LR Drill Set 12, Question 4
Critic: Some of the evildoers portrayed by Shakespeare(37 more words not shown)
The critic's conclusion follows logically(8 more words not shown)
- AShakespeare held beliefs(10 more words not shown)
- BThose Shakespearean villains(19 more words not shown)
- CA person's belief(18 more words not shown)
- DShakespeare was profoundly(6 more words not shown)
- EReaders who accept(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Could someone expect punishment and still think an action was right?
I can imagine a person saying, “I broke a divine rule, but I think that rule is wrong.” Believing that you're doomed wouldn't, by itself, show that you believe your action is bad.
Read the first sentence carefully, though. These characters do more than expect punishment: they recognize themselves as evildoers. That is the part that conflicts with the teaching attributed to Socrates, according to which even people who do evil believe they are doing good.
My first instinct is to ask whether those descriptions can coexist.
But the conclusion introduces another issue: what readers will find believable in fiction. Why must someone who accepts Socrates reject a fictional character who doesn't fit his account? A reader might enjoy a story while disagreeing with its view of human nature.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to make the conclusion follow. We need a rule that carries the conflict with Socrates' account over to these readers' judgment of the characters. Keep the target precise: implausible to readers who accept Socrates, not impossible to write about or morally bad in some objective sense.
Working the answers
- A
The two writers could disagree about human nature without every reader rejecting the other's characters. A describes a difference between their beliefs, but the conclusion concerns what a particular group of readers finds plausible. It doesn't connect the difference to that judgment.
- B
This tells us that villains who believe their actions are good can be plausible to these readers. Our characters recognize themselves as evildoers. Saying one kind of character is believable doesn't establish that another kind is unbelievable. The answer leaves open whether readers could find both kinds plausible.
- C
Believing an action is good doesn't necessarily make it good. But we aren't trying to decide the actual moral status of the characters' actions. The argument turns on what the characters believe about themselves and whether readers who accept Socrates can find those characters plausible. C doesn't supply a rule about that judgment.
- D
Being influenced by a thinker doesn't mean agreeing with every teaching, and it doesn't tell us how readers must assess a character. Shakespeare could have been influenced by Socrates and still portrayed people differently. The claimed influence leaves the needed connection missing.
- ECorrect
For these readers to find a fictional character plausible, the character's motives must be consistent with Socrates' teachings. That makes consistency a requirement for plausibility.
Socrates says even evildoers must believe they are doing good. These characters recognize themselves as evildoers, so their understanding of their conduct conflicts with that account. Under E's rule, they fail a requirement for being plausible to these readers. Now the conclusion follows. The answer settles the reader's judgment, which is the step that simply noting a disagreement between Socrates and Shakespeare couldn't establish.
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