#23- Societies in which value is measured primarily in

[emilysnoddon]

Hello,

For this question I saw the argument as:

P1: Societies in which value is measured primarily in financial terms invariably fragment into isolated social units
P2: Money not main measure of value in nonindustrial societies
C: nonindustrial societies must tend in contrast to be socially unified

I understood the flaw to be that just because a society does not have value measured primarily in financial terms does not indicate that they MUST be socially unified. I saw the flaw as ignoring the possibility of other factors that may cause the society to be socially fragmented.

I was deciding between answer D and E and I chose E. The trouble I had with answer E was that I felt that since it was saying computers ARE more technologically sophisticated than pencils, it is valid to think they are more troublesome. In my mind computers are part of the concept of being technologically sophisticated, whereas in the stimulus nonindustrial societies where money is not the main measure of value is different than the societies described in P1.

I saw the argument in answer D to be:
P1: Poets frequently convey their thoughts via nonliteral uses of language
P2: Journalists are not poets (similar to non-industrial societies don't have money as main measure)
C: Journalists always use language literally (opposite of what is said in P1, assumes that since they are not part of that group they must not have the characteristic of that group.. similar to how the C in the stimulus makes a jump from just because money isn't the main measure must mean they ARE socially unified)

Please let me know where my thinking went wrong.

Thank you,

Emily

[Laura Carrier]

Hi Emily,

The main difficulty with your understanding of this argument is that you didn’t recognize that the reasoning in the stimulus is conditional, based on an absolute relationship set up between a certain type of society and fragmentation. Not seeing the conditional reasoning and its significance also meant that—despite your admirable efforts to identify the flaws in both the stimulus and answer choice (D) —you weren’t able to see that the flaw in the stimulus and its close counterpart in answer choice (D) is simply the classic conditional reasoning flaw of a mistaken negation.

Although you got the argument parts right in your analysis of the stimulus, this wasn’t enough to allow you to easily pinpoint the flaw. Think about the argument in conditional terms: When the first premise tells us that societies measuring value primarily in financial terms invariably fragment into isolated social units, the term “invariably” is actually establishing a conditional relationship between these two things, letting us know that every time we see one of these societies, it will always fragment. This allows us to translate this premise into the following conditional rule:

• If a society measures value primarily in financial terms, then it will fragment into isolated social units.

Since fragmenting is the necessary condition in this relationship, we also know that if a society doesn’t fragment (meaning that the necessary condition is lost), then it must not measure value in primarily financial terms (meaning that the sufficient condition will also be lost, since it cannot occur without the necessary condition). That would be a valid contrapositive, which we know has to be true as long as the underlying conditional relationship exists.

Instead of the contrapositive (lose the necessary and you will also lose the sufficient), we are told here that the sufficient condition is missing in nonindustrial societies—i.e., that they don’t actually measure value in primarily financial terms. Since the necessary condition of fragmentation doesn’t require that the sufficient condition be present, losing our sufficient condition tells us nothing about whether the necessary condition will be present or not.

Thus, it is an error for the stimulus to conclude that nonindustrial societies must tend to be socially unified (i.e., lack the necessary condition of fragmentation), simply because they lack the sufficient condition of measuring value by money. To reason that losing (or negating) the sufficient condition means that you must also lose (or negate) the necessary condition can be described as committing the error of a mistaken negation.

Answer choice (D) is correct because it exhibits a very slightly modified version of the same error. Viewed through a conditional lens, it basically tells us that, if someone is a poet, then they will frequently convey their thoughts through nonliteral language. Given this, we know for sure that the contrapositive is true: If someone does not frequently convey their thoughts through nonliteral language (the necessary condition is lost), then they must not be a poet (the sufficient condition cannot occur).

But what we cannot know is what happens to the necessary condition when the sufficient condition is lost, which is exactly what this answer choice tries to draw a conclusion about when it tells us that journalists are not poets (sufficient condition absent), thus they must always use language literally (necessary condition absent, too). See how this is the same flawed reasoning as used in the stimulus?

To make answer choice (E) guilty of the same flaw, you would have to edit it so that it also took away the sufficient condition and then concluded that the necessary condition must also be absent. In other words, it would have to say something like this: Computers are not technologically sophisticated machines; thus, they can’t cause more trouble than simpler devices serving the same function. You are quite right that (E), as written, is actually valid reasoning.

I hope this makes more sense of this question.
Laura

[Johnclem]

Hello,
I can see why D is the answer ,but I a must having trouble understanding why A is not the answer. This is how I diagramed it. And I see it as the same flaw that's occurring in the stimulus, ( just because the sufficient condition is not met does not indicate the necessary is also not met )

Stimulus :

1- animals of different genus cannot interbreeds .
2- jackles belong to the same genus.
c: but that doesn't mean that Jackals and wolves cannot .

My diagraming:
1- Different genus ---> cant imterbreed
2- samw genus ----> the may be able to interbreed

Thanks
John

[Kristina Moen]

John,

Good job identifying the conditional reasoning flaw in the stimulus. Let's look at why answer choice (A) is incorrect.

"They may be able to breed" and "That does not prove that they cannot interbreed" do not mean the same thing. One is a conclusion based on the evidence, the other is saying you can't make a conclusion based on the evidence.

In a parallel reasoning question, you also want to match the force of the conclusion. In the stimulus, the conclusion says "they must tend in contrast to be socially unified" and answer choice (D) matches that by saying "so surely journalists always use language literally."

So if answer choice (A) had said: Animals of different genera cannot interbreed. So jackals and wolves must be able interbreed, for they belong to the same genus," it would be correct. And then the question would be removed from scoring because you'd have two correct answers!

[Jerrymakehabit]

I have a big problem with the term "in contrast to" which I understand it as opposite to "socially unified", and thus made me understand the logic structure wrong. Based on the replies above, it seems "in contrast to" does not mean "opposite to". Can someone please help me with the term?

Thanks!

[Brook Miscoski]

Jerrymakehabit,

"In contrast to" in the stimulus did mean to imply an opposite. The stimulus uses conditional reasoning:

Premise: Finance Fragment
Conclusion: Nonindustrial (-Finance) Unified (-Fragment)

The "in contrast to" tells you that "socially unified" can be treated as "-fragment," as if we didn't already know that (it's a throwaway phrase).

That is a Mistaken Negation, so we are looking for a choice that contains a Mistaken Negation.

(D) contains a Mistaken Negation:

Poets nonliteral
Journalists (-Poets) literal (-nonliteral)

[Adam354]

Hmm.
Finance->Isolated
Not isolated->Not finance
Question stimulus falsely reverses the contrapositive , mistaken negation.

E)
Sophisticated-> Often more trouble (than pencils)
Often less trouble->Unsophisticated

Initially I tried to stick pencils into the contrapositive, and so it looked like a mistaken negation.
Unsophisticated (pencils)->Often less trouble (than computers)

I'm not sure why I didn't realize I could just add pencils onto the original conditional .

I also did not chart out D fully. Had I done that, it would obviously have been the correct answer.
Poets -> Metaphor
No Metaphor -> No Poets
Journalist are not poets so use no metaphors.
No poets -> No metaphors
Mistaken Negation

[Adam Tyson]

Correct, nicely done!