LR Drill Set 9, Question 7
Ethicist: The majority of genuinely altruistic actions are(50 more words not shown)
If the ethicist's statements are(10 more words not shown)
- AAll actions wherein(12 more words not shown)
- BMost actions wherein(12 more words not shown)
- CMany actions that(8 more words not shown)
- DSome actions wherein(11 more words not shown)
- EAll actions that(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Being morally good, being required, and being altruistic are three different descriptions. Don't let the similar language make them blur together.
The first sentence says most genuinely altruistic actions are morally good, and some altruistic actions are not required. Doing something good doesn't automatically mean you had to do it. Then we get another group: some self-centered actions are morally good too. So we cannot assume that a morally good action must be altruistic rather than self-centered.
The last statement gives a rule for every morally good action: the person is careful not to harm others. We can connect that with the first sentence. The altruistic actions that are morally good must also involve this care. So we already know that some altruistic actions involve being careful not to harm others.
What we’re looking for
We're looking for what must be true, so let's test each choice against the groups the passage actually describes. That connection doesn't tell us that every careful action is morally good, or that most careful actions are altruistic. Follow the facts without expanding them to cover a whole group we haven't been told about.
Working the answers
- A
The passage says every morally good action involves care not to harm others. A says that having this care is enough to make an action morally good. That isn't the same rule. Care might be only one of several requirements for a good action; meeting it alone need not settle whether the action is good.
- B
We know most altruistic actions are morally good, and therefore involve the stated care. That tells us about the altruistic group. It doesn't tell us what proportion of all careful actions are altruistic. There could be many other careful actions outside the altruistic group, so we cannot claim that altruism accounts for most of them.
- C
The passage tells us some altruistic actions are not morally required. It doesn't establish a group of morally required actions that lack altruism. Required and not required describe different sides of that distinction; information about one doesn't automatically populate the other in the way C needs.
- DCorrect
Start with the self-centered actions that are morally good. We are told some such actions exist. Every morally good action involves an agent being careful not to harm others, so those same actions have that trait.
We have therefore found actions that are both self-centered and performed with care not to harm others. D simply describes that overlap from the careful-actions side. We don't need most self-centered actions to qualify, and we don't need any claim that they are altruistic.
- E
Some altruistic actions are not morally required, but the passage gives no rule that every nonrequired action is self-centered. We don't know how the entire nonrequired group breaks down. E imposes a universal classification that the facts never supply.
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