@Ceci We are told that, "some people take their moral cues from governmental codes of law."
This group of people believes that no legally permissible thing could be immoral.
We know that "no" introduces the sufficient condition and the negation of the other part of the statement is the necessary condition.
Now, let's diagram:
LP ==> M not M ==> not LP
Answer choice (A) states that the "law does not cover all circumstances in which one person morally wrongs another." However, the stimulus just told us that these people believe that if something is permitted by the government, then it is moral. Thus, if all the statements in the stimulus are taken to be true, then the people discussed in the stimulus believe that the law must cover all circumstances in which one person morally wrongs another.
So answer choice (A) directly conflicts with the beliefs described in the stimulus.
(B) states, "a legally impermissible action is never morally excusable."
not LP ==> not ME ME ==> LP
This does not contradict the belief in the stimulus. First, "never morally excusable" is not the same thing as "immoral."
Second, even if we assumed these were the same thing, (B) would be negating sufficient and negating necessary. If you are thinking of the rule that we don't just negate, that is when we are trying to determine what Must Be True.
Let's go back to our example from the Sufficient & Necessary lesson:
"All carrots are vegetables."
C ==> V not V ==> not C
While we cannot conclude with 100% certainty that something that is not a carrot is not a vegetable, it obviously could be true. What if that something was an iPad?
As for (D), we only know that, "some people take their moral cues from governmental codes of law." Nothing in the stimulus contradicts the statement that "the moral consensus of a society is expressed in its laws."
Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
Julie-VJune 21, 2019
I read the explanation for A three times but unfortunately it is still confusing. It never occurred to me to change the sentence "it is inconceivable that something that is legally permissible could be immoral" could be rearranged to created a N&S diagram. Is it just common sense to change it to N&S, or would it be easier as the reader to rephrase that sentence?
RaviJune 21, 2019
@Julie-V,
While it's not necessary to diagram that sentence, it can certainly help. We know it's diagrammable because it's saying that it's inconceivable that something that is legally permissible could be immoral. This means that there's no way if something is legally permissible, it's immoral. What does this entail? If something is legally permissible, it's moral.
LP - >M /M - >/LP
That's how we get the diagram.
(A) says, "law does not cover all circumstances in which one person morally wrongs another"
The law doesn't cover everything, so it is conceivable that an immoral action could be legal for the reason that there has not yet been a law created against it. This would contradict the contrapositive because it is saying that there exist times when something is immoral but is still legal (not illegal). Thus, (A) would ensure that those whose view is described in the stimulus would hold consistent beliefs if they also believed in (A), so (A) is the correct answer choice.
Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions!
Erika-GillyJune 30, 2023
Just to clarify with the first reply (because I am having a problem with B as well...) do sufficient and necessary rules not apply with cannot be true questions then? The reason I picked B was because we don't just negate.
Emil-KunkinJuly 6, 2023
Hi, while you're correct that b is just a negation, that doesn't mean that it had to be false. Rather, it means that we can't prove that it's true. The rules still apply, but they don't mean that an illegal reversal or negation is automatically impossible, just that it can't be proven correct.
