PrepTest 143, Section 2, Question 17
Passage A Saint Augustine wrote that to proceed(489 more words not shown)
Passage A(250 more words not shown)
Passage B(247 more words not shown)
The passages are alike in(9 more words not shown)
- Aanticipating and refuting(7 more words not shown)
- Busing an analogy(5 more words not shown)
- Cfocusing on a(6 more words not shown)
- Dsuggesting that a(5 more words not shown)
- Eoffering and defending(8 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
What argumentative move do both authors make? Each considers a payback rule, then shows why following it too far creates a problem. A points to lowered standards and harmful effects. B shows how a supposed duty to reciprocate wrongdoing expands into a duty to reciprocate everything.
What we’re looking for
That consequence is part of the reason for limiting the rule. Look for a description broad enough to cover both forms of this reasoning.
Working the answers
- A
Neither is organized around identifying and refuting the most probable objections to a theory. B challenges an excessive conclusion drawn from a view, while A distinguishes the liar's forfeited claim from the justification for responding.
- B
A does use analogies, including Augustine's comparison of lying with robbery. B does not support its argument with a comparable analogy. A method used by just one author cannot answer this shared-method question.
- C
The harmless pathological liar is a specific case in A. B's reasoning stays general: it considers what a duty toward all rational people would entail, without developing a particular person's case.
- DCorrect
Both show troubling consequences of a view. Retaliatory lying can lower standards and damage trust; a duty to reciprocate wrongdoing would expand into a duty to return good, bad and indifferent acts alike. Those consequences support the authors' limits on payback.
- E
Neither offers a new definition of a familiar term. Distinguishing rights from duties or separating two moral questions is not the same as redefining a word. We would need an actual new definition, not merely discussion of these concepts.
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