Strengthen with Necessary Premise Questions - - Question 45
So-called environmentalists have argued that the proposed Golden Lake Development would interfere with bird-migration...
Mia-PartridgeJune 15, 2019
Clarify why answer choice B is incorrect
Hi, can you please explain why answer choice B is incorrect? I was deciding between A and B, but ultimately chose B because of its negation, which i thought would be that "people whose real agenda is to block development wherever it's proposed NEVER try to disguise their true motive". I thought this would completely undermine the argument-- that the environmentalists are actually motivated by being antidevelopment-- because that negation basically says such a case is impossible, because people with that motivation NEVER disguise that motive and that is the premise of the argument--that the environmentalists are antidevelopment, but disguising their motivation with environmentalism.
Reply
Create a free account to read and
take part in forum discussions.
Thanks for the question! The reason why answer choice (B) is incorrect is because the negation is actually different. The negation of "always try to disguise their true motive" would actually be "sometimes do not disguise their true motive." We're not looking for what is referred to as the "polar opposite," which would be "never" for "always." We're looking for something different called the logical opposite, which we can kind of think of as a statement that means what we're trying to negative is wrong. So for example, what is the logical negation of "The clock always ticks"? It's that there's a time that the clock isn't ticking, or "the clock sometimes doesn't tick," because this means that "The clock always ticks" is false. Similarly, the opposite of "All men are mortal" isn't "All men are not mortal," it's "Some men are not mortal." Hope this helps!
