PrepTest 137, Section 3, Question 14
Human beings can live happily only in a(44 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(5 more words not shown)
- Acan live happily(11 more words not shown)
- Bcannot achieve happiness(8 more words not shown)
- Ccannot satisfy economic(11 more words not shown)
- Dcan satisfy their(6 more words not shown)
- Ecannot really be(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Having your economic needs met doesn't necessarily make you happy.
That's where the two premises lead. The first says happiness requires a society in which love and friendship are the primary motives for action. We may question that claim in real life, but here we're using it as a premise. The merchant society then gives us a case where economic needs can be satisfied even though that required condition is absent.
What we’re looking for
Put a person in that situation: their economic needs are met, but their society lacks what the passage says happiness requires. So those needs can be met without happiness. That's the completion I'd predict. We don't need to turn ‘needs are met’ into ‘enormously wealthy,’ and we don't need to say money always prevents happiness.
Working the answers
- A
Love and friendship being primary doesn't exclude economic utility from being a secondary motive. A society could emphasize relationships while also caring about economic benefits. The passage excludes happiness when the required priority is absent, not whenever economic utility motivates anyone at all.
- B
This makes satisfying economic needs a prerequisite for happiness. The passage instead tells us economic needs can be satisfied without the condition happiness requires. It doesn't establish what role satisfied economic needs must play in achieving happiness, or that they must be satisfied first.
- C
Why couldn't family members or close friends help meet someone's economic needs? Nothing in the passage rules that out. Saying those needs can be met without love and friendship doesn't mean they cannot also be met through loving or friendly relationships.
- DCorrect
The merchant-society example shows economic needs being met without love and friendship as the primary motives. Since the first premise makes that social condition necessary for happiness, the example supplies a way to meet economic needs without obtaining happiness. That connects the two premises directly.
- E
This ties the satisfaction of economic needs to happiness as a requirement. But the passage deliberately separates them: needs can be satisfied in a society lacking the condition required for happiness. E would deny the possibility the merchant-society example establishes.
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