Commentator: The Duke of Acredia argued long ago that only virtuous Acredian rulers concerned with the well-being of ...

Mehran on July 20, 2018

Hi @Zahra, thanks for your post.

Let's first carefully examine and analyze the stimulus.

This stimulus presents an argument. The conclusion of that argument is: "Concern for the welfare of the people is necessary for the successful governance of Acredia."

You can diagram this as:
SGA ==> CWP
(If successful governance of Acredia, then concern for welfare of people necessary).

What premise is given in support of this conclusion? This sentence:
"When the Acredian governments have fallen, their falls have always been during the rule of one who viciously disregards the people's needs."

You could diagram this as:
not SGA ==> not CWP
(when not successful governance, no concern for welfare of people)

Do you see how this premise does not establish the conclusion? It's a negated version of the conclusion.

All right. Answer choice (D) says that the reasoning in the argument is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it "infers that a certain condition is required for success from the fact that the *lack* of that condition is associated with failure."

Yes. The premise states that *a lack of* concern for the peoples' welfare has been associated with fallen Acredian governments. But the conclusion says that concern for the well-being of the people is necessary for governance.

Answer choice (B) can be eliminated because of the words "led to failure." Remember: just because two things are correlated (associated with each other, occur simultaneously) does not mean that one of the two caused the second.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.