PrepTest 123, Section 2, Question 12
Suppose I have promised to keep a confidence(42 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(11 more words not shown)
- AIt is claimed(62 more words not shown)
- BSome politicians could(43 more words not shown)
- CIf we put(63 more words not shown)
- DIf creditors have(70 more words not shown)
- EIf we extend(49 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Suppose I promise a friend that I won't tell anyone where he is. Then his mother calls and asks where he is. If I tell her the truth, I break the promise. If I keep the promise, I can't give her the truthful answer she asked for.
What if I simply refuse to answer? That can keep the secret, but it still doesn't let me answer every question truthfully. I've avoided one problem by declining to satisfy the other demand. I can't both give away this secret and keep it.
What we’re looking for
That's why the two obligations can't both apply without exception. The argument gives us a situation in which carrying out one would require violating the other. For the parallel question, I'd look for that collision: two unrestricted demands, a case where they conflict, and a conclusion that we can't insist on both. We don't need the same subject or a complicated diagram. We need the same reason those two claims cannot stand together.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
An unencumbered right to say whatever we want would let us say something even when it is uncivil. But the duty to be civil would require us not to say that thing. Both claims cannot apply without restriction.
Being civil plays the role of keeping the promise: it can prevent us from doing what the other claim permits or requires. Saying whatever we want plays the role of answering every question truthfully. Each argument finds a situation where the two demands collide, then rejects the idea that both can hold without exception.
- B
These politicians need to be popular. To become popular, they have to make extravagant promises, and doing that would deceive people. So the argument concludes that they must deceive.
That follows a chain of requirements toward an action. It never introduces a competing duty not to deceive and then concludes that two obligations cannot both apply. That's the conflict our original argument turns on.
- C
Either approach to the report risks criticism. Making it look polished could seem like covering up a weak proposal; leaving it unpolished could make us look uninterested in the client's business. The conclusion is that criticism is a risk whatever we do. We aren't being given two conflicting obligations and rejecting the claim that we must meet both.
- D
If the creditors had legitimate claims and the business had enough money, the rules would ultimately lead to court enforcement. But there was no enforcement. So at least one of those starting facts must be absent. This reasons from a result that didn't occur to something that couldn't have been true. It doesn't show two duties colliding.
- E
Longer hours would require either new employees or overtime. Either would raise labor costs, which the business cannot afford, so the argument rules out longer hours. That's a plan rejected because of a cost it would require. The original instead rejects two unrestricted obligations because satisfying one can violate the other.
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