PrepTest 137, Section 2, Question 18

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  This concerns novels with a subversive outlook but without wholesale violence. The anarchist novels described have both features. A also says banning the novels it covers is impermissible. It gives no permission to ban the different group in the conclusion.

• B

  Watch what is supposed to do more good than harm: the ban. The argument instead says the novel would do more harm than good. Those aren't automatically the same assessment. A harmful book could still be costly or counterproductive to ban. We haven't established B's condition about the effects of banning it.

• C

  This gives requirements for a permissible ban. It says a ban is permissible only if the novel is subversive and harmful overall. Meeting those requirements doesn't establish permission; there could be additional restrictions on banning it. We need a rule saying the facts we have are enough, not merely that some of them would be required.

• D
  Correct

  The novels covered by the conclusion would cause more harm than good, and every anarchist novel has the two objectionable characteristics described. D says those conditions are enough to make banning the novel permissible. It supplies the moral rule the evidence was missing, regardless of whether we personally endorse that rule.

• E

  Again, ‘only if’ states a requirement rather than granting permission. A violent novel must have another objectionable characteristic before banning it can be permissible. Our anarchist novels do have another one—a subversive outlook—but passing that requirement doesn't establish that the ban is permissible. E could coexist with further conditions that these novels fail to meet.