PrepTest 117, Section 3, Question 19
There is no genuinely altruistic behavior.(43 more words not shown)
A flaw in the argument(3 more words not shown)
- Apresupposes that anyone(9 more words not shown)
- Billicitly infers that(8 more words not shown)
- Cfails to consider(12 more words not shown)
- Dpresumes, without providing(17 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Helping someone can feel good. Does that mean feeling good is always why we help?
Altruistic behavior is behavior directed toward helping others rather than serving ourselves. The author claims none of it is genuine: people need self-esteem, self-esteem depends on feeling useful and needed, and apparently generous actions can be understood as attempts to reinforce that feeling.
I can imagine someone giving to charity mainly to think well of themselves. But I can also imagine someone helping because they care about the person who needs help. We shouldn't assume those motives are interchangeable. Whether a helpful act is motivated by self-interest is also a different question from whether it produces a good result. An act might help someone even when the motive is selfish.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, my initial objection is that the author hasn't ruled out other motives. Why couldn't some people care about others without acting to improve their own self-image? I'd look for an answer challenging the move from this self-interested explanation to the claim that genuine altruism never occurs.
Working the answers
- A
This starts with self-interested conduct and says it is altruistic. The author argues in the other direction, claiming that apparently altruistic conduct is actually self-interested. In fact, the conclusion denies genuine altruism altogether. A describes a classification the argument doesn't make.
- B
The author doesn't accept the appearance of altruism as proof of genuine altruism. The entire argument tries to explain away that appearance by assigning a selfish motive. B would describe someone saying that an action looks generous and therefore must be genuinely generous, which is the opposite of what happens here.
- C
Self-esteem might also depend on awareness of one's own value. That would add a condition for self-esteem, but it wouldn't settle whether every apparently altruistic act has a selfish motive. The missing issue is why this interpretation must describe people's actual reasons for acting.
- D
The passage says self-esteem depends on believing oneself useful and needed. It doesn't say that lacking self-esteem makes someone unable to be useful or needed. A person could help others while failing to recognize their own value. D attributes a different claim to the argument and leaves the inference about motives unaddressed.
- ECorrect
This puts a sharper point on the problem than my initial search for other motives. The author says the behavior can be interpreted as self-interested, then concludes it really is self-interested. A possible interpretation isn't automatically the right interpretation.
We could tell a self-esteem story about a donation without establishing that the donor gave for that reason. Perhaps the donor simply wanted to help. The author needs evidence about the actual motivation, not merely a way to describe the behavior that fits the proposed theory. Otherwise the sweeping denial of genuine altruism isn't supported.
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