PrepTest 127, Section 2, Question 7
Dana intentionally watered the plant every other day.(23 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(20 more words not shown)
- AJack stole $10(21 more words not shown)
- BCeleste knows that(26 more words not shown)
- CThe restaurant owner(28 more words not shown)
- DThe heavy rain(28 more words not shown)
- EThe power plant(28 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Watering every other day could be appropriate for one plant and disastrous for another. Here we are told that the succulent needed dry soil and the frequent watering killed it. Accept that causal story.
What we shouldn't automatically accept is the intention attributed to Dana. She meant to water the plant, but perhaps she thought she was helping it. If she didn't realize the watering would kill it, the death could have been an accident even though the watering was deliberate.
What we’re looking for
We need the same flawed reasoning in another setting. Look for a person who deliberately performs an action, an effect caused by that action, and a conclusion that the person intended the effect. The action's being intentional doesn't by itself make every consequence intentional.
Working the answers
- A
The $10 Jack stole later produced $100 through a bet. The conclusion changes the amount stolen by counting the proceeds as if they had also been taken from Kelly. That's a mistake about which money was stolen, not about whether Jack intended a consequence of his action. There is no matching jump from a deliberate action to an intended side effect.
- B
The facts about Peru and South America fit together: coffee grown in Peru is grown in South America. The conclusion is that Celeste should know the broader geographical fact given the facts she knows. This doesn't attribute an intention to an unintended result.
- CCorrect
Removing the dish corresponds to watering the plant: it is the action the person deliberately chose. Jerry's disappointment corresponds to the plant's death: it is the result of that action. The conclusion then treats the result as something the person chose to bring about.
But the owner might have removed the dish without knowing it was Jerry's favorite, just as Dana might have watered the plant without knowing that would kill it. The consequence occurred; the person's intention to produce that consequence hasn't been established.
- D
Rain breaks the dam, and the broken dam causes flooding. The conclusion attributes the flooding to the rain through that causal chain. There is no person choosing an action and no claim about an intended consequence, so the original mistake is absent.
- E
This explicitly states that whatever raised the water temperature is responsible for the decrease in fish. The power plant raised the temperature, so the stated rule supports attributing responsibility to it. Responsibility under that rule is not a claim that the plant intended to reduce the fish population.
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