trying to prove and seeing if there is any "new" information in that conclusion. In other words, are there any words/concepts discussed in the conclusion that weren't discussed in the premises? If so, there is a logical "gap" in the argument, and the correct answer must bridge that gap by linking the "new" information in the conclusion to the information in the premises.

In this argument, the conclusion states that "it is imprudent to appear prudent." The term "imprudent" is new information that hasn't been discussed in the premises and must be appear in the correct answer. How can we 100% prove that something is imprudent without linking that term to the premises?

Also, while the word "prudent" was not literally used in the premises, "appear prudent" matches the meaning of the expression in the premise about "perceived as forming opinions of others only after cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence," so this term has already been addressed in a premise.

Answer A lacks the missing term "imprudent" and adding this answer to the argument does not prove our conclusion that
"it is imprudent to appear prudent." Answer A just states that people who act spontaneously are well liked, but that doesn't mean that it is imprudent (meaning unwise) to appear prudent.

Since the premise basically states that appearing prudent causes people to resent you, we're looking for an answer that links imprudence to causing people to resent you, which Answer E does.