PrepTest 125, Section 4, Question 22
The short-term and long-term interests of a business(32 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(12 more words not shown)
- AA business's moral(11 more words not shown)
- BA business's long-term(9 more words not shown)
- CThe morally preferable(15 more words not shown)
- DThe morally preferable(15 more words not shown)
- EWhen a business's(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why should a business find its long-term interests compelling? That is the connection the author still needs to make.
I can see how short-term and long-term interests might clash. A business could make quick money in a way that damages its reputation. Or it could give up some immediate income to invest in work that pays off later. The passage tells us that, when the interests conflict, the morally preferable action usually serves the long-term interest. Let's accept that relationship.
But the conclusion adds something: businesses often have compelling reasons to take the morally preferable action. We know which interest that action usually serves. We haven't yet been told why serving that interest gives the business a compelling reason to act.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to supply an assumption that lets the conclusion follow. My prediction is a rule connecting long-term interests with compelling reasons. We don't need to make every business care about morality for its own sake. A business might have a strong practical reason to do something that is also morally preferable.
Working the answers
- A
This says moral interests don't always give a business compelling reasons. That doesn't supply the missing support. We need a reason the long-term interest can make the morally preferable action worth choosing, not a reminder that moral considerations sometimes fail to do so.
- BCorrect
Long-term interests often provide compelling reasons for action. Now the author can use the overlap described in the passage: the morally preferable act usually serves the long-term interest when short-term and long-term interests conflict, and serving that long-term interest can provide the compelling reason.
Keep the conclusion's modest wording in view. It says businesses often have compelling reasons, not that every morally preferable action always wins out over every competing consideration. B supplies the missing connection without requiring that stronger claim.
- C
This adds another claim about moral actions lining up with long-term interests. But we already had a relationship between those two things. We still need to know why a long-term interest provides a compelling reason. C never supplies that connection.
- D
Conflict with short-term interests doesn't establish a compelling reason to choose the morally preferable act. A business might care much more about immediate gains. We need support for the importance of the long-term interest, which D leaves unstated.
- E
Morality needn't be the overriding consideration. The argument could work because protecting the business's future gives it a compelling reason to take an action that also happens to be morally preferable. Saying morality alone rarely overrides everything doesn't supply the missing reason, and the conclusion doesn't require morality to do all the work.
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