Economist: Countries with an uneducated population are destined to be weak economically and politically, whereas tho...

Mehran on October 31, 2018

Hi @DanielDePasquale, thanks for your post. Yes, let's diagram the stimulus piece by piece.

Premise: Countries with an uneducated population ("CUP") are destined to be weak economically and politically ("WEP").
CUP - > WEP

Premise: Whereas those with an educated population ("CEP") have governments that display a serious financial commitment to public education ("CPE").
CEP - > CPE

So any nation with a government that has made such a commitment (i.e., to public education, so again: "CPE") will avoid economic and political weakness ("not WEP").
CPE - > not WEP

This is a flawed method of reasoning, because as you'll notice the necessary condition set out in the second premise becomes, without justification, the sufficient condition for the conclusion.

Answer choice (B) is flawed in the same way. Let's diagram that, too:

Premise: People incapable of empathy ("IE") are not good candidates for public office ("not GCPO").
IE - > not GCPO

Premise: Those who do have the capacity for empathy ("CE") are able to manipulate others easily ("AMO")
CE - > AMO

Hence, people who can manipulate others are good candidates for public office ("GCPO").
AMO - > GCPO

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

Julia! on August 1, 2020

Why would you not write the term of CEP, as not CUP? Similarly in answer choice B, why would you not write the term CE as not IE to keep the terms the same?

Ceci_Perez on May 6, 2021

^I had the same question!