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

[Nadia0702]

Hi PowerScore,
Can I please get a hand diagramming this question? I think I picked the answer with the mistaken reversal Also, even though this is a "Justify" question, since the question stem states "if assumed" is it appropriate to use the Assumption Negation technique to test the right answer?

Thanks,
Nadia

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Nadia,

Let me answer your second question first - no, you cannot use the Assumption Negation Technique (ANT) to solve a Justify question! The correct answer to a Justify question will not be a statement upon which the conclusion depends (i.e. a necessary assumption). Instead, it will be a statement sufficient to prove the conclusion. The sufficient condition indicator (“if”) in the question stem is a reminder that you must select an answer that is sufficient to prove the conclusion by using the Justify Formula:

Premises + Answer choice = Conclusion

Here's how I would diagram Question 17:

(for the sake of argument, let's assume that being "perceived as forming opinions of others only after cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence" means being "prudent")

Premise 1: Prudent Cause resentment

Conclusion: Prudent Imprudent

The author makes a logical leap between causing resentment of yourself and behaving imprudently:

Justify Formula: Cause resentment Imprudent

This agrees with answer choice (E). If true, it establishes the following conditional chain, proving the conclusion:

Prudent Cause resentment Imprudent

Hope this helps! Let me know

[Nadia0702]

Thanks Nikki, this helps. I think I got lost in all of the wording of the stimulus, and once you succinctly equated "prudent" with "being perceived as forming opinions of others only after cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence" the justify formula is very easy to apply. I see it now.

Thanks again!
Nadia

[jonwg5121]

How would you diagram the stimulus and answer choice (E)? I was only able to get the question correct because the premises did not have “imprudent” and the conclusion did. I was able to eliminate (B) and ended up with (E) which happened to be correct. Thank you.

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Jon,

The premises suggest that people who appear prudent, i.e. who form opinions cautiously, are resented. The conclusion suggests that it is therefore imprudent to appear prudent. When diagrammed, the argument would look like this:

Premise: Appear Prudent Resented

Conclusion: Appear Prudent Imprudent

To justify the conclusion, we need to link up the two necessary conditions:

Justify: Resented Imprudent

In other words, it is imprudent to be resented - a prephrase that matches up with answer choice (C).

Your approach is right on point, especially when you have no idea how to diagram the argument fully. The conclusion contains a new element (imprudent) that must be connected to the premise so that the conclusion is fully justified. On that basis alone, we can eliminate answer choices (A), (C), and (D). It's unclear how (B) is relevant at all, so that only leaves us with answer choice (E).

Hope this helps! Let me know.

Thanks!

[srcline@noctrl.edu]

Hello

So I get the that since this is a justify question you're trying to link the necessary conditions and I also understand the first part of Nikki's chain: appear prudent resented. What I am getting lost on is the conclusion.

I read this as Imprudent appear prudent. How is this the other way around. I am not seeing the necessary condition here. So a.c. A B and D i choose to eliminate, and B in a way weakens the conclusion. So I had picked C.
So the formula would be: appear prudent resented + people resent those less prudent than themselves = thus, it is imprudent to appear prudent.

The conclusion makes no sense to me....I read the conclusion as its better to be imprudent than to appear prudent. Wouldn't it make logical sense to appear to be prudent than imprudent.

Thankyou
Sarah

[Adam Tyson]

Try to avoid bringing in outside information and your own opinions, Sarah, and you'll have less of a struggle here. Our author is arguing that it is in fact imprudent to appear prudent. While that might fly in the face of what you believe to be logical and sensible, that's not relevant to your analysis of the question. It's not about what you think should be true, but about what the author has claimed to be true. it's his argument that we want to justify, so instead of arguing with it, help it!

As to the conditional nature of the last sentence, which is the conclusion, you have it backwards. First, let's look at the language itself: it IS imprudent to appear prudent (emphasis added). It is = it must be; in other words, saying it IS imprudent means that "imprudent" is a necessary condition. Also, the word "to" is the same as "in order to", a classic sufficient condition indicator, and that word is tied to the idea of appearing prudent. To appear prudent must therefore be the sufficient condition. If you were to paraphrase this sentence in an if...then form, it would be "if you appear to be prudent then you are being imprudent".

Now, to help you see why this is the case, try another sentence that uses the same structure: It is reckless to text while driving. What here is sufficient and what is necessary? If you were to say that "reckless" is the sufficient condition, then you are saying that being reckless proves that you are texting while driving. But couldn't it be the case that you are being reckless in some other way, like leaving your home unlocked, or walking along a train track while wearing earbuds, or wearing a Yankees jersey in a Boston bar? Instead, you should see that the correct relationship has texting while driving as sufficient to prove recklessness. The contrapositive would be "if you are not being reckless then you are not texting while driving."

Using the language as indicators is an important step in analyzing conditional relationships, but it also helps to go beyond the language and dig into the relationships more holistically to see what makes more sense based on what the author is arguing. Don't let what you believe get in the way of analyzing what they believe.

Take another look at that stimulus with this new view of the conditional relationship and, leaving your own feelings about the argument aside, see if answer E doesn't make a whole lot more sense now to you.

Good luck!

[srcline@noctrl.edu]

Hello Adam,

Okay, I think my issue was with the language, I'm used to seeing the classic conditional indicators like "must be" , "only if" "required" ext..... as necessary condition. But seeing "IS" as a necessary condition cleared up alot. So then the correct diagram for the conclusion would be :

Prudent imprudent

Thankyou for your explanations
Sarah

[ataraxia10]

My instinct told me E was the answer but I chose B because I thought "forming opinions of others only after cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence" could mean not acting instantly and intuitively. If I reverse "Imprudent people act instantly and intuitively," it would be "people who don't act instantly and intuitively are prudent" and I thought since "forming opinions of others only after cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence" could mean not acting instantly and intuitively, it could mean they seem to be prudent. Ergo, it would make sense to say "it is "imprudent to appear prudent--forming opinions of others only after cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence."

Wouldn't E be unreasonable since I would have to assume being prudent means "cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence" in order to make E work? I don't get how E is a superior answer to B if both require me jumping to conclusions about what being imprudent or prudent entails.

[Robert Carroll]

ataraxia,

The problem with that analysis of answer choice (B) is that, if you use the contrapositive of the answer (which, of course, is perfectly fine), the "imprudent people" part of it drops out. Let me explain.

The contrapositive of answer choice (B) says something like "People who don't act instantly and intuitively are not imprudent." It certainly fair to say that people who act only after cautious gathering and weighing of evidence aren't people acting instantly and intuitively. So those people are not imprudent - and that means they're prudent. So you'd get that people who act only after cautious gathering and weighing of evidence are prudent. My problem is...the conclusion talks about it being imprudent to do a certain thing. All we've established is that certain people ARE prudent. The "imprudent" part of the conclusion thus hasn't been connected to anything. Answer choice (B) DID contain a statement about imprudent people, but we didn't use it - we used its contrapositive. So all I get is a statement about certain people being prudent. I get nothing about what's imprudent about that (if anything).

The stimulus has a big clue as to what's wrong with the argument - a cause of resentment is mentioned in a premise, but never in the conclusion. There's no connection made to resentment. So I should seek out answers that connect the concept of resentment to other things. Only answer choices (C) and (E) even mention resentment, so these would be places to look.

In order to make answer choice (E) work, you do need to know that those who appear to be cautious in gathering and weighing evidence appear prudent - in other words, that "cautious gathering and weighing of evidence" implies "prudence." This ultimately comes down to understanding the meaning of the term "prudence" - there's no illicit logical leap here, because, whatever else is meant by "prudence," I can be sure that someone who is cautious in the relevant way is being prudent (at least in that respect).

Robert Carroll