PrepTest 115, Section 2, Question 4
Marie: I gave the cashier at my local(96 more words not shown)
Julia's response functions in which(5 more words not shown)
- AIt strongly questions(15 more words not shown)
- BIt offers an(6 more words not shown)
- CIt challenges Marie's(20 more words not shown)
- DIt uses Marie's(12 more words not shown)
- EIt proposes a(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
You didn't trick the cashier. Does that make the extra money yours? Marie focuses on how she received the money: no deception, threats, or force. But those aren't the only facts that might matter morally. What if she knows the cashier made a mistake and knows the extra ten dollars weren't meant for her? Receiving something without misconduct and being entitled to keep it are different questions.
Julia tests Marie's reasoning with a coat. Suppose Marie hands Julia the wrong coat by mistake. Julia hasn't deceived or threatened Marie, yet Julia says she still isn't entitled to keep it. The coat gives us the same relevant setup as the extra change: an accidental transfer without trickery, threats, or violence. Julia rejects the permission to keep the item that Marie's reasoning would grant.
What we’re looking for
We're asked how Julia's response works. She uses a parallel situation to challenge Marie's rule. If the rule gives the wrong result for the coat, the absence of deception or force isn't enough to justify keeping the extra money either.
Working the answers
- A
Julia doesn't accept Marie's principle. If she accepted that receiving an item without trickery, threats, or force made keeping it permissible, she would have to accept keeping the mistakenly delivered coat. Her example challenges that very rule, not just how Marie applied it to the cashier.
- B
“Nonsense” tells us the direction of the response, and the coat example explains why. Julia opposes Marie's conclusion that keeping the money was permissible. She isn't offering another reason to agree with it.
- CCorrect
Julia offers a relevantly similar situation but says the proper judgment goes against Marie's reasoning. In both cases, someone receives another person's property through a mistake and without deception, threats, or violence. Marie treats those facts as permission to keep the money; Julia says those same kinds of facts do not permit keeping the coat. That comparison challenges Marie's conclusion.
- D
Julia isn't presenting a real problem she needs Marie to solve. She says “if” Marie mistakenly hands over a coat, creating a hypothetical case to test the rule. Nor does Julia use Marie's rule to approve keeping it. She uses the case to show why that rule fails.
- E
Julia doesn't reserve judgment about Marie's conduct. Her opening and her comparison challenge Marie's claim that keeping the money was acceptable. She also doesn't lay out a radically different general rule; she gives a counterexample to the justification Marie offered.
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