Political scientist:  All governments worthy of respect allow their citizens to dissent from governmental policies. N...

Victoria June 20, 2019

Hi @izyat,

Let's start by going through the passage.

"All governments worthy of respect allow their citizens to dissent from government policies."
Government worthy of respect - > citizens allowed to dissent from policies
Citizens not allowed to dissent from policies - > government not worthy of respect

"No government worthy of respect leaves minorities unprotected."
Government worthy of respect - > protects minorities
Does not protect minorities - > government not worthy of respect

"Thus any government that protects minorities permits criticisms of its policies."

We know that governments that are worthy of respect protect minorities and allow their citizens to criticize its policies. This does not meant that any government that protects minorities also permits criticism of its policies. Just because governments that are worthy of respect do both of these things, does not mean that any government that does one of these things must also do the other.

The flaw here is that the political scientist assumes that because a government has two related characteristics (worthy of respect) that any government that has one of the characteristics must also have the other.


We can see that answer choice B also makes the same mistake.

"All jazz musicians are capable of improvising."
Jazz musician - > can improvise
Cannot improvise - > not jazz musician

"No jazz musician is incapable of reading music"
Jazz musician - > can read music
Cannot read music - > not jazz musician

"Therefore, all musicians who can read music can improvise."

We can see the same pattern of reasoning is mirrored in our S&N diagrams above. Again, the author assumes that because a musician has two related characteristics (jazz) that any musician that has one of these characteristics must also have the other.

Hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

mprezzy December 15, 2019

The reason I got this question wrong is because I diagrammed the second sentence in both the premise and the correct answer choice wrong:

"No government worthy of respect leaves minorities unprotected," and
"No jazz musicians is incapable of reading music."

I was using the "no" rule: pick a variable make it sufficient and negate the other part making it necessary. Can someone please explain why that rule is not applicable to this question?

Anna20 June 13, 2020

Can I please follow up on the question from @mprezzy above? Thanks!